On the 7th August somebody I had never heard of died. Dr. Francis Oldham Kelsey was the pharmacologist whose courage and determination ensured the drug thalidomide never obtained approval in the US. Who knows how many American women endured the misery of chronic morning sickness, but were spared giving birth to deformed babies?
Everyone wants a ‘perfect’ baby and with modern scans most parents are reassured their babies have arms, legs and sound hearts. Imagine the shock to thalidomide mothers in Britain and other countries who gave birth, in the worse case scenarios, to babies with no limbs. Listening to BBC Radio Four it was heartbreaking to hear how it really was; some babies left to die, all parents left in a state of shock, with no understanding of why it had happened. There were tales of cafes and playgrounds emptying when parents appeared with a deformed child. The drug was withdrawn in 1961, but compensation had to be fought for.
Nature brings its own shocks, but we now have more understanding of handicaps and deformities. On any channel on any evening you will probably find a programme about a boy with giant hands or a girl with two heads… while in previous generations people who were very different were put out of sight in ‘homes’ or could only earn a living as circus freaks.
Abigail Loraine "Abby" Hensel and Brittany Lee Hensel (born March 7, 1990) are conjoined twins, each of whom has a separate head, but whose bodies are joined, giving the appearance of having just a single body, though each twin has a separate heart, stomach, spine, and spinal cord. Many of us have seen them on television. The parents could have hidden them away, to expose them risked making them a freak show, but at least people who have never met them can understand that they are still human, two individual humans. We presume their home town has grown up accepting them as normal. Of course, however many programmes we watch, however sympathetic we feel, it would still be a shock to suddenly meet someone with two heads. We would curl up with embarrassment at baby swimming class if a two headed infant appeared without warning and parents are inevitably wrapped in confusion when their children exclaim in loud voices ‘Why has that man got a strange face?’
Science seeks to help create healthy babies, perhaps perfