Genetics

Genetics has received a great deal of attention from disability studies, but largely confined to one issue: the practice of routinely aborting fetuses found to have a genetic or chromosomal “abnormality.” Opposition to this practice has been based on several related themes that are central to disability scholarship. First, an actual or potential person should not be judged by a single characteristic, however salient. Second, a person’s biological endowment does not determine how well (or not) his or her life will develop and what criteria are used to make such judgments. Third, social and physical environments play a pervasive role in determining how well a person’s life goes (Parens and Asch 2007; Asch and Barlevy, 2012).