[Apologetics] The dream of the perfect child

[Stephen Korsman]

The dream of the perfect child 
Joan Rothschild 
Indiana University Press Bloomington, Indiana, USA. 2005.
343 pp. $24.95. ISBN: 0-253-21760-1 (paperback). 

Reviewed by Mary Devereaux 
University of California, San Diego, California.

Recent advances in genetics and prenatal testing create the hope of children born free of the accidents of genetic roulette and the vagaries of birth. It is this dream that Joan Rothschild explores in her rich, thought-provoking book The dream of the perfect child. While acknowledging the "remarkable achievements" of DNA analysis, ultrasound, preimplantation genetic diagnosis, and related procedures, her book advances a far-ranging critique of current prenatal testing and its effects. Rothschild's thesis is that contemporary reproductive medicine is heir to a discourse of human perfectibility that has transformed a natural parental desire for healthy children - a "desire we all share" - into the "cruel illusion" of the perfect child. It is this illusion that Rothschild hopes to dispel. Specifically, she targets the "dark underbelly" of perfection: the language of defects, abnormality, and risk that allegedly leads to a "hierarchy of birth." In her terms, criteria of selection imply criteria of rejection.

Rothschild holds that the use of such criteria has two negative consequences. First, in defining and labeling an ever-expanding list of "unacceptable" traits, prenatal testing leads to overuse of abortion. While formally pro-choice, Rothschild does little to hide her disapproval of those who would terminate pregnancies for minor defects or manageable conditions compatible with a good life. Second, the use of criteria of rejection inevitably results in a devaluation of the lives of the genetically "flawed" or physiologically atypical - lives deemed "not worth living." Rothschild finds evidence of this implicit devaluation not only among parents pursing the dream of perfect progeny but also among medical professionals whose language and practice reflect the norms of biological reductionism and bioethicists who largely accept the medical status quo.

More at the Journal of Clinical Investigation - http://www.jci.org/cgi/content/short/116/1/3

--
Stephen Korsman
skorsman at theotokos.co.za
www.theotokos.co.za

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