Do the Mentally Retarded Have a Right to Reproduce

Abstract

There is a mordant irony in the fact that the questions we most need to answer tend often to be the questions we are most reluctant to ask. This is especially true in those areas of human interaction and assessment where the issues are emotively charged and the arguments which express them made manifest primarily in visceral terms. The area comprising mental retardation and its array of social implications is particularly prone to rational abuse, as our understanding of mental retardation is overridden with misconception and myth. In consequence of society’s insistence upon ensuring that the mentally handicapped are sequestered in institutions, the misconception and myth are perpetuated and our attitudes towards the mentally handicapped shaped by ignorance and prejudice. Rhetoric replaces reason, and we find ourselves blinded in respect of the very issues concerning which only our clearest vision will suffice.