1.
|
The 7,000 known genetic disorders, Richard Lynn contends, have a common element, "the distress and the costs they bring to those suffering from them and to their families and the costs of medical treatment, education, and welfare support they incur for society." He goes on to assert that, "the genes responsible for genetic diseases and disorders cause immense suffering, impose significant costs, and have no value. There is everything to be said for reducing the number of genes and ultimately eliminating them." Do you agree or disagree with Richard Lynn's statement?
|
2.
|
A Down's syndrome infant with an intestinal blockage is born at Johns Hopkins Hospital. The intestinal blockage could easily be repaired by routine surgery, and this would have been done if the infant had been normal. But in this case, the parents refuse to give their consent to the surgery because they did not want to rear a child with Down's syndrome. The hospital did not seek a court order to carry out the operation and the infant died. Who is more responsible for the death of the infant, the hospital or the parents?
|
3.
|
Dolores Becker she gave birth at the age of thirty-seven to a Down's syndrome daughter. She then sued her doctor. She argued that the doctor did not properly inform her of the risks involved in having a child at her age, nor was she offered amniocentesis, a prenatal test that can determine the potential presence of chromosomal genetic disorders. The Beckers also wanted to hold the doctor accountable for "wrongful causation of life". Another mother, Hetty Park, gave birth to a child with polycystic kidney disease who died after five weeks, and later gave birth to a second child with the same disease, who died at the age of two. The doctors are at fault and should be held accountable for the children's illness.
|
4.
|
To promote Eugenics, and to improve society, Richard Lynn proposes a parental licensing program. Simply stated, only those individuals deemed worthy of being apparent would be allowed to obtain a license and have a child. Lynn proposes that to regulate this, all 12-year-old girls would be required to have some form of long-lasting contraceptive device, like an IUD, implanted, and only removed when they qualify for a parental license. Likewise, all 12-year-old boys would be sterilized by vasectomy that could be reversed when they obtain a parental license. Do you agree or disagree with this proposed program?
|