Beeson & Singer/ prenatal diagnosis

Jim Farmelant farmelantj at juno.com
Tue Aug 7 17:39:01 PDT 2001


Well put Yoshie. Although I don't have all much sympathy for Jim Heartfield's general outlook but as I recall, quite some time ago, he noted that the logic of some of Marta's arguments would necessitate opposition to nearly all forms of human progress, since presumably progress, whether of a scientific, technological, medical, or a social kind will presumably result in reductions in the incidence of different varieties of disabilities. Some activists including possibly Marta have opposed Christopher Reeve's campaigining for medical research on spinal cord injuries. Now, I am sure that there is much to criticize in Reeve's approach, since it presupposes an almost purely biological-medical model of disability to the exclusion of the social model. But does that really constitute an argument against doing the sort of medical research that Reeve advocates or for denying the benefits of that research to those who would wish to partake of them?

And I remain puzzled how Marta can still regard herself to be pro-choice in regards to abortion, since she apparently thinks that many if not most abortions are done for trivial or otherwise morally and politically unacceptable reasons. And Nat Hentoff as I recall does call himself "pro-life" on the abortion issue.

Jim F.

On Tue, 7 Aug 2001 20:17:15 -0400 Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1 at osu.edu> writes:
> Marta says:
>
> >ravi narayan wrote:
> >
> >> > "I have always supported a womans right to choose, but that
> gets harder
> >> > and harder to do, the deeper one explores what is really
> happening. It
> >> > is in my own enlightened self interest to reject what can
> potentially
> >> > kill me."
> >> > --Marta Russell
> > > > http://nuance.dhs.org/lbo-talk/9811/1029.html
> > >
> > > i do not understand this. how is it meaningful to talk about
> self
> >> interest before there is a self? once i am born and my self
> exists
> >> it is clear to me that i am thankful for my existence. but if
> the
> >> fetus (that turned out to be me) was aborted, then there seems
> no
> >> meaning in talking about my happiness or regrets because there
> is
> >> no "me" and there never will be.
> >
> >Well yes in the individual sense. But I am disabled -- so if
> society
> >aborted disabled fetuses in toto as a class/group of fetuses, I
> would
> >have been wiped out as a matter of due course. Is that clearer?
>
> However, according to the social model of disability that you
> advocate, it is not biological qualities of fetuses but social
> relations that disable individuals (temporarily or permanently or
> progressively), so it follows that it is impossible to "wipe out"
> the
> disabled through selective abortion without also abolishing
> disabling
> social relations. Even the healthiest who can best approximate the
> ever-changing fantasy of "normality" cannot but become disabled if
> they live long enough, since our world doesn't make it easy for the
> elderly to thrive. Your fear that selective abortion may "wipe out"
>
> "disabled fetuses in toto as a class/group of fetuses" seems to
> return us -- against your professed intention -- to a biological
> model of disability, much as the fear of some gay men & lesbians
> that
> the discovery of "gay gene" may lead to selective abortion &
> genocide
> of "homosexual fetuses" betrays a biological model of sexuality,
> despite gains made by historical approaches to understanding
> sexuality.
>
> There is, however, a possibility that the incidence of some --
> though
> far from all -- categories of physical conditions may decrease
> through prenatal diagnosis & selective abortion. Must we fight
> against this possibility, motivated by your fear? If so, the same
> fear logically demands that we fight against medicine (curative as
> well as preventive), worker-safety regulations, consumer-safety
> regulations, better nutrition, democratic education, egalitarian
> socio-economic development, etc. also, since all of them are known
> to
> contribute to the decrease in many kinds & degrees of disability.
>
> Yoshie

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