THE EUGENICIST
A thesis submitted to Kent State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Fine Arts
by
Valerie Suffron
August, 2009 Thesis written by Valerie Suffron B.F.A., The University of Maine at Farmington, 2003 B.A., Walsh University, 2005 M.F.A., Kent State University, 2009
Approved by
______, Advisor Maggie Anderson
______, Chair, Department of English Ronald J. Corthell
______, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences Timothy Moerland
ii TABLE OF CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...... v
DEDICATION...... vi
I. The Author...... 1
The Birth of the Author...... 2
An Origin Story...... 3
Autobiography...... 4
TV...... 5
Diagnosis...... 6
Preliminary Evaluation...... 7
A Medical History...... 8
Directive from the Brief Pain Inventory...... 9
II. Modernity...... 10
Awoke Gray in a Whale Heart...... 11
A Conditional Toe...... 12
iii The Bone Artist...... 13
Mythology...... 14
The Wedding...... 16
A Christmas Poem...... 17
Modernity...... 18
Shoe...... 21
The Law of Diminishing Returns...... 23
III. The Show...... 24
Situation One: The Cardinal Directions...... 26
Situation Two: The Adjacent Rooms...... 28
Situation Three: The Pie-Baking Contest...... 29
Situation Four: The Division of Domestic Duties...... 31
IV. The Eugenicist...... 32
BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 60
iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Two of the poems in this manuscript, “Awoke Gray in a Whale Heart” and “The
Law of Diminishing Returns,” were previously published in the literary journal Caketrain,
Issue No. 5.
I want to thank all of those who allowed this manuscript to happen, but most especially my thesis advisor Maggie Anderson, who stuck with me when it got rough.
v For all those who matter; You know who you are.
vi I. The Author
1 2
The Birth of the Author
She climbed up out of the wine-dark seabed of uninucleate beings. She felt different. She thought, There needs to be a personal pronoun for this. She tested a few. Flub, flub, flub.
Kwa, Kwa. Doobeedoo. Chi-Chi. Vroom. Everything sounded like dance moves. AEIOU!, she sang. . . She picked one. I. It was tall and slim. Nothing like her blobby multicellular body. I, I, I, I. She liked it. It was something to grow into. Now what? I've gotta do something. I. I am? Too much like a tuber? But it had a certain Zen meditation quality to it, too. I am, she chanted. Well, what was she? There were really only two states of being:
Hungry, tired. But she had qualities. Roundish. Translucent. Kinda wiggly. I am et cetera, et cetera!, she cried. Her voice boinged through the air. Who cares? I'm talking to myself out here. But there was the stuff around her. The not-I. It would need naming, too. She thought, This is going to take forever. 3
An Origin Story
They were farmers, and the woman, with eyes the dark color of German bread, had long hair and fat haunches and small hands that she used to mold flour and water and fat into pie crusts. The man, tall, with a face the color of marbled beef, worked the ground with his hands, his arms like the boughs of oak trees. He grew the onions and the garlic that she baked with the wild rabbit in the pie crusts that she made. They worked without thought and loved without doubt, but confused nature with their religion. Simple, animal, they bred. Fourteen children, eight of them dead before ten. The man buried them in the woods, digging the graves with his hands, and the woman covered their graves with white pebbles she collected. The six who were left grew up and went out to find others like them, people with dark eyes and small hands, who reminded them of home. 4
Autobiography
1. As a child I was scared of people peeking in at me from windows while I slept. I was also scared of clowns, mirrors, knives, a house behind the playground where an old deaf man lived, that I would be possessed by demons, and that people were trying to poison me.
2. The first time I had sex I thought, What's stopping me from killing him? What's stopping me from killing myself? 3. We read James Redfield's New Age spiritualism and went to camp-out raves to learn about our souls. We tried to see the good energy that vibrated through everything. Coincidences were not coincidences. We ate at the Olive Garden and ran into his old piano teacher. We went ice skating and the snow made star shapes on our sleeves. We went to NASA. I got a telescope for Christmas. We found Arcturus. The stars said, See how it's all connected? 4. Once I ate the purple leaves of a Japanese maple. I did not sleep for several nights believing my death was immanent. 5. Then he started speaking
Japanese. See how it's all connected? I said, What's stopping me from killing him? What's stopping me from killing myself? What stopped me was the color of snow under the street lamps in the winter. 5
TV
I am going to be on a TV show in which I will play a character that is myself who is suffering from a disease that I suffer from in real life, but in the show I am just pretending to have it, like I am pretending to be a character that is actually me. When I am my character on TV you will be able to watch me do the same life-extending therapies that are the same life-extending therapies that I do in real life, but on TV they will be simulated and only made to look real. The producers have assured me that they have consulted experts in the field of my disease to be sure that they are giving the most accurate fictional portrayal of the true life of a person with the disease from which I actually suffer. So far the script is nearly identical to the life I am really living, the one in which I have the disease from which I am pretending to suffer. At the end of the series the director says my character is either going to die or have a miraculous recovery. He has decided to let the audience decide. 6
Diagnosis
Main Presenting Features:
Hunger for toxic metals and translucent streaks on the tongue. Fog. Glass melting under hand and sporadic dish collapses. The recurrent persuasion of windows and a temperature in the soles of the feet. The refraction of memory. A bituminous dust that disrupts water shine at night. If left untreated the patient's brain will harden into a smooth, dark stone through which no light is permitted.
Symptoms:
1. An inherited trait of “hand-rhyming,” or the weaving of light sensitive object into
versal shape.
2. Inordinate longing for ice, to be underneath water.
3. A developed taste sensitivity to electricity.
4. A refusal to be near any source of smoke.
5. Reluctance to step on sand.
6. An enhanced ability to create echoes.
7. The darkening of the shadow.
Associated Features:
Exposure to ovens, hearths, stoves, fire pits and other heating units designed for cooking.
Overuse of measuring devices.
The constant possibility of wet surfaces and/or the potential for precipitation. 7
Preliminary Evaluation
The patient has a cramp, is a cramp, is cramped inside an emergency. Waiting. A room. Her hair snares at the vernaculars of triage nurses and bootied doctors of slick-back, full-mask faces. Stats and buzzes, the crumpled bodies like wads of tissue beside her, are her. She is unbuckled, bent and circling the yeses and x-ing the boxes. Yes, the patient has a history of disease, light bulb bright, that cankerous sheen. What medications are you currently taking?
