Also, a short segue to Elliott's article- I feel an inherent dislike of his idea that "In this world, you consume in order to change the quality of your inner experience." Do we buy this? Does my new cardigan really change who I am as an individual? Perhaps it changes my perceived identity, but I contest that it changes who, in nature, I am. Also, I feel much of consumption is for aesthetic purposes, or to give another pleasure- can we call gifts purely altruistic? Are there always beneficial emotions for the buyer?
Sunday, February 6, 2011
God and New Cardigans
The discussion of new reproductive technologies in Rose's article makes me cringe. As a Catholic, albeit somewhat radical, I feel that if you have a baby, it is a gift. Oddly, the technology to overcome natural obstacles (age, infertility) to childbirth does not bother me- perhaps because of the "make many babies naturally" Catholic mantra, but in utero genetic testing does. In my mind, I feel opposition between my views that A) if God gives you to have a baby with a hereditary illness, be thankful and B) do whatever you can as a parent to ensure the highest quality of life for a beloved child. So, if given the choice, what am I and my atheist boyfriend to do?
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To address the "God" portion of your post I would like to bring up a point I found in Rose’s article that I thought was really very notable. He says most of the tests for hereditary illness do “not predict when the disease will develop, how rapidly it will progress, and with what level of severity –indeed some with such a diagnoses may live to old age or die from unrelated conditions.” You simply never can truly predict your child’s future, and when we screen for these diseases we could end up missing out on a wonderful child with heaps of potential. In my opinion there are some things we must simply leave in the hands of fate.
ReplyDeleteTo address the genetically altered babies aspect of the article, I think this kind of thing is absolutely surreal. I just watched Bladerunner over the weekend and put two and two together, the altering, modifying, or all purpose "sprucing up" of prospective human beings is a bad thing with consequences. This is born out of such decadence, such an amped-up 'pimp my ride' society that it's almost shameful. We've finally found a way to have a choice in everything, I don't know whether to rejoice in this scientific milestone or hide in fear for what's to come. Think of what really strong six-year olds would do to each other? Biggee size me.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your point AMardell! And in response to Steve- yikes! I shudder to imagine a future where all boys are huge and all girls are tiny...
ReplyDeleteThough don't we already see a trend toward this in society by having baseball and football players regularly pulled for steriod abuse and models who are going out on the runway days before dying from anorexia. The future is now.
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