We are a group of graduate students from Parsons the New School for Design, who have created a platform/blog trying to better understand what interventions and strategies we might implement to support issues regarding genetic mutations. Discovering you are carrying a genetic mutation such as BRCA1 or BRCA2 might be a difficult and frightening experience, which might also raise further questions and concerns.
We have created this platform around three viewpoints: the future, the present and the past. Follow the instructions below and help our research by commenting/sharing your thoughts and experience. The exercise takes about 10-20 minutes.
I feel conflicted about conception and genetic screening. Of course I think it is worth being me so I find it hard to think of screening genes in a way that would have meant that I would not have been conceived. But I wonder whether years from now that will sound nostalgic and old-fashioned of me the way I once felt wary of the idea of "test-tube babies." But my sense of conflict comes from of course wishing for my children's sake that they don't have the gene, that they won't pass it on to others. So perhaps if I could get passed the ego-centric sense of my own worth as a mutant I could come to see how we might one day conceive of babies in such a techno-rational way. But still...it horrifies me!
I feel conflicted about conception and genetic screening. Of course I think it is worth being me so I find it hard to think of screening genes in a way that would have meant that I would not have been conceived. But I wonder whether years from now that will sound nostalgic and old-fashioned of me the way I once felt wary of the idea of "test-tube babies." But my sense of conflict comes from of course wishing for my children's sake that they don't have the gene, that they won't pass it on to others. So perhaps if I could get passed the ego-centric sense of my own worth as a mutant I could come to see how we might one day conceive of babies in such a techno-rational way. But still...it horrifies me!
ReplyDeleteI am past the years of conception so it really was a non-issue for me. But adoption is always an option in my opinion.
ReplyDelete