She blanks to grapple with infinity. The TV stares at her, but she's glutted with reruns already. 8
A Medical History
Do you have or have you ever had any of the conditions listed below? (Check 'yes' or 'no' for each item)
Yes No Full glass transfusion from windows that produced vernal shadows and/or internal light discrepancies Snow markings on the face and skin of the arms in a sleep landscape, such as Ohio or Indiana Iterations of fatigue and distress issuing from the small lobes of the music regions, suggesting recession of poetic utterance Breakfast sculpting, with paralyzing strands of scent Sudden flares in oceanic timbre associated with the breathing of fine glass The weakening of the fog A seizure of mauve, or any neurological disorder associated with the colors teal, coral, puce, chestnut, ocher, lavender, or green. A spreading of the hands in liquid Cavities of memory, or bituminous recall Sporadic movement away from weeping spaces Lachrymal discharge originating from the swallowing of metals Heat terrors Evacuations of heavy cloud material Lateral word dissociation of the jaw Night stories with concomitant lapses in sky movement Dispersal of wind spray over wood that causes remittent fevers of light
If yes, please explain: 9
Directive from the Brief Pain Inventory: Put An 'X' on the Area that Hurts the Most
An X to cancel it out. My Heart? Buzzer. In the Victorian era a Valentine, beaded purse, where souls drank tea. Not my heart, mechanic of pragmatism. When awake it is just fizz, a static, but when I sleep it comes to me as a bear or a blizzard or a gun. It eats poison. I won't cross it out, I will draw it a sweater. One that is itchy, but keeps warm. II. Modernity
10 11
Awoke Gray in a Whale Heart
You slimy filamental seaweed wonder, slippery, dew-fat pulsar:
In what have you caught yourself all of a sudden? A briny bird first, and then a socket-picked fish, and now mooned-over eyes to straddle the sodden last strand of a wind-empty wind?
Terrible to squish such a thing in your fist, and worse to wish that it weren't, but flip through the book of all things thrown back and isn't this just every one of them? Gray the fluff missed from pockets and gray the scruff long-gone-lost and gray the once-ever-happy that ends in the end like all ends end: In tears and in tails, and in the whale re-bellow of stop loving me to which the sea wept, but love me. 12
A Conditional Toe
A man would cut off the toe of a woman in her sleep and shave off the nail and then peel the skin with a little whittling knife and keep the bone in his pocket. Even when he would go to work he would take the bone along in his trousers to fondle its sharp tip or flex its small joint through the dolor of afternoon meetings. At home, he would put the toe in a glass of alcohol beside the bed while he slept to keep it clean and white. Sometimes when he was alone he would put it in his cheek and suck on it like a peppermint. He would not love the woman he took the toe from. He would rarely think of her, in fact, all the while he sucked her toe.
The woman would not miss her toe. She would wake one morning and it would be gone, and as she did not need it to walk, she wouldn't dwell on its absence. It would be something that was hers once, but wasn't now, and therefore it no longer mattered. 13
The Bone Artist
In the painting of the blue female and many jesuses there are forks that run the length of the woman's thighs. This was your gift to me: The conversion of pain to sex, like the conversion of matter to energy. In the hospital they sliced into my body, took pieces of it away from me to stain and examine under microscopes. The stains they used were invented by textile manufacturers who wanted cloth that was vermilion and cerulean blue. Here, it's called re-purposing: The many uses of vanity. When I woke from the procedure, they asked me if I knew my name and I said, “I want a chocolate donut.” Everyone laughed. I went home and stuck forks in my legs. The forks in the painting cannot be broken from their connotation: to eat. 14
Mythology
The one you are waiting for will come and when he finally comes it will be with promotional t-shirts and a five-piece band and he will have a brand-new tailored suit coat and the latest hands-free digital communications technology. He will come and he will bring a team of sous-chefs who have mastered the art of the French omelette and they will serve them to you with creme-fraiche and purple chives at your slippered feet. He will come and he will bring a cavalry of nurses who will intravenously inject vitamins and give your lips the sheen of opals. He will come and he will have several degrees in obscure fields of study and also certificates in important technical trades like circuitry and heating and ventilation. He will come and he will drive European made vehicles and hold your arm if you want him to and the door if you want him to and be polite to store clerks and bank tellers. He will come and he will hoist cats from trees, eradicate bug infestations, eliminate fire hazards and be more handsome than Omar Sharif. He will come and you will swoon and feel at one with nature and feel like going to church again or taking yoga. He will come and you will be compelled to explore your creative side and take up oil painting and start exercising. He will come and you will no longer stutter or wear dowdy nightgowns or eat cereal for supper. He will come and you will tune your guitar and play him folk songs on the giant bed that he will make for you from wood that he chops by hand from sustainable forests. He will come and you will not have o work your corporate job unless you want to or wear turtleneck sweaters or drink bad coffee from Styrofoam cups. He will come and there will be no Styrofoam cups. He will come and behind him will be a floating chorus of 15 babies all singing exactly the same song over and over, your favorite song, the one with your name in it. 16
The Wedding
On top of a cake there is a figure of a woman inside a figure of a woman inside a woman marrying herself. The figure of the woman inside of whom is the figure of a woman is an old woman in baggy pajamas. The figure inside the figure of the woman is a baby with no teeth. The woman who is marrying herself in whom both figures are nestled announces to her wedding guests, “This is the one I have always loved, will always love forever, the baggy pajama-ed old woman who is me inside of whom is the toothless baby who is also me.” The woman's husband is present at their wedding. He claps and weeps at her declaration, he falls to the floor and kisses her feet. He is so in love with the woman in love with herself. He hopes that they can all live together as woman and woman and man and that they can raise the toothless baby up as their very own. 17
A Christmas Poem
One day while you are shopping for a new suitcase you pass a window display. It is
Christmas time and the snow is falling in the unhurried way that snow falls in Christmas movies. Soon you will be going on a trip. In the window there is a miniature of a house you know, your aunt's house. In the house are thumb-sized dolls. Look: There's one of your aunt, your uncle and each of your cousins. They are about to eat from a tiny turkey made of felt that rests on a platter made of shiny silver foil. There is a Christmas tree in the corner surrounded by little square packages the size of Mexican chicles. Next to the house is a little airplane dangling from a wire thin and gossamer as a DNA strand. It is the plane you flew once, you think, remembering your dream. The aunt whose house is in miniature before you is also the aunt who gave you doll's clothes for Christmas. You didn't like them because they didn't shine like golden paper, but were plain, which is how you look now, reflected in the glass with your brown coat zippered to the chin. You remember that on your aunt's mantle there was a statue of a man in a yellow rain slicker with a white beard and a pipe in his mouth. In his hands he gripped a large wooden wheel as if on a ship. You remember how he gazed into the imaginary fog. Look, there he is now, on the tiny mantle in your tiny aunt's house, so small and forlorn. 18
Modernity
I.
