LETTERS: HUMAN VEGETABLES DESERVE TO LIVE

To the editor:

As I write this, many states are fighting to stop laws legalizing euthanasia, scientists are hoping to be able to clone humans sometime in the future and fetal research still goes on. People now can decide whether or not they want to give birth to a child that may be handicapped thanks to ultrasound and amniocentesis. Slowly we are moving toward a society of the perfect. The imperfect are referred to as vegetables, and we are told that they deserve a death with dignity.

Listen to what Sondra Diamond has to say on the subject:

"I'll wager my entire root system and as much fertilizer as it would take to fill Yale University that you have never received a letter from a vegetable before this one, but, much as I resent the term, I must confess that I fit the description of a vegetable.

"Due to severe brain damage incurred at birth, I am unable to dress myself, toilet myself or write. My secretary is typing this letter. Many thousands of collars had to be spent on my rehabilitation and education in order for me to reach my present professional status as a counseling psychologist. My parents were told, years ago, that there was little or no hope of achieving meaningful humanhood for their daughter, afflicted with cerebral palsy.

"Have I reached humanhood? I believe that I have surpassed it. Instead of changing the law to make it legal to weed out us vegetables, let us change the laws so that we may receive quality medical care, education and freedom to live as full, productive lives as our potential allows."

In an epilogue to her spirited objections, she told of being taken to the hospital with third-degree burns over 60 percent of her body when she was in her early 20s. "The doctors felt that there was no point in treating me, because I was disabled anyway. ... They wanted to let me die. My parents, after a great deal of arguing, convinced the doctors that I was a junior in college and had been living a normal life. However, they had to bring him pictures of me swimming and playing the piano."

It is interesting that Ms. Diamond, in her first letter to the world who never wrote to her, spoke about the law. That her interpretation and the interpretations of some of the propagandists of eugenic abortion of the defective and death with dignity for vegetables are diametrically opposed points out that the eugenicists and scientists have no use for Sondra Diamond and her kind.

CHRISTINE E. STEPHENS

Cape Girardeau