Erik Parens and Adrienne Asch '69 (eds.),
Prenatal Testing and Disability Rights,
Georgetown University Press, 2000
The
title of this wonderful book gives no indication of how broad an
audience will enjoy and profit from it. The title suggests that it is
either a "how-to" (or "whether-to") book for prospective parents or
an "applied philosophy" or political book discussing a specific issue
of rights. In fact, it is those things and much more. It is a
wonderful microcosm of many pressing personal and cultural issues of
the broadest interest, and it is completely accessible to people with
no special preparation in biology, politics, or philosophy.
The book is a collection of articles from a conference. It includes excellently written scholarly work from specialists at the leading edge of their field, but these are complemented by first-person accounts of decisions of whether to have prenatal testing done--some very moving--plus straightforward discussions of the history of such testing, the legal status of the issues, and policy proposals.
And what is the issue? At one level, it is simply what the title says, but the book narrows its focus in an extremely useful way, presenting the argument made by some disability advocates that prenatal testing for disabilities--with a view to the possibility of terminating a pregnancy if a disability is detected--is wrong. It is wrong, at least in part, because it may imply that life itself is not worthwhile for a disabled person, and this is an unacceptable insult to disabled people.
The immediate and personal signficance of this issue is pretty clear. A friend of mine with a child whose disability can easily be mistaken for a congenital one reports being asked on several occasions why the pregnancy was not terminated. And which of us does not know someone who has agonized over whether to have amniocentesis? But when we start considering the arguments about the issue, it broadens extremely quickly and interestingly.
One focus of the arguments--and a recurrent theme--is whether disability is a "social construction." Now, the issue of social construction is at the heart of virtually all topics in the humanities and social sciences these days. But the term "social construction" is often used quite cavalierly in ways that suggest that the phenomenon it describes could be usefully wiped off our cognitive maps if we merely decided to do so. The personal and urgent nature of the matter forces us to recognize that the blind and deaf remain significantly different from the seeing and hearing, regardless of how we "socially construct" them.
"Difference" also is at the heart of all discussions in the humanities and social sciences these days. Much of what we might once have thought was characterizable as "good" versus "bad" is now thought of as mere "difference" that has been "socially constructed" as good or bad. A similar argument is considered throughout this book regarding the disabled. Is blindness a neutral condition, merely different from sightedness except for the social construction of inferiority? Does that imply that curing blindness or causing blindness in a child are no worse or better than bringing it to be raised in a different culture? Unlike when the issue comes up in the political arena, glib language and mere political rhetoric will not do here. The issues must be confronted and the nuances respected. This book is an excellent start.
For instance, if contributors to the book do not object to terminating a pregnancy on grounds of general inconvenience to the mother, how can some of them oppose terminating a pregnancy on grounds of the particular inconvenience of having a disabled child? Co-editor, contributor, and summarizer Adrienne Asch's point is that the latter, but not the former, impugns the worth of the life of the living disabled. But is such a personal decision the sort of thing that this sort of offense to a third person should influence? If one person chooses not to marry another because of, say, a sexual disability such as impotence, we might want to criticize them, but would we do so on grounds of its effect on other sexually disabled people? And, on a different tack, would the argument imply that we should not terminate pregnancies that are the result of rape or incest because of the implications for living people conceived in that way?
Even these issues pale in significance in light of deeper issues that simmer in this book. We see here some of our most cherished values being taken to extremes that force us to reflect on them. Politically, we have taken it as unquestioned that when no one else's welfare is concerned, we should have the widest possible range of choices. But do we want to live with the consequences of such choices if it means a world with no disabled people in it? How about if parents overwhelmingly choose to have children of the same sex? Even more broadly, we have strived for centuries to increase our control over our lives, not just politically, but technologically. There was very little complaint when that control did not, despite our efforts, amount to very much. But it is amounting to more and more, and the question of whether we want so much choice and control cannot be put off much longer. I can frankly think of no better place to begin that consideration than with this book.
--Richard Schuldenfrei
Professor of Philosophy
Emilie Amt '82 (ed.), Medieval England 1000-1500: A Reader, Broadview Press, 2001. This collection of documents provides a broad overview of life in Medieval England, from local writings about the daily lives of common people to well-known political texts such as the Magna Carta.