In the end, her paperback conflicted with his pastiche. It was her choleric hair color: bullet train, gun muzzle; And his thick-ribbed sweater: Petit-fours? Non, madame, merci. They were reassembling their derivatives, busy, when the wind kicked in at the unseamed window. “I'm out of this sno-globe,” she said. He paused at the start of his sentence,
“Ultimately. . .” It was that they wanted different things: He, a telescope. She, accessories.
II.
Until then, she'd sneaked generic sleep-aids and fashion magazines, not above escapism, narcissism, or eschewing his parsimony. “I want my. . .,” she said. “Peanut Butter, please.”
He didn't even glance up from his autobiography. All night she'd practice the vocabulary of sycophancy, “Would you like?” and consider the planet's orbital fidelity. Tell me, what's the equivalent of mass times gravity? Above the bedroom something was the matter with the sky alright. it glittered with signifiers and she knew he felt above their meanings.
III.
In the sitcom of their life they have one problem per episode at the resolution of which they return to a base neutrality. In the commercial jet of their immediate problem, each of their other problems is a passenger, and the landing gear is malfunctioning. Seat 3A: “Why don't you just. . .” Seat 29D. They do a lot of traveling. Pilot: “We'll keep circling the city. . .” 19
Cue laugh track. Cue Awwwww.
IV.
The perfect coordinates were of a different family, but they'd preserved in gesture all the drollery of politesse: “How was your day today?” Anyway, there was little complaining.
Until: “Nature's a slate. I'm bored,” she said, at which he noted with his pen, A marked intolerance for unrendered subtleties. He began to speak in footnotes to expostulate his leitmotif. “One more tedious deconstruction of a repeated theme. . .,” she threatened. And then, “What's the point?”
V.
She considered standing in the rain all night: A death induced dramatically but with the additional benefit to linger with the attendant disease. Maybe she'd recover spontaneously, only to get worse again. She hoped. What could it be? Double-lung pneumonia? TB? Does one cause elicit many possible effects? Once a domino is struck it will fall without respect to her need for personal meaning. He wrote with his pen: Given the given, you are fixed to your station. . .
VI.
Why, she wonders, does moon sound so much like womb? Swoon like broom? Tomb like come? Without an obvious center, anything is anything. It's a problem of modernism: The heartless city. Metropolis is a metaphor for emptiness. Emptiness for disappointment. 20
Disappointment for God.
VII.
She created euphemisms for her diminishing morality: Turning a cheek, a leaf. She made euphemisms for her euphemisms until she couldn't locate their original meanings. By love I meant forget, by forget I meant fail, by fail I meant death, by death I meant nothing, by nothing I meant. . . She stacked it all together and shuffled: Vasectomies, kitchen knives, constitutionals by the sea. In a moment she could give up all that she desired. Neither life nor death. Neither A nor B.
VIII.
What was left? The infinite weekend. He wrote, In the absence of a static authority. . .
Either their words could not contain their meanings, or there were no meanings. She thought about the functions of her body. She was blank, yearn-heavy. A system of causality, she thought. Like the sea. 21
Shoe
“Honor,” you say.
“Law.”
“Abide,” you say, “abide.” and
“Nature's an ironic flaw.”
I fold my indignation like a towel.
“Ballerina,” you say,
“My jenny,”
“kickshaw. . .”
“Virtue is a virtue.”
A tautological saw.
Desire is a shoe
I've slipped out of, a shoe you pocketed on the stair
and now won't let me wear.
Woodcutter, how you've axed my brain.
Fed half of it to your Apollonian flame, 22 but lately I've been dreaming of a train, and my own linear equation:
away+away+away
equals the distance between the self and the greater self, the self greater
than or equal to my distance from you, or else the distance between the bird and glass,
which is equal to the bird who doesn't know she's trapped 'til she hits that glass
like a shoe she couldn't see to know it missing. 23
The Law of Diminishing Returns
She said I do, but first gold pancake stacks with white whipped cream and strawberry topping. He said, I do, but first the Cadillacs, a team of which to pull the wagons. She said,
I doubt you must wear my dress and in your hair these bachelor's buttons. He said, I do, but you must don my suit and shoes that click and recite poems. She said, Look we are armfuls of sunlight. He said, Look we are shimmer and dew. They kissed and vowed and turned up the TV too loud.
Far away and after, he heard the clank of fork tines on her teeth. Far away and after, she heard the squeak of wax inside his ears. Have you always had these teeth? He asks. Have you always had these ears? She'd say, What's unreal only rots away. The false is never true, he'd say.
And so the rot: It came and rotted. And then there was no longer shimmer, but at least the moon again filled them with wonder. III. The Show, Composed of Many Situations for Public Display
24 “There were lots of situations where men were being evil to women—dominating them and eating their food. We put these situations in the show.”
—Donald Barthelme, “The Flight of Pigeons from the Palace”
25 26
Situation One: The Cardinal Directions
At first there are four men standing equidistant from each other in a square. Two of the men represent the linear nature of time: Past and Future. In between them is a woman. She represents the Present. She looks like a red two-dimensional dot, as in a “You Are Here” sticker. She is a symbol, of course.
The man who is South is also the man who is Past and is dressed in green felt, with feathers made out of green felt, so that he looks like a parrot or tropical tree. He wears a tall black hat, carries a riding crop and holds in his hands a pair of reins made out of wrapping paper ribbon. These reins are wrapped around the woman. The South applies a gentle but consistent pressure on the leads, but not enough to nudge her from the center.
The man who is North is also the Future and is dressed in invisible clothes. There are rents, though, in his clothes and through each hole peers an eye of a different color. All of the eyes stare at the woman and do not blink. Some seem happy, some angry, and some shed tears which drip in long, iridescent purple streaks.
