We need to coin a term

[Guest guest]

We

need to coin a term

The discussion of more

and more attempts to identify and destroy babies with Down syndrome has

made me think that it's about time we coined a term to describe the kind of

fear and bigotry that leads people to think that being different ought to carry

a death sentence. This drive for prenatal " screening " to identify and

abort babies with dwarfism, Down syndrome, and anything else that makes the

Beautiful People uncomfortable needs to be clearly identified so it can be

fought.

Let's go to the Phobia List and see what

we find:

There is Anthropophobia- Fear of people or society. But these people

aren't afraid of people in general; just of people whose appearance or ways of

doing things make them uncomfortable.

There is Apotemnophobia- Fear of persons with amputations. But only some

of these prenatal conditions involve missing limbs.

Here we have a possibility: Atelophobia- Fear of imperfection. Granted,

these folks act out their own bigotry in terms of trying to eliminate others

that they view as " imperfect " , but might not there be an underlying

fear of their own imperfection that they're projecting onto kids who are

different?

Maybe there's an aspect of Cainophobia or Cainotophobia- Fear of

newness, novelty. (also Kainolophobia or Kainophobia- Fear of anything new,

novelty.) Is it possible that the fact that kids with certain prenatal

conditions make the bigoted people fear that new things will be visited upon

them?

Maybe this is closely related to Cenophobia or Centophobia- Fear

of new things or ideas. (or Metathesiophobia- Fear of changes.) How

horrible it might be for these people to entertain the idea that just because

other people are different doesn't mean they're wretched.

Dysmorphophobia- Fear of deformity. Perhaps this is a factor. Not all of

the congenital conditions that eugenecists want to weed out result in any part

of the body being deformed, so this may be a partial explanation but hardly

covers the fear of the various trisomies. I'd have to say the same for Teratophobia-

Fear of bearing a deformed child or fear of monsters or deformed people. Not

all congenital conditions cause any sort of visible deformity of bodily parts,

but there is just as much of an impetus to eliminate babies with those

conditions as there is to elimate those with more visible syndromes.

Maybe we're dealing with Optophobia- Fear of opening one's eyes. Not

literally, of course, but fear of opening one's eyes to the humanity of those

who are different.

There's definately an aspect of Panthophobia- Fear of suffering and

disease. The eugenecists percieve the child as suffering, and as being

afflicted with some disease, and thus fear the child.

Maybe we have a lot of different people with different fears all converging

against their common enemy: children whose existence makes them uncomfortable,

for whatever reason.

We need to stop acting as if what they propose -- identifying

" defective " children through prenatal testing so that they can be

weeded out in the womb -- is in any way a decent, humane thing to do. It's

acting on one's own fear, making somebody else die because of your own personal

issues.

It's mean. It's wrong. And we need to take a stand against it.

http://realchoice.blogspot.com/2008/06/we-need-to-coin-term.html