In conversation with friends the other day, one of whose Children is about to have a child (grandparent), they were talking about genetic testing for unborn Children.
Obviously, this has become big business, same as 3D scans and gender testing children before they're born and all of that stuff, and it got me reflecting on why we might genetically test for Children like this in everyday circumstances.
The couple in question that we were talking to explained that one of the potential parents had a sibling who had had life-limiting bowel problems as they were growing up, and they were not sure they wanted to inflict that on a child.
And so, I wondered out loud if they had a positive result back on the genetic test if they would terminate the baby for that reason.
Now, I'm not here to talk about the ethics of Pro-life or not (I was brought up a Catholic in the Pro-life environment and have subsequently become an atheist, so hopefully, I can see both sides of that argument).
But what is the point of getting information if you're not prepared to act on it?
If you were to genetically test your unborn child and find that there was a 50% risk of a semi-serious genetic condition, would you terminate?
You'd want to be really clear on the answer to that before you did the test because having the information otherwise would just create all sorts of extraordinary anxiety, dissatisfaction and a complete lack of wonder in the process of raising a child to term and meeting your new baby.
It led me again to reflect on the fact that we're not very good at dealing with crises now because we spend our whole lives trying to insulate ourselves from any crisis that is coming.
By spending our lives trying to insulate ourselves from crises, we, in fact, make our lives more and more crisis-ridden as we anticipate other crises that could happen coming across the hill.
It strikes me that there have always been storms that blow down our house or parts of it, tiles off the roof, trees in the garden, fences, or whatever.
So, we accept the storm and then rebuild after the storm, and that is part of the cycle of life; embracing the unpredictability of life is in itself a real joy and part of life. I'm not exactly sure what I'm going to get today, so let's see what happens and how interesting it could be.
The alternative to this is to live your life by a schematic diagram which travels down a route and says, 'If this happens, go that way; if this happens, go this way', but that is a fool's game that is depression and despair and lack of creativity and unpredictability.
Please don't think that I'm using the genetic testing example as a way of decrying anyone who decides to genetically test their foetus, your baby, your choice, but I come back time and time again to the provenance of information to the provenance of source, to where our information comes from and therefore what we will do with it.
We seem to be able to gather the most unbelievable amount of information, but we seem worse and worse at applying insight to that information in order for us to live a life that's satisfying and fulfilled.
I think I'll settle for the fact that there will be a crisis that I have to deal with at any moment in the future, but it's probably best if I don't know what the crisis is now because if I try to anticipate it, I will anticipate an infinite number of crises and try to solve them all at once, when in fact I'll almost certainly have to solve almost none of them going forward.
Accept the fact that sometimes the wind blows and then stops, and then you have to see what you've got and work with that.
Blog Post Number - 3955
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