The New York Times has another disturbing article on the topic of designer children. Instead of discarding embryos with genetic defects and implanting only “healthy” embryos, these parents are desiring disabled children.

Yet Susannah A. Baruch and colleagues at the Genetics and Public Policy Center at Johns Hopkins University recently surveyed 190 American P.G.D. clinics, and found that 3 percent reported having intentionally used P.G.D. “to select an embryo for the presence of a disability.”

In other words, some parents had the painful and expensive fertility procedure for the express purpose of having children with a defective gene. It turns out that some mothers and fathers don’t view certain genetic conditions as disabilities but as a way to enter into a rich, shared culture.

This is messed up. What kind of a social world do such people live in, where parents with disabled children are placed on such a high pedestal over parents with normal children, that new parents would seek handicapped kids?

Later in the article, a deaf mom wants a deaf child, and a dwarf mom wants dwarf children:

Barbara Spiegel, a homemaker in Maine who has dwarfism, had a first pregnancy that ended in miscarriage. She underwent genetic testing during her second pregnancy, and because of a laboratory mix-up involving petri dishes, was told that her child would grow to normal height. She would have loved the child, she said, but in an interview, she recalled thinking, “What is life going to be like for her, when her parents are different than she is?”

Life for her kid would have been like life for any other kid. No child is the same as his or her parents. All children have their quirks and issues which have to be dealt with by parents. So maybe a dwarf mom feels inadequate to raise a normal child. What normal parent feels adequate to raise a child? It’s hard enough living in this world without choosing your kids to have a tougher time than need be.