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Ethics, Culture and Cost-Benefits Ideas |
"The preservation of defective children by ... costly surgical and medical measures some times are viewed with concern ... Sometimes it is said that too much is done for the crippled and the mentally retarded ... it seems doubtful that it is necessary in our times to sacrifice the weak for the strong ... to look at the management of the extremes as alternatives ... our society and our laws protect and guarantee human life, perfect or imperfect ...there have been other societies... [with] a charitable attitude toward the weak, the deformed and the mentally handicapped, irrational as it may seem to clever analysts, apparently has beneficial effect on the society that maintains it and fosters it ... abnormal children teach us a great deal ... and a great deal is learned through their treatment and training ... it is the price to be paid by those who have normal children, the price to be paid for overcoming the barbarisms and cruelty inherent in societies that eliminate the weak and dispose of the deformed."
| (From the Introduction to "Present Trends in Teratology" in "Congenital Malformations" by J. Warkany, Year Book Publ., 1971, page 28). |
