LETTERS
Destroying the disabled
Sir: James Le Fanu's letter (5 May) sug- gesting that prenatal screening for disabil- ity and selective abortion is 'preferable' to embryo biopsy is offensive to people with disabilities.
The motive behind both practices is the same — to eliminate as many handicapped people as possible. Neither contributes anything to knowledge which would advert the occurrence of such conditions, but seeks only to get rid of the victims. If such a search-and-destroy policy were being pursued against any other minority group there would be a public outcry. As it is there is only a deafening silence on the ethics of 'preventing handicap' by killing those affected by it.
I am confined to a wheelchair due to spina bifida. Embryo biopsy, had it been available shortly after my conception, would have led to me being tipped down the laboratory sink, as a `faulty embryo', while prenatal diagnosis would have caused me to be aborted.
It is sickeningly common now for dis- abled people to be subjected to discussions in the media by self-styled, able-bodied `experts' about how best to destroy us. They like to talk about our `miserable lives' without ever stopping to consider that much of the misery is caused by their own failure to recognise our equal humanity. What price civil rights in a society which so clearly endorses fatal discrimination against those it views as unworthy of life? Alison Davis
35 Stileham Bank, Milborne St Andrew, Blandford Forum, Dorset
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