New politics of abortion

http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/035/oped/New_politics_of_abortion+.shtml
New politics of abortion
By John Ellis, Globe Columnist, 02/04/99

One of the least attractive features of right-wing politics is its persistent demonization of homosexuals. Most gay men and women live dual lives; one within the mainstream culture and one apart from it. Belonging and not belonging is not easy. Making it harder is, at some level, morally reprehensible, especially so when right-wingers cast their aspersions in moral terms.

In July of 1993, Dean Hamer of the National Institute of Health published an influential paper announcing the discovery of the ''gay gene.'' By the year 2001, the mapping of the human genome will be complete, and work can begin to either confirm or disprove Hamer's discovery. Because of the enormous computing power of modern microprocessors, this inquiry may produce definitive results before the end of the next decade.

It seems likely, based on the data gathered so far, that homosexuality is indeed genetically determined. If it is, then questions of motive are irrelevant. As Tom Wolfe wrote in Forbes ASAP a few years back: ''if homosexuality is a genetically determined trait, like left-handedness or hazel eyes, then laws and sanctions against it are attempts to legislate against nature.''

Last week, Harvard University announced that it would invest $150 million to $200 million in the sciences that may provide us with definitive answers to these and other questions of human behavior. As the Globe's Adam Pertman reported, $70 million has already been allocated to the Center for Genomics and Proteomics (the study of genes and their proteins) and the Center for Imaging and Mesoscale Materials (nannotechnology). The remaining millions will be spent on neuroscientific research. The goal is to bring together academics and scholars from every discipline to reexamine human behavior in the light of genomics-based research.

Genomics is both exciting and terrifying. As Claire Fraser, a leading scientist in this field, told Juan Enriquez of Harvard's Center for Genomics Research, genomics represents a revolution in human understanding. ''In the next 10 years we will see some of the most extraordinary discoveries in the history of science.... We can either give evolution a shove in the right direction or in the wrong direction, depending on whether we know what we are doing.''

For example, it may soon be possible to predict accurately what kind of life a child might have based on his or her genetic code. A DNA sample can be acquired in the first moments of life This sample could then be immediately analyzed on a DNA chip. The results could inform the parents what ''traits'' are embedded in their child's genetic code. Decision trees regarding that child's development could then be built to help him or her live a happier, healthier life. That's a wonderful promise and an extraordinary opportunity.

But it is also terrifying, because the same DNA sample can be acquired from a fetus. Imagine for a moment that the parents learn that the fetus will grow up to be homosexual and that, for whatever reason, the parents decide that homsexuality is not what they want for their child. The decision to abort is available to them, and they make that choice. There is terror in that.

The antiabortion movement has long argued that abortion is murder by another name. This view has been derided by the mainstream culture as both ignorant and hysterical. Adopting marketing jargon, pro-abortion advocates have recast the decision to terminate pregnancies as an issue of ''choice.'' In this effort, they have been remarkably successful.

Richard Wirthlin, who did polling on this issue for the Mormon Church, found that the word ''choice'' (as in prochoice) defeated the word ''life'' (as in pro-life) in focus groups by a margin of 2 to 1.

What happens when the ''choice'' becomes an ''informed choice?'' Some parents already struggle with this issue after amniocentesis. They abort babies that they are reasonably certain will have Down syndrome. It is hard for any morally sentient person to be judgmental about that. What would you do, given the same set of circumstances? The truth is that even the most morally enlightened among us would think long and hard about aborting such a fetus.

Genomics takes this quandary further, into unexplored moral territory. It makes possible the abortion of homosexual fetuses. It makes possible the abortion of fetuses that show a genetic disposition to disease and disorder. Shortly after the moment of conception, an outline of that child's life can and will be known to all who care to know. And ''informed choices'' to abort fetuses could become routine.

It has been argued by some that the politics of abortion are moot because of pharmaceutical technology. The exact opposite is true. The science of genomics reraises the abortion issue in its starkest moral and political terms. How it is decided decides, in very real terms, who we will be.

John Ellis is a Globe columnist.