{"id":1241,"date":"2006-09-25T21:04:00","date_gmt":"2006-09-25T21:04:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog2\/2006\/09\/the-unexpected-in-expecting-adam\/"},"modified":"2006-09-25T21:04:00","modified_gmt":"2006-09-25T21:04:00","slug":"the-unexpected-in-expecting-adam","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/2006\/09\/the-unexpected-in-expecting-adam\/","title":{"rendered":"The Unexpected in “Expecting Adam”"},"content":{"rendered":"

A husband and wife are discussing the alarming results of an AFP (Alfafetoprotein) test, given during pregnancy to screen for birth defects. They are also arguing about what they should do about it.<\/span><\/p>\n

“What we’ve talked about,” I told John in a low, dangerous voice, “is that I am pro-choice. That means I decide whether or not I’d abort a baby with a birth defect. You steer clear of this one, John-boy. It is not your call!”
John looked at me as though I’d slapped him. The anger in my voice shocked even me…
…I rubbed my eyes. I felt terribly confused. “But now…look, John, it’s not as though we’re deciding whether or not to have a baby. We’re deciding what kind <\/span>of a baby we’re willing to accept. If it’s perfect in every way, we keep it. If it doesn’t fit the right specifications, whoosh! Out it goes.”
John shook his head. “Don’t be silly, Marth,” he said. “You know that isn’t true. We’re talking about the difference between a healthy, normal baby and a defective one.”
The word defective<\/span> hit me like a hammer. I folded my arms across my growing abdomen as if I could shield the baby from it. I felt irrationally, almost violently protective.
“So what exactly is a ‘defective’ baby?” I demanded…
…I lowered my voice. “I mean, I know there are babies born so damaged they can’t survive on their own,” I said. “But what about the ones that would actually live unless they were aborted? Where do you draw the line? Is a baby with only one hand ‘defective’?”…”What about…oh, I don’t know, a hyperactive baby? Or an ugly one?”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Martha Beck, Expecting Adam, <\/span>Berkley Books, 1999<\/p>\n

Precisely. Or an autistic one. <\/p>\n

What is disability: the person’s problem, or our<\/span> problem?<\/p>\n

I am not arguing the pros and cons of Choice here. I am realizing that abortion is a good jumping-off point for understanding the way so many people mistake disability for tragedy. The way we automatically assume that the ‘dis’ in ‘disability’ means being at a ‘dis<\/span>advantage.’ Or someone to ‘dis<\/span>miss.’<\/p>\n

But they are only so because we continue to view them as such.<\/p>\n

If you haven’t already, read the book.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A husband and wife are discussing the alarming results of an AFP (Alfafetoprotein) test, given during pregnancy to screen for birth defects. They are also arguing about what they should do about it. “What we’ve talked about,” I told John in a low, dangerous voice, “is that I am pro-choice. That means I decide whether […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pSTth-k1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1241\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/susansenator.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}