David Bennahum '57 (ed.), Managed Care: Financial, Legal, and Ethical Issues, The Pilgrim Press, 1999. This book examines the issues facing managed care today by assembling the viewpoints of key decision makers in the Albuquerque, N.M, health care area, from the chief executive officer of a hospital system to the director of managed care, a home health care specialist, a lawyer, chaplains, and professors at a medical school.
Ninotchka Bennahum '86, Antonia Mercé: "La Argentina": Flamenco and the Spanish Avant Garde, Wesleyan University Press/University Press of New England, 2000. Of great value to music and dance historians, this evaluation of Antonia Mercé, the most celebrated Spanish dancer of the early 20th century whose stage name was "La Argentina," reveals her importance as an artistic symbol for contemporary Spain and its culture.
Peter Berkowitz '81 (ed.), Virtue and the Making of Modern Liberalism, Princeton University Press, 1999. This book offers an analysis of the debate over virtue within modern liberal theory and practice and an accounting of the role of virtue in the classical liberal tradition.
Paul Brodwin '81 (ed.), Biotechnology and Culture: Bodies, Anxieties, Ethics, Indiana University Press, 2001. In this book, experts from various disciplines examine the controversies arising from advances in biotechnology, blurring the dividing lines of genres and breaching disciplinary conventions as they variously analyze such issues as cloning, surrogacy, and organ transplantation.
T. Alan Broughton '62, The Origin of Green, Carnegie Mellon University Press, 2001. In this moving collection of poems including "Dawn Mosaic," "Praise," and "The Color Is Green," Broughton expresses his feelings and memories about family, relationships, nature, and writing.
Steven Epstein '74, Speaking of Slavery: Color, Ethnicity, & Human Bondage in Italy, Cornell University Press, 2001. In this work, Epstein shows that the ways Italians use words and think about race and labor are significantly influenced by medieval Italian language to sustain a system of slavery.
Michele Ruth Gamburd '87, The Kitchen Spoon's Handle: Transnationalism and Sri Lanka's Migrant Housemaids, Cornell University Press, 2000. Gamburd illustrates the effects of female migration from Sri Lanka through stories and memories of returned migrants and their families and interviews with government officials, recruiting agents, and moneylenders.
Richard Goodkin '75, Birth Marks: The Tragedy of Primogeniture in Pierre Corneille, Thomas Corneille, and Jean Racine, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000. This book re-examines French classical tragedy in terms of recent theories about the sibling bond, particularly with respect to birth order.
Joan (Friendly) Goodman '56 and Howard Lesnick, The Moral Stake in Education: Contested Premises and Practices, Longman, 2001. This text, designed for both professional reading and courses in the ethics and philosophy of education, offers both preservice and in-service teachers several philosophies on ways to teach morality.
Alan Gordon '81, Jester Leaps In: A Medieval Mystery, St. Martin's/Minotaur, 2001. Gordon, a lawyer working with the Legal Aid Society in New York City who has written a previous novel and several short stories, offers another mystery, including jester, jugglers, and knaves in the midst of political turmoil in 13th-century Europe.
Jim Huang '82 (ed.), 100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century, The Crum Creek Press, 2000. This list, selected by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association, features cherished books and reviews from booksellers across the United States and Canada, with additional personal recommendations and comments.
Joan (Moffitt) Larkin '60 (ed.), A Woman Like That: Lesbian and Bisexual Writers Tell Their Coming Out Stories, Avon Books, 1999. Extending from the 1940s to the present day, the stories in this anthology reveal the social mores related to the lesbian and bisexual experience in the United States during the past half-century.
Susan Signe Morrison '81, Women Pilgrims in Late Medieval England: Private Piety as Public Performance, Routledge, 2000. This book explores the phenomenon of women and pilgrimage in the late Middle Ages, examining the medieval perceptions of gender and space.
Stephen Nathanson '65, Should We Consent to Be Governed? A Short Introduction to Political Philosophy (2nd ed.), Wadsworth/Thomas Learning, 2001. In this introduction to political philosophy, Nathanson presents the central themes of political philosophy and the views of several significant thinkers.
