February 2008

***An update already! Scroll down***

I don’t know about you, but I’m so tired of reading stories of college students complaining about “racist” professors. It was refreshing to read one with a different spin, although a sad one.

Earlier this month, University of North Carolina biology professor Albert Harris said unborn babies with Down syndrome should be aborted. Thank goodness someone in the class complained. Unfortunately, she didn’t complain in class and to his face, which is what I’d have done if I’d been pro-life in college. Sadly, I wasn’t. An excerpt from the News & Observer (emphases added):

“In my opinion,” Harris wrote in his lecture notes, “the moral thing for older mothers to do is to have amniocentesis, as soon during pregnancy as is safe for the fetus, test whether placental cells have a third chromosome #21, and abort the fetus if it does. The brain is the last organ to become functional.”

Harris, who made the comments on Monday, said he has said the same thing many times before. But Lara Frame, a senior in Harris’ Biology 441, said the biology classroom is no place for opinion.

“Biology is not an opinion subject,” said Frame, an anthropology and Spanish major from Charlotte. “It’s a facts-based subject. And though abortion is legal, it’s not a fact that you should abort every baby with Down syndrome.

“If this had been a philosophy class, I wouldn’t have said anything.”

Frame’s brother, John, 18, has Down syndrome, and Frame said she became “physically ill” at Harris’ remarks. She didn’t say anything during Monday’s class. She was too angry, she said.

Don’t get it twisted. The “moral thing” Harris refers to isn’t having amniocentesis; it’s killing an unborn baby with Down syndrome.

In what universe is it a “moral thing for older mothers” to kill their unborn babies with Down syndrome? A moral thing. Moral? Killing an unborn baby with chromosome abnormalities, a human being who can survive and flourish outside the womb if allowed to develop inside it, is the right thing? Slaughtering a child who’ll be less than perfect or who may not live up to his parents’ expectations is moral?

I’m not surprised Harris said what he said. I’m fairly certain many college professors feel the same way. What surprises me is that a student made some noise about it. To “encourage” professors to keep these sort of irrelevant opinions to themselves and just teach the darn class (free speech, my eye), we’ll need bold students, not just students with strong opinions, to speak up and often.

Update: Blogger Julie let me know about a petition “urging doctors to give more factual and accurate (and POSITIVE) information to mothers who have been told their child might have Down syndrome.” For more information, see Mommy Life.

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