Posted by seldomseen on October 1, 2009, at 9:40:06
In reply to Re: Regarding PBC on Sarah Palin » Dinah, posted by yxibow on September 30, 2009, at 5:22:36
As a scientist, I would like to carefully weigh in on this discussion.
From a completely scientific, rational, observeable frame, there is no way to accurately quantify suffering, or its close kin "quality of life".
Though there have been metrics proposed to measure quality of life, IMO they all suffer from considerable bias as there is no accepted external gold standard as to what a "good life" actually is. Therefore, the scientist is left, by necessity to insert his or her own reference frame, thus introducing bias. While some of these metrics have been validated (read published in the literature), such metrics often include a comparator - is your life better than before - and as such fail to provide an accurate independent descriptor of such measure.
While undoubtedly there exist such things that meet the "malum in se" defintion and are thus unethical and likely illegal, even those are created, maintained via consensus modelling and many are largely contextually based.
Therefore, I am left to contend that the decision to bear a child (interesting phrase don't you think?) with what some would consider to be deficiences can not, at present, be scientifically based at all. Rather this decision is made from a completely internal and subjective reference point.
poster:seldomseen
thread:918937
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20090930/msgs/919255.html