Geoffrey Plank '80, An Unsettled Conquest: The British Campaign Against the Peoples of Acadia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001. Plank gives an in-depth account of the removal of the Acadians, the ancestors of the Lousiana Cajuns, and the subsequent oppression of the Mi'kmaq.
Nicole (Fischer) Hahn Rafter '62, Encyclopedia of Women and Crime, Oryx Press, 2000. Criminologist Rafter provides a resource that explores the role of women as offenders, victims, criminologists, lawyers, reformers, and workers in the criminal justice system.
Donald Kennedy and John Riggs '64 (eds.), U.S. Policy and the Global Environment: Memos to the President, The Aspen Institute, 2000. This set of policy memos was written by a group of science, business, and environment experts at the Aspen Institute as members of a hypothetical committee to advise the new president on global environmental policy.
Micheal Emery, Edwin Emery, and Nancy Roberts '76, The Press and America: An Interpretive History of the Mass Media (9th ed.), Allyn and Bacon, 2000. Roberts, a professor of journalism and mass communication at the University of Minnesota, updated this comprehensive history of journalism--fulfilling a promise to co-authors Edwin Emery, her doctoral advisor and colleague, and his son Michael, a professor of journalism at California State University, after their deaths.
Eric Schatzberg '79, Wings of Wood, Wings of Metal: Culture and Technical Choice in American Airplane Materials, 1914-1945, Princeton University Press, 1999. Schatzberg shows that culture and ideology help determine the most basic characteristics of modern industrial technologies as well as the influence of the military on 20th-century technology.
Hasia Diner, Jeffrey Shandler '78, and Beth Wenger (eds.), Remembering the Lower East Side: American Jewish Reflections, Indiana University Press, 2001. This collections of essays explores the dynamics of Lower East Side memory, examining the changing ways that the neighborhood has been embraced by American Jews over a century.
Barbara Calkins Swartout '53, Building Canandaigua: A Collection, Ontario County Historical Society, 1997. In this work, which began as an inventory of historic structures and neighborhoods, the author explores the history of Canandaigua, N.Y.
Nina de Angeli Walls '62, Art, Industry, and Women's Education in Philadelphia, Bergin & Garvey, 2001. This book, created because the traditions of Moore College of Art and Design intrigued the author, includes chapters on "Designing Women as Students," "Managing a Women's Art School," and "Moore College in the Twentieth Century."
Barbara Winne '41, Singular Shadow, self-published, 2000. In this collection of poems, Winne uses vivid imagery to reflect on memories and relationships from throughout her life.
David Linde '82, producer of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, wowed moviegoers across the nation this winter with the hit Chinese action-adventure blend of kung fu and romanticism. At press time, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon had received 10 Academy Award nominations.
Nancy Cole and Liza Xydis '86 completed the docu-comedy Small Metal Glasses, which aired on Through the Lens (WYBE Television, Jan. 23). The following description about the award-winning film was posted on the Web site http://www.docfestival.gr/2000/stories_uk.html: "In a series of interviews with various eyeglass-wearers as well as with two opticians who sell eyewear, the film comments on the issues of medical necessity, superficial accessory, [and] the judgements we make based on appearances."
Meghan Hayes '93, who suggested expanding this section to "Books & Arts" (see box on call for submissions), opened for Capitol Records recording artist Amy Correia at the Tin Angel in Philadelphia on Feb. 2. Hayes' CD, Snow on the Waves, released in September, explores her travels through the United States and the Czech Republic as well as themes of love and fear. After graduating, she supported her music by teaching in Brno, Czech Republic, and then working for consumer advocate Ralph Nader, who led Hayes to an accidental singing appearance on National Public Radio's E-Town. In addition to writing, singing, and playing acoustic guitar for the 12 tracks of folk, rock, alternative country, and melodic pop songs, Hayes produced the recording with David McKittrick.
Patrick Runkle '98 released his first CD, After the Fall, with the "80s-style synthpop" duo Ganymede. As reported in the Lancaster New Era, Ganymede evokes a spacey, other-worldly mood and is on the racks at independent music stores in California. Electroage describes it as "Addictive-like Elegant Machinery, cheerful-like Cosmicity, and pleasurable-like early Anything Box; Ganymede brilliantly plays in the old-school synthpop field without a sense of déjà-vu."
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Swarthmore College. Copyright 2001