The man who represents East is old and portly and looks like Santa Claus. He will not acknowledge the woman in the center. His refusal is palpable.
The man who is West is a white screen onto which is projected a rotating slide show of all 27 the men the woman has ever slept with, old male professors she admired, her father, uncles, brothers, grandfathers, and other renowned figures of male authority such as past presidents, respected scientists and renowned authors. Each of the slides is accompanied by a sound clip of the man expressing disappointment. As the situation continues, the woman begins to bleed and as she bleeds she becomes transparent. She can now move freely and not be seen by the men. 28
Situation Two: The Adjacent Rooms
There are several men grouped together in a room. They are given supplies: A deck of playing cards, a bit of cold meat, water, an axe, and a vial of poison. In an adjacent room is a woman. She is also given supplies: A pen, some paper, a copy of the Declaration of
Independence, a small pot for cooking, a supply of dry beans, and a pillow. There is a door between the rooms that is locked from either side. Both parties must choose to unlock it to allow passage between the rooms. Immediately, the men unlock their side. The woman, who has no water, must decide when to unlock the door. She waits. The men eat their meat, then play cards, then pick up the axe. The woman does not unlock her door. The men use the axe to try to chop it down, but it is made of steel. The woman is very thirsty, but does not open the door. She continues to read and write from on top of her little pillow. The men, so frustrated, turn the axe on each other until only one man remains in the room. It is quiet.
The woman is unbearably thirsty. Finally, she unlocks the door. In enters the man with the axe. She asks him for the water, and he hands her the poison. 29
Situation Three: The Pie-Baking Contest
Three men are engaged in a pie-baking contest. A woman judges. The winner is picked based on how well he describes a pie that he has not yet baked, but will. The man in the yellow apron describes his pie: “It is a merry-go-round with festooned gazelles, peacocks, and snow leopards. The animals are real and very tame and speak all the Romance languages and eat out of the pillow of your soft little hand. They eat red licorice and peppermint sticks and will recite to you poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning and
Christina Rossetti while you sprawl languidly on their backs in your favorite emerald- speckled frocks and diamond crocheted slippers. At the center there is a calliope that plays
Debussy's La Mer until you fall into a precious sleep in the cup of a pearl-filled oyster that
I have fashioned for you out of Celtic sea foam. If you chose my pie, this is what you will eat.”
The man in the green apron describes his pie: “It is a pin-wheel made of Japanese rice paper and when the wind blows through it, glass bubbles rise from its folds. when the bubbles rise high enough to reach the sun they pop and send down onto you the luxurious scents that had been trapped inside them: The smell of the well at your grandmother's house, the smell of the rust on your old swing set, the smell of the pulp of Halloween pumpkins. When the scents land in your hair they become tiny horses that you keep in the pockets of your nightgown and when you go to sleep at night you can eat them and have vibrant dreams of jungles and waterfalls and frosted mountains. If you chose my pie, this is 30 what you will eat.”
The man in the blue apron says: “My pie is made of flour and water and salt and fruit. If you choose my pie, you will eat pie.”
The woman chooses the third pie, because it is the most like pie, and pie is what she wants.
The man brings the woman home and there is no pie. She asks him, “Where is my pie?” He says, “I thought you were going to make it.” 31
Situation Four: The Division of Domestic Duties
A woman is eating while a man watches and pretends to vacuum. The man brings the hose of the vacuum near to the plate from which the woman is eating her food. He begins to suck up the pieces of food before she can eat them. Each time one is gobbled up by the tube he says, “Whoops, were you going to eat that?” IV. The Eugenicist
32 Wehe dem Kind, das beim Kuß auf die Stirn salzig schmekt, es ist verhext und muss bald sterben.
Woe to that child which kissed on the forehead tastes salty. She is bewitched and will soon die.
—European Folklore
33 34
The Eugenicist
My mother and I used to eat half-frozen ice in the kitchen. We'd take blue trays of it from the freezer and slip our fingers underneath the cubes. They were kind of like eggs, with a yolk of water. She would sit on a bar stool and I would sit beneath her, on the floor. I was probably ten. We'd scoop the ice shells into our mouths and crack them with our tongues.
The water trapped inside would run into our throats.
Once while we were doing this she told me: If I'd have known, I wouldn't have had you.
She didn't look at me as she said it, as if I were a too bright source of light, as if I were the sun. It was something that she had kept hidden, had hid from.
I wonder now if this is why in bed at night when I can't sleep, can't ever sleep, I feel like I am in a car's passenger seat and someone else is driving me through the dark. I don't know where we are going, but my head is out the window looking at the only visible thing, the blackened outline of the trees. I wonder if this is why I want to look out the window, and not in the car, or toward the road, or at who is driving.
If I'd have known, I would have chosen. Like the difference between the forecast and the rain. But she didn't know, so everything else is to blame. Yes, the constellations. And we have lived like we were waiting for a magic trick: Pick a card, we'd say, any card, just don't let me see it. 35
“How could we reasonably be held responsible for something whose causes we couldn't control?”
In Alabama, infant screening for cystic fibrosis has recently been mandated, joining 39 other U.S. states. It means that parents must find out if their child's body is a time-bomb after it is born. It means parents must find out if they made their child a time-bomb.
Alternatively, couples may elect to have prenatal screening, which means that they can find out if their child will be a time-bomb and chose to dismantle it.
It is a dilemma,
from the Greek, δί- λημμα
meaning a problem with two possible solutions
neither of which is acceptable.
In formal logic, it doesn't matter if one chooses A or B, the outcome is still C.
In knowledge, we eliminate suffering.
. . .suffering is the consequence of deliberate choice. 36
There are people with degenerative diseases who are suing their doctors for a “wrongful life” which means they are suing their doctors for letting them live. They say because the doctor did not pre-screen for their condition, they must now live a life of suffering and medical expense. They, like me, want someone to blame. They look to their doctor and say,
It's your fault. I would have rather not been.
. . .the Helmsman lays it down as law that we must suffer, suffer into truth.
Who do I blame? If my mother had known, she would rather I not have been. After she told me she said, I'm sorry. I didn't know then who you'd turn out to be.
I'm 27. In 1981, when I was born, the life expectancy for a person with CF was 18. The doctor told my parents, Take her home and love her, because she won't live long. My parents tried to give me everything I wanted. I had hundreds of stuffed animals. We vacationed every summer at the beach.
