There is a new blood test out there that can tell a woman who just found out she is pregnant whether or not the baby has Down’s Syndrome and lickity split the abortion can be scheduled.
We would imagine that the test or one like will be expanded to detect other deformities, abnormalities in the near future on our way to building a healthier society.
When we were much younger we supported abortion.
If asked we would parrot the line that a woman has a right to do what she would to her own body. But to be honest that wasn’t the real reason or at least not the whole reason.
Being young and male legalized abortion was a get out of jail free card for us. In our father’s day an unwanted pregnancy was just the first chapter in a long boring story of a ruined life, a loveless marriage and potential never realized. In fact that story with minor variations was published again and again and again and even made into movies.
We would like to say that our views on abortion began to change when we began having children ourselves but we would not be telling the whole truth.
Our epiphany came when Japan changed its abortion law embracing a woman’s right to choose back in the late 1980’s. Until then abortions were permitted only for women carrying children that had genetic abnormalities such as cleft palates, club feet, Down’s syndrome, dwarfism and color blindness.
And we suddenly realized, being color blind ourselves, we were on the wrong side on the slippery slope.
Apart from never seeing that alleged number in the circle of colored dots, we don’t feel we are seriously handicapped. Okay we can’t match clothes, have to be careful about traffic lights and sometimes try to get into the wrong car but is that really grounds for an abortion?
Being the product of some rather intensive inbreeding back in the old country we have also have a tendency toward a host of other genetically linked abnormalities that make color blindness look like the common cold to their pneumonia.
Oops, perhaps we said too much.
Despite our moderately long list of genetic defects we have lead a productive life, but as we went down the list of our accomplishments we grew resentful. Why should we have to defend our life?
We really don’t. Being born a half century ago may make us old, but incredibly lucky, abortion was illegal and genetic testing was in its infancy.
Future generations perhaps non-generations of unborn children may not be so lucky. The whole question of genetic screening is where in the heck do we draw the line or do we draw a line at all?
We pose another, in a future quest for the perfect child will the wholesale discarding of those less than perfect have an unintended consequence on society as whole?
Once when our now 19 year old son was six he asked us how to spell a whole gamut of colors while we were watching the news. We absentmindedly did so until he got to magenta.
‘What are you doing?’ We asked as we looked toward him.
There on the floor was his entire collection of toy cars, each one with a little slip of paper with a color written on it.
“That’s for you Daddy so you don’t feel bad when you pick the wrong one when we play.” He explained.
In a future when we can cull the imperfect, will compassion become an endangered species?