a) Faced with a handicap, what
solution should we choose as the more humane: kill the infant
or help him to lead the best life possible taking into consideration his abilities? If
the mother or family do not feel they have the strength to
meet this situation, must society drive them into a corner with a
desperate solution by leaving them to carry the full weight all alone, or, on the
contrary, should it try to help them undertake it?
b) The really tragic thing is that, in certain milieux,
the infant is reduced to a consumer good: it is wanted
if it gives pleasure. It's like a video or a car: if it pleases it
is accepted; if not, it is aborted.
The infant affected by some malformation is nonetheless
a member, entirely on its own, of the human species; it deserves to live like all other
human beings. If we eliminate it because of its malformation, we will eliminate those who
do not have the hoped-for color of skin or sex. In short, it isn't the handicapped child
but the handicap that is not wanted.
c) Let us take the example of infants
with Down's syndrome. What gives us the right to decide that they will be unhappy? If we ask their parents, we find that the overwhelming
majority of them say that these children are happy: they ignore what causes problems for
"normal" people! Moreover, most of these parents are happy with their child,
which is almost always also taken care of by brothers and sisters. Children with Down's
syndrome have also been known to be the cause of reconciliation of couples whose
relationship was unstable.
Infants reduced to a vegetative life have been
known to totally transform the life of their parents who, welcoming them with all their
hearts, are now intent that no infant be rejected.
d) This question is also in line with the preceding one in the sense that one can wonder what makes an
existence worthy of man. Certainly, there are tragic cases and lives whose meaning, from a
human viewpoint, we have great difficulty in discerning. But isn't it very presumptuous to
say that just because we cannot see it, the meaning is nonexistent? Doesn't that manifest
an intellectual and moral decision whose conclusions cannot be rationally justified? And
then where do you draw the line beyond which existence is unworthy of man? A woman in
France agreed to an abortion because the infant she carried risked being sterile!
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