The tragic way of playing the game of life is the finite way, seeking a prize or payoff that will bring status to the victor even if it does tend to end the game.
A girl with spina bifida in Texas. Her parents sued her doctor. The mother had to stand up in court and testify that her daughter should never have been born.
Does money make the suffering less? 37
Average Life Expectancy in Cystic Fibrosis; Data from the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation:
1940: less than 1 year 1950: 2 years 1960: 10 years 1970: 16 years 1980: 18 years 1990: 29 years 2000: 32 1/2 years 2004: 35 years 2006: 37 years
They keep pushing back the deadline. I keep trying to catch up.
Elpis, in Hesiod's Works and Days, is the last item in Pandora's jar.
Elpis, with cornucopias and flowers in her hair.
“It is impossible to determine the burden to one's self of one's own life and then try to compensate for. . .that so-called loss by virtue of one's existence. . .The obvious remedy would be to kill that person if they are such a burden to themselves.”
Why is light given to him who suffers, and life to the bitter of soul? 38
Does the fetus know the thoughts of the mother?
Do they travel through the umbilical cord and nourish the baby along with the blood and nutrients that are pushing it forward into independence? A mother's anxiety of influence.
Some mothers believe that if they pump Mozart through headphones into their pregnant bellies, their babies will be born geniuses. Or at least musically inclined. When I think,
I can hear my thought in every part of my body, in my throat, in my chest, in my abdomen. Are they my thoughts, or are they my mother's thoughts still resounding in me? My mother said,
Before you were born, I thought there was something wrong.
Could I have heard it? Was this thought a cast that would shape me, was it the reason that in my own head I always hear the metallic echo of, Am I wrong? Am I wrong? Is there something wrong with me?
Before I formed you in the womb I knew you. Before you were born, I set you apart. . . 39
Comedy illustrates that survival depends upon our ability to change ourselves rather than our environment, and upon our ability to accept limitations rather than curse fate for limiting us.
I take Diflucan to clear up the mold that grows in my lungs. This is funny to me, my lungs like a refrigerator drawer of bad fruit. Life will flourish anywhere it can. It can't help itself, so opportunistic. Last night, I dreamed the mold took over my whole body, a dense blue fuzz like a winter mitten creeping over me, like the slow crawl of plagues that take over populations. I keep expecting that one day my life will be interrupted halfway through its showing, burn up like a film reel when the projector overheats. To burn away to blackness, the illusion broken. Sometimes, late at night, I get up, and I hear a voice somewhere just to the left of me say, What if this is all a joke? A game? Could you believe it? Would you dare?
However the human mind imagine the world, that is how the world tends to become for humans.
When did my parents lose hope? When, as a teenager, I stopped taking my medicine?
When, at 20, I was so depressed I didn't eat? When, finally, I left them, fled, hid in the woods of Maine? When I stopped going to clinic, when I didn't keep appointments? Or before then, when I was diagnosed? Did they ever even have it? Is this the world that they imagined?
/and sings the tune without the words– /and never stops– at all–// 40
The house of disease has a long hallway called The Hallway of What's the Point of
Anything? You know you've slipped down this hallway if it's 4:30 on a Friday evening and you're in your pajamas wondering, Is dressing necessary? If I get dressed now where would
I go? Is there any place to go? There's no place to go, so what am I going to do, sit around my apartment fully dressed? If I don't get dressed now, if right now there is nowhere to go, why would I ever get dressed, when would there ever be somewhere to go? What could possibly be worth getting dressed for, now or ever again? It is a dangerous place, dark and easy to confuse your way in. It is a hallway where you are always alone, though in it you may think often of all the people you know, where they may be at that moment, what they could possibly be wearing and why.
When I was just a little girl I asked my mother, what will I be? Will I be pretty, will I be rich?. . .
In college, I starred in the play Send Me No Flowers. I became Doris Day. Just like Doris, I dressed myself in happiness, but my eyes were as flat as pot bottoms. I pretended not to see the edge I was stumbling not to fall off of. I convinced other people: I'm okay! Whatever will be, will be. Back to the old oxymorons: Cold heat. Darkness visible.
Here's what she said to me. 41
After the sweat test confirmed my diagnosis, my mom called her mom crying. Her dad answered the phone. He told her my grandmother wasn't available. She was at the salon, having her hair done. In the car on the way home from the hospital, a commercial for prom dresses came on the radio. My mom, again, started to cry.
Will we have rainbows, day after day?. . .
They'd told her: 18 years.
Never, never, never, never, never.
I never did go to my prom.
A picture taken after my first hospital stay shows me in a high chair with a paper party hat on my head. It's my first birthday. My party is Disney-themed. My cake and my hat have
Pluto on them. To me, Pluto was a funny yellow dog, but Pluto is also the Roman god of
Hades, the god of the dead, the wounded, the terminally ill. The hat doesn't cover the huge scab on the right side of my head where a nurse failed to properly insert an IV needle. Even now, my hair won't grow there. 42
Through a fever, I dream dreams with heat in them. Last night on a cart being pulled up the side of a mountain, I'm lying flat, sandwiched between two other men. I am a man. “Pardon my sweat, boys. It's so hot here,” I say to them. They grunt or groan. Where are we going, lying so close on this wooden pallet at night? It's so hot, I must sit up. I see there's a man on a box with a whip. He is the one in charge. He tells me with his eyes, We are going to hell.
Suddenly it all makes sense. I lie back down. When I roll over, I can see through the cart's wooden slats. The road is dark, but in the wan light I can see it's filled with the glistening eyes of rats.
“Using the Massachusetts newborn screening data, the researchers compared two four-year periods: 1999 to 2002, just before prenatal CF carrier screening came into wide practice, and 2003 to 2006. . .The number of live-born infants with CF dropped by about 50 percent from one four-year period to the next.” flaxgirl Posts: 6 Joined Forum: 5/16/2008
I am 17 weeks pregnant with my first child. We found out two days ago that our baby has
CF. My doctor told us we have a few weeks to decide whether to terminate. I feel like he is expecting us to. I also think my family thinks it's not a good idea to bring a child into the world who will suffer so much. This has been difficult for me and my husband. We are heartbroken at the thought of either outcome–terminating our child or bringing it into the world with a terminal disease. Can anyone give us some insight? 43
27 Things I Can No Longer Do As of My 27th Year:
1. Walk in the rain. 2. Go on long, spontaneous car trips. 3. Drink margaritas. 4. Not take a nap. 5. Not cough all day. 6. Take the stairs. 7. Go the long way. 8. Give long kisses. 9. Feel my toes. 10. Stay up late. 11. Hold down a job. 12. Sleep. 13. Dream about the future. 14. Plan for it. 15. Remember. 16. Think straight. 17. I could never scuba dive. 18. I could also never swim in a lake. 19. I couldn't smoke if I wanted to. 20. No incense burning. 21. No eating without insulin. 22. Run. 23. Play. 24. Have pets. 25. Sing. 26. Sing. 27. Sing.
