PHI332 : The Class : Argument ID : Sentences : Excercise 2.1.2

Excercise 2.1.2

Suppose now that a different woman in her fifth month of pregnancy receives the results of an amniocentesis and learns that she is carrying a girl and not the son she wanted. Or suppose she finds that the fetus is the "right sex" but is diagnosed as having Down's syndrome, spina bifida, cystic fibrosis, or muscular dystrophy. She had every reason to believe she was carrying a healthy child. She cannot imagine being the mother of a child with a disability. . . .

By contrast with the improvements of the past 15 years in education and employment for disabled people, prenatal diagnosis and selective abortion communicate that disability is so terrible it warrants not being alive. How terrible that is! As prenatal diagnosis becomes more widespread, as the number of conditions that can be screened for increases, women will be forced to decide whether or not they want to carry their pregnancies to term knowing that their children are predisposed to cancer, heart disease, diabetes, or depression. As a society, do we wish to send the message to all such people now living that there should be "no more of your kind" in the future? If we use the technological solution of prenatal diagnosis to eliminate such people, what will become of our attitudes and practices toward any of those odd people who were missed by the technology and happened to be born?

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If you are not confident of your ability to identify these types of statements, do exercise 2.1.3. If you are confident, go on to 2.2 or go back to Topic 1: Sentences

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