July 17, 2013 (UnmaskingChoice.ca) – Three young British fellows approached me on Monday in Dundas Square, with looks of disapproval cast at my “Choice” Chain sign.
“Is this some kind of religious thing?” they queried.
“Well, do you believe in human rights?” I asked. “This is about human rights.”
Yes indeed, we all agreed human rights were a good thing.
Then they began to dish out some deeper questions. “What if a fetus has a genetic defect and is doomed to a life of suffering and disease? You can't possibly demand that baby must live!”
A little taken aback at his apparently indisputable guarantee of a dismal life, I asked, “Well how about toddlers with serious genetic defects? Do they have human rights?”
Awkward shuffling and some muttering.
Rephrasing it to give a better idea of just who we were talking about, I asked, “That gentleman who just wheeled past us. Perhaps his condition is the result of a genetic defect. Does he have human rights?”
More muttering, before his friend broke in, “We’d better go before we offend somebody.” And they scurried off, leaving the question hanging.
They may return soon to their home country where progressive scientists hope to eliminate genetic disease or disability in an entirely new fashion. In a controversial decision last month, Great Britain’s Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority approved procedures that would create “three-parent embryos.” Using IVF techniques, the procedure substitutes the potentially defective mitochondria within a mother’s egg for that of an apparently healthy one from a donor egg. The new egg is fertilized with the father’s sperm, thereby creating an embryo with genetic information from two mothers and a father.
The Center for Bioethics and Culture points out that the “germ-line” changes will be passed on to the child’s own offspring. Supporters hail the technology as a “life-saving treatment” with the potential to prevent hereditary disease before life even begins. Yet this Lego-block approach to making babies has occasioned international concern, raising fears of designer babies and a slippery slide into eugenics.
BBC reports that Dr. David King of Human Genetics Alert decried the technique as unnecessary, unsafe and a disastrous step towards “a eugenic designer baby market.” The innovation highlights existing debates surrounding IVF, including the subjection of women to potentially dangerous egg-harvesting procedures.
Still, the move is less than surprising as the UK is among many nations that have been eliminating disability and genetic disease through the killing of pre-born children diagnosed as such (Last December, one rogue politician in the UK even suggested mandatory abortion for all fetuses diagnosed with serious disabilities). Consider the way those Brits at Dundas Square seem to question the very humanity of people (both born and pre-born) with severe disabilities or those that aren’t quite blemish-free. Or perhaps, I wonder, do they acknowledge their humanity yet doubt their claim to human rights?
As I passed through Hamilton’s infamous Barton Street this week, I wondered which of these hapless, not-quite-perfect souls might be next. Because when we overlook the intrinsic value of all people – and their inalienable claim to human rights – we pin their worth to usefulness, charisma and beauty. And we lose a bit of our own humanity with each downward step.