“To realistically adjust one's expectations to one's new situation and what is possible for one is considered healthy coping or adjustment, permitting one to be satisfied and happy with more limited functional performance instead of unhappily focusing on one's loss.” emmasmom Posts: 120 Joined Forum: 02/20/2006
Please don't kill that baby. 44
“Our data cannot distinguish the reason for the reported decrease. . .Carrier couples may have chosen not to conceive or they may have resorted to donor egg or sperm or to pre- implantation genetic diagnosis, or they may have decided to terminate affected pregnancies.”
Jess Posts: 932 Joined Forum: 08/26/2005
I am 29 with CF. I don't know what your religious beliefs are, but I feel like I have CF for a reason. God does NOT make mistakes. This baby has a purpose in your life. . .
Keepfighting Posts: 29 Joined Forum: 04/03/2007
I recommend that you conduct a survey of people who actually have CF, not their parents or relatives, and ask them if they would rather have been aborted.
( )
(Why died I not from the womb?) 45
“Geneticists and ethicists all agree that what separates modern genetic theory from the bad old days of eugenics is that the individual retains the right to decide what to do.”
Sally06 Posts: 39 Joined Forum: 08/15/2008
Hello flaxgirl,
A few weeks ago I was in your shoes. I was told when I was 18 weeks pregnant that my baby was going to have CF. I cried for days. I wanted to believe that my baby would be okay and that he wouldn't be sick or in pain everyday. I was very close to keeping him, but one day I went on the internet and looked up Cystic Fibrosis and I couldn't bear to see all those young people who had passed away from this disease. I saw videos of children struggling to breath. When I saw that I decided to terminate my pregnancy because I couldn't bear the thought of seeing my child suffer.
And if the darkness just got darker? And then you were dead? What would you care? How would you even know the difference?
A human ovum is the size of a period (.)
How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?
An eighteen week old fetus is about eight inches:
______
It has eye lashes. 46
In 1919, Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood announced: “More children from the fit, less from the unfit–that is the chief issue of birth control."
“Despite the continuing controversy over abortion in general, abortion for disease and impairment were seen even by many who were troubled or ambivalent about abortion in general, as a responsible exercise of reproductive choice.”
“But I believe it remains true that for the entire class of people who suffer a serious disability it is, on balance, a burden.”
“. . .the presence or prospect of numerous citizens whose health is, or is likely to be, unusually compromised likewise seems obviously to limit a society from the collective realization of desirable social conditions and goals.”
In 1920, Margaret Sanger said: “The most merciful thing a family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”
“There are some interesting studies now that suggest if a woman doesn't undergo prenatal screening and has a child with a disorder that could have been diagnosed, the woman is blamed. . .”
“The lifetime cost of Down syndrome is about half a million dollars. The lifetime cost of spina bifida is about 250 thousand dollars. These are expensive disorders to take care of and they drain the family, so there's a considerable impact on society.”
“It is well known to stock breeders that the color of a herd of cattle can be modified by continuous destruction of worthless shades and of course this is true of other characters. Black sheep, for instance, have been practically obliterated by cutting out generation after generation of all animals that show this color phase.”
In 1923, Margaret Sanger said the purpose of Planned Parenthood was, “to give certain dysgenic groups in our population the choice between segregation or sterilization.”
Lebensunwertes leben
“Life unworthy of life”
“Fellow Citizen, that is your money, too.” 47
My father wrote me a letter. In it he says, If.
If you had been born into poverty, ignorance. . .
If we hadn't known what to do. . .
If we hadn't acted quickly enough. . .
If we hadn't cared. . .
If you had had the misfortune of being unloved. . .
. . .you would have been a statistic in a medical record.
Such would have been your fate.
My fate.
“Cystic fibrosis is one of the most common life-limiting genetic diseases in the United States.”
“CF leads to characteristic abnormalities in the lung, pancreas, gastrointestinal tract and sweat glands.”
“For most people, lung disease is the most serious problem.”
“People with CF typically have recurrent or persistent lung infections.”
“Over time, these infections lead to airway obstruction due to tissue scarring (fibrosis) and destruction.”
In the letter, I can hear an echo:
If we had known. . .
If we had had a choice. . . 48 eu-, from the Greek meaning good or well,
-genes, meaning born
I was born.
There seemed to be nothing wrong with me.
They took me home. But then,
I didn't put on weight.
Then, I got pneumonia.
Don't say it. Don't say, “cystic fibrosis.” Don't say, “meconium ileus.” Don't say,
“Staphylococcus aureus.” Don't say, “Pseudomonas.” Don't say, “cirrhosis of the liver” or
“pancreatitis” or “osteoporosis.” Don't say, “cystic fibrosis related diabetes.” Don't say,
“hemoptysis,” or “neuropathy,” or “pansinusitis.” Don't say, “B. cepacia.” Don't say,
“aspegillus,” or “MRSA.” Don't say, “disease,” don't say, “terminal,” don't say, “death.”
Don't say it, and maybe it isn't what it is. 49
Today I called my doctor because Friday night after my husband and I went to dinner and a movie and were settling into bed, my left lung began to bleed. It started like it always does, a slight flutter in the lung as if I'd inhaled a feather. Then the coughing began. The taste of pennies. The bright red. It's very dramatic. It is the scene in the movie when you know the protagonist has something terribly wrong with her. When you know that soon she is going to die. In spite of anything she might believe in. In spite of truth, beauty, freedom, or love.
Hell is empty and all the devils are here. . .
In my dreams my arms and legs are missing.
In my dreams my face has disappeared.
. . .myself am Hell
It's my own voice I hear. 50
Part One. Draw a line between the drug and the symptom that it treats.
