Image credit: Makoyana
I’ve been thinking recently about prenatal screenings, the tests that prospective parents can get to check some of the physical and sometimes mental conditions their offspring may have or definitely will have. There is an active debate going on about the role these screenings play in our society. With the understanding that this is an oversimplification, here are the sides of the argument as they have been presented to me:
For it, because more informed parents and doctors can make better decisions.
Against it, because it reinforces the normalization of neurotypicality and the stigmatization of differently-abled individuals.
As a queer mathematician who is neurodivergent, I can see the merit in both sides, and my conclusion as of yet has been that this is a marketing problem. My rationale follows from the following axioms: First, Murphy’s Law will hold for these screenings; Second, better-informed parents and doctors have the ability to make better decisions so long as they have the correct goals in mind; Third, harmful stigmas should be avoided and should not be perpetuated.
With those in mind let’s examine their consequences. To expand on the first axiom, all I mean to say is that we, as a society, cannot take a ludditic approach and try to make these tests go away. They are here and they will only expand in number. Such is the nature of innovation. Hence, the problem must be reframed because it is too lopsided for those against. The question we now should be asking is do we stigmatize the screenings to prevent the perpetuation of other stigmas or should we attempt a rebranding of the screenings themselves to change public opinion?
This now brings me to my conclusion: fighting stigma with stigma seems like a bad idea from the onset and using the second axiom, the benefits of screenings can outweigh the potential consequences. For instance, if there was a screening developed to detect transgender individuals, rather than aborting a child who doesn’t fit to what the parents think it “should be,” parents may ask doctors about early gender-affirming treatments. It is possible to see a future where the prevalence of gender dysphoria is decimated because trans people would have the possibility of never needing to worry about coming out to their parents, never needing to go out and seek doctors who won’t discriminate against them, never needing to deal with being treated as a curiosity in a circus.
So here is the problem: the current marketing behind these screenings essentially boils down to “make sure your baby is normal.” I propose we change that narrative to be “find out how to help your child be the best version of themself.” This also happens to be much healthier for parents as the current message breeds anxiety over the thought “what if my child is not normal?” (Spoiler alert: your child is not, and if you think they are, or you are for that matter, you’re fooling your self). Whereas the proposed narrative lends itself to an atmosphere of acceptance, one does not need to be surprised about the results of these tests if all they do is divert you from parenting errors. Many of the difficulties that people have being neurodivergent stems from not knowing that they need to approach things differently. I don’t read the same as someone who doesn’t have dyslexia but it doesn’t mean I can’t read. Had I known I had ADHD as a child, I would have had the chance to develop strategies for managing my life that would have prevented a lot of the hardship I had to face.
All this is not to say that we need to shelter people from hardship. Indeed, there are benefits to acute stress in measured doses. But some hardship is just not helpful to anyone… But still I digress (punctuate that last phrase however you see fit). What do you think dear reader?
IPRM 