ShareThisI don't normally use this column for birth announcements, but indulge me just this once. The long-awaited second child of Virginia, our eldest daughter, has just made her entrance into this tired old world, making it seem fresh and new again. The baby girl weighed in at 7 pounds 7 ounces. Her parents named her to honor my wife, but spelled "Rebecca" as "Rebekah."
Through the long months of pregnancy, Virginia's doctors reassured her that little Rebekah would be healthy. But they could not predict that she would be a perfect baby. Perfection, however defined, is elusive within our species. Babies are not the products of precision manufacture. They inherit their parents' genetic strengths and weaknesses and can develop problems of their own.
In short, every baby enters the world a unique human being. Virginia's own sisters are identical twins. As expected, they look alike, but each possesses her own personality, abilities, hopes, dreams and health profile.
Although she suffered learning disabilities in childhood, Virginia overcame them and graduated from college on the dean's list. Still, she didn't learn to drive a car until after she was married. She readily admits that she was not a perfect baby. But when the time came, Virginia did not hesitate to bear a second child, even after her firstborn showed signs of mild autism. She and her husband accept that life is an adventure, and that we are all God's children.
As prenatal testing becomes more sophisticated, it can reveal imperfections in the fetus while still in the womb. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin knew beforehand that her son would be born with Down syndrome, and admits briefly considering terminating the pregnancy. Instead, she chose life over "perfection."
For $400 it is now possible to purchase a do-it-yourself kit that reveals and analyzes your own DNA. Simply spit into a test tube, mail it to a commercial lab for screening, and six to eight weeks later the prospective mother is informed of the genetic weaknesses that could possibly affect her child.
India Knight, writing in The Sunday Times of London, senses that "the day when women sit around at home screening themselves for every conceivable imperfection doesn't seem far off," adding that "I can't say I'm looking forward to it."
What alarms Knight "is the underlying suggestion of us living in a society ... in which we feel that producing a 'perfect' embryo is the only option and that painful and risky prenatal screening ... somehow becomes obligatory."
At the moment, the fashionable fear among prospective mothers is that their child will be autistic -- prone to inattention to detail, slower language development and impaired imagination and social skills. Simon Baron-Cohen, an expert on autism, cautions that many autistic adults possess immense talent. Isaac Newton was autistic; so were Andy Warhol and Albert Einstein.
To have denied them birth for fear of "imperfection" would have been throwing out the babies with the bath water.
(David Yount's latest book is "Celebrating the Single Life: Keys to Successful Living on Your Own" (Praeger). He answers readers at P.O. Box 2758, Woodbridge, VA 22195 and dyount31(at)verizon.net.)
AMAZING GRACE
