Madam, - "Mothers should make genetic choices" It is remarkable that just a few weeks before the opening of the Special Olympics in Ireland, the co-discoverer of DNA, James Watson, puts forward his liberal eugenicist views as "common sense": a "handicapped child is born because of an accidental genetic mistake... So I would just think common sense would say that she (the expectant mother) shouldn't have to bear this cross."
The equation of health (or lack of "genetic mistakes") with worthiness to live is clear. However, the lessons for our time to be learnt from the eugenic practices of Nazi Germany are not that selection is fine as long as it is not top-down and state-required but bottom-up, driven by parents demanding a perfect child.
The question raised by such binding expectations is, as Onora O'Neill has pointed out elsewhere, whether we are moving away from the previous unconditional acceptance of their child by parents to a qualified, hedged and revocable relationship. Watson's remark that "genetics is all about having healthier, better children" only serves to reinforce this concern.
The renowned philosopher, Jürgen Habermas, in his just published The Future of Human Nature asks what kind of moral theory is required to deal with the possible future power of germ-line intervention. For him, fundamental questions of symmetry and reciprocity between parents and children are at stake when unilateral genetic choice by parents is being recommended also for purposes of enhancement. In order to protect children's right to being the "authors" of their own lives he sees the need for developing a "species ethics". While the use of genetic information was rightly highlighted in Prof. O'Neill's response as one urgent ethical and legal issue, solutions to it will depend on how citizens engage with the much greater question of which values ought to guide us when confronted with this possible new world of designing humans.
Dr Watson is not doing genetics a favour by linking it with unabashed eugenic recommendations.
If the completion of the Human Genome Project has taught us anything, it is how questionable the term "normality" is and whether the only thing it denotes beyond statistical frequency are socially constructed norms.
Science itself should lead us to an ethics of accepting difference, diversity, and individuality which resists the reduction of human dignity to health. Besides being an inspiring example of achievement, determination against the odds, and joyful participation, perhaps the Special Olympics could remind Dr Watson and each of us of a genuine commitment to embrace pluralism. - Yours, etc.,
Prof. MAUREEN
JUNKER-KENNY,
Theological Studies,
Trinity College
Madam, - Dr James Watson's has strange and alarming ideas concerning handicapped children and "genetic choices" for women (he does not use the term "mothers") are nothing more than euphemisms for abortion.
He should be invited back to Dublin again this year - to attend the Special Olympics. There, perhaps, he can re-evaluate his opinions on what makes for "healthier, better children". - Yours, etc.,
Rev. JOHN MCCARTHY, St. Colman's College, Fermoy, Co Cork