Creon® 20 Bacterial Infection Ciprofloxacin Hyperglycemia Tobramycin Bilious Liver Lantus® Repeated Infections Ursidiol Inability to Digest Fat Azithromycin Mucus in the Lungs Pulmozyme® Constricted Airways Hypertonic Saline Fasting Hyperglycemia Prednisone Inflammation Albuterol Pseudomonas Humalog® Excessive Mucus
How do you make a choice?
Life————————————————————————————————Death
A Report by Ted Rowlands on CNN
Rowlands: Faith Mitchell has Down syndrome, and considering the statistics, she's lucky to be celebrating her fourth birthday.
The fact is that an overwhelming majority of parents who find out their baby will likely be born with Down syndrome choose to terminate the pregnancy. Many people, including faith's parents, believe doctors are partially to blame for the high rate of Down syndrome abortions which some studies put as high as 90 percent.
Lisa Mitchell: They give you a bleak picture. You go out there and you're scared, you don't know what to do. . .
Rowlands: The Mitchells say during those gut-wrenching minutes after the diagnosis they got the feeling that their doctors were pressuring them to abort Faith. The focus, they say, was on the medical difficulties many children with Down syndrome have, like heart trouble, and how hard they are to raise due to their learning disabilities. 51
Part two. Fill in the Blank: 52
The standard course of treatment for hemoptysis is a round of high-grade antibiotics.
αντί (anti), “against” + βιοτικός (biotikos), “life”
The side effects include permanent hearing loss, damage to the liver, damage to the kidneys, tendon ruptures, diarrhea, rashes, inflammation, difficulty breathing. . .
Do I have a choice?
I can choose to take orals, though they usually don't do the trick. I can choose to have a
PICC placed in my arm and take the drugs at home intravenously. I can choose to go to the hospital for two weeks and get an IV drip.
“against” + “life”
Then I can get hearing tests, liver function tests, kidney function tests to see how the drugs are affecting my organs.
According to my last hearing test, I've lost the ability to hear low tones.
When I watch TV now, I turn on the Closed Captioning 53
PICC: Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter
What is a PICC?
PICC stands for Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter. The catheter is a long, soft hollow tube that is placed in a vein that connects to the heart. The PICC can be placed in an arm, leg or scalp vein.
A specially trained doctor or nurse can place the PICC at the bedside. No anesthesia is needed. There is no pain as the catheter threads through the vein.
(There is pain.)
There are a number of benefits to having a PICC. PICCs reduce the number of needle sticks the patient may need. A PICC is more comfortable than an IV and is less irritating to the veins. It is more cost effective.
You will be asked to sign a consent form before the procedure is done.
The first time I had a PICC inserted the homecare nurse who came to my house to change the dressing said she had just come from the house of another 'cystic.' She said that he was a 'stage cystic' though, unlike me. I had never heard the term. I didn't know what she meant.
When I asked she said, It means end stage. It means he is dying, he is ready to die, he is going to be dead very soon.
I ask my doctor to prescribe me orals.
Free will. 54
WASHINGTON -- The U.S. “. . . a free society should no Food and Drug more require a woman to abort a Administration, citing fetus with a genetic disorder than numerous research regulation it should require her to carry it to violations, halted gene D term. But not every woman is therapy and other clinical prepared to raise a disabled trials at the University of child, nor is every woman Pennsylvania on Friday. prepared to terminate a pregnancy on account of the N child's foreseeable quality of The university, in Philadelphia, has been under life. Whatever the individual investigation since 18-year choice, however, the fact remains old Jesse Gelsinger died last that screening can only reduce September while participating the incidence of affliction, and R that is an unambiguous social in a gene therapy trial for a rare liver condition. good.”
The FDA's action is called a “clinical hold.” It means that no new subjects can be recruited, and patients who are already in the program must be taken off gene therapy.
The clinical trials have been suspended until Dr. James Wilson and the university's Institute for Human Gene Therapy correct the violations. Wilson will be able to challenge the findings.
Some of the diseases being studied in the other trials were cystic fibrosis, melanoma, breast cancer and muscular dystrophy.
Do I have a choice? 55
After I was diagnosed my father had a vasectomy. They made a choice.
If they had known. . .
If they had had me and they had known. . .
blame
Would I hate them?
resent
JennyS Posts: 54 Joined Forum: 12/16/2005
I am having a hard time not blaming my CF on my parents.
Theories of the prevalence of CF suggest that if you inherit one dominant and one recessive copy of the gene you may be resistant to cholera, typhoid, diarrhea, and tuberculosis.
. . . things might be neither good nor evil, neither cruel nor kind, but simply callous— indifferent to all suffering, lacking all purpose. 56
It was just an accident.
Two copies of a faulty gene, one from each parent.
A 25% chance.
C f
F FC Ff
c cC cf
Someone rolled the dice.
It was nothing personal.
She told me, if I had known, I wouldn't have had you.
It was nothing personal.
And if I had never existed, how could I care? 57
“Is there anything morally problematic about a public policy that seeks to prevent and ultimately eliminate serious genetically transmitted disabilities?”
My mom blames herself. My dad feels no guilt.
“In the days of preformationism, what we now recognize as genetic disease was variously interpreted; Sometimes as a manifestation of the wrath of God or the mischief of demons and devils; Sometimes as evidence of either an excess of or a deficit of the father's 'seed'; Sometimes as a result of 'wicked thoughts' on the part of the mother during pregnancy.”
I can hear an echo.
Am I wrong?
Am I wrong?
Is it my fault?
EGG———————————————————————————————SPERM
“. . .it would have been better if they had never been created or born.” 58
I think of the ones in hell,
of the fortune-tellers with their heads on backward, the suicides turned into trees,
the alchemists suffused with disease.
Of Cassius, Judas.
Is it I?
What if I had never been born? Would the universe bear a psychic rip? Would the people
I've known hear an echo where I should have been? Would they even known the difference?
Was it just an accident?
Thou hast said it.
What nature does blindly, slowly and ruthlessly,
man may do providentially, quickly and kindly. 59
Would I rather not have been?
I'm 27. According to yesterday's statistics I should have been dead ten years ago. According to today's statistics I have ten more years to live.
Does it make a difference?
In two weeks my mother will visit. It is June. Everywhere, gardens have been planned and planted. Meticulous rows of bluebells and irises are in bloom. There are no weeds. Nothing is dead or dying. We will walk through the rose garden in the park where the flowers have been bred for their beauty. Everything will look perfect. I will tell her what I am going to do. I will tell her, and she will change the subject, she will comment on the brightness of the day. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Note: All text in “The Eugenicist” that is in quotation marks or italicized is a quotation from the following sources. Referenced Material is also listed. The references are in the order that they appear.
Page 35:
Greenspan, P.S. Free Will and Genetic Determinism: Locating the Problem(s). University of Maryland. 9 Sept. 2007. http://www.philosophy.umd.edu/Faculty/PGreenspan/Res/gen2.html
“Alabama Begins Mandatory Screening Of Newborns for Cystic Fibrosis.” Medical Condition News. 14 May, 2008. http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/107350.php
Meeker, Joseph. The Comedy of Survival. Tuscon, U of Arizona P, 1997.
Page 36:
Aeschylus. “The Oresteia.” From The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Ed. Peter Simon. 7th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1999. 521-567.
Meeker, Joseph. The Comedy of Survival. Tuscon: U of Arizona P, 1997.
“Prenatal Genetic Testing: Do You Want to Know Your Baby's Future?” The DNA Files. John Hockenberry and Kathy McAnally. Sound/Vision Productions. Berkeley, CA, 1998.
Page 37:
Saxton, Martha. “Prenatal Genetic Testing: Do You Want to Know your Baby's Future?” Interview. The DNA Files. John Hockenberry and Kathy McAnally. Sound/Vision Productions. Berkeley, CA, 1998.
The New American Standard Bible. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1960.
60 61
Page 38:
NIV. International Bible Society, 1973.
Page 39:
Meeker, Joseph. The Comedy of Survival. Tuscon: U of Arizona P, 1997.
Dickinson, Emily. “'Hope' is the thing with feathers—” The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson. Ed. Thomas H. Johnson. Boston: Little, Brown, 1960.
Page 40:
Evans, Ray and Jay Livingston. “Que Sera Sera.” Recorded by Doris Day. Audio Recording. Columbia Records, 1956.
Milton, John. “Paradise Lost.” The Complete Poetry of John Milton. New York: Doubleday, 1963.
Page 41:
Evans, Ray and Jay Livingston. “Que Sera Sera.” Recorded by Doris Day. Audio Recording. Columbia Records, 1956.
Shakespeare, William. “King Lear.” The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1997.
Page 42:
“Decline in Cystic Fibrosis Since Introduction of Prenatal Carrier Screening.” Medical Condition News. 28 Feb. 2008. http://www.news-medical.net/?d=35700
Page 43:
Brock, Dan W. “Preventing Genetically Transmitted Disabilities.” Quality of Life and Human Difference. Eds. David Wasserman, Jerome Bickenbach and Robert Wachbroit. New York: Cambridge UP, 2005. 62
Page 44:
Parad, Richard.“Decline in Cystic Fibrosis Since the Introduction of Prenatal Carrier Screening.” Interview. Medical Condition News. 28 Feb., 2008. http://www.news-medical.net/?id=35700
The Bible.
Page 45:
Watson, James D. DNA. New York: Knopf, 2003.
Johnson, Daniel. Jesus' Son. New York: FS&G, 1992.
Page 46:
Sanger Margaret. “Why Not Birth Control Clinics in America?” The Birth Control Review. May, 1919: 10-12.
Bickenbach, Jerome, Robert Wachbroit and David Wasserman, eds. Quality of Life and Human Difference. New York: Cambridge UP, 2005.
Brock, Dan W. “Preventing Genetically Transmitted Disabilities.” Quality of Life and Human Difference. Eds. David Wasserman, Jerome Bickenbach and Robert Wachbroit. New York: Cambridge UP, 2005.
Silvers, Anita. “Predicting Genetic Disability.” Quality of Life and Human Difference. Eds. David Wasserman, Jerome Bickenbach and Robert Wachbroit. New York: Cambridge UP, 2005.
Sanger, Margaret. Woman and The New Race. New York: Bretano, 1920.
Andrews, Lori B. “Prenatal Genetic Testing: Do You Want to Know Your Baby's Future?” Interview. The DNA Files. John Hockenberry and Kathy McAnally. Sound/Vision Productions. Berkeley, CA, 1998.
Cunningham, George. “Prenatal Genetic Testing: Do You Want to Know Your Baby's Future?” Interview. The DNA Files. John Hockenberry and Kathy McAnally. Sound/Vision Productions. Berkeley, CA, 1998.
Watson, James D. DNA. New York: Knopf, 2003. 63
Sanger, Margaret. Birth Control Review. April, 1923.
Binding, Karl and Alfred Hoche. Die Freigabe der Vernichtung Lebensunwerten Lebens. University of Leipzig and University of Freiburg. 1920.
Text from Nazi Euthanasia Propaganda Poster. German Government, 1938. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:EnthanasiePropaganda.jpg
Page 47:
Goldsweig, Howard and Annie McKenna, eds. Beyond Lungs: Meeting the Needs of Adults with Cystic Fibrosis. Solvay Pharmaceuticals, 2006.
Page 49:
Shakespeare, William. “The Tempest.” The Norton Shakespeare. Ed. Stephan Greenblatt. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1997.
Milton, John. “Paradise Lost.” The Complete Poetry of John Milton. New York: Doubleday, 1963.
Page 50:
Rowlands, Ted. “Down Syndrome Decision.” Unofficial Transcript. CNN: 5 April 2008. http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/health/2008/04/05/rowlands.down.syndrome.cn n?iref=videosearch
Page 53:
“Peripherally Inserted Central Catheter: Comfort and Satisfaction.” Akron: Informational Pamphlet by Akron Children's Hospital, 2007.
Page 54:
“FDA Suspends Trials at Gene Therapy Lab.” CNN: 22 Jan. 2000. http://archives.cnn.com/2000/HEALTH?01/22/gene.therapy/
Watson, James D. DNA. New York: Knopf, 2003.
Page 55:
Dawkins, Richard. “God's Utility Function.” Scientific American. Nov. 1995. 80-85. 64
Page 57:
Brock, Dan W. “Preventing Genetically Transmitted Disabilities.” Quality of Life and Human Difference. Eds. David Wasserman, Jerome Bickenbach and Robert Wachbroit. New York: Cambridge UP, 2005.
Watson, James D. DNA. New York: Knopf, 2003.
Page 58:
Galton, Sir Francis. Essays in Eugenics. Eugenics Education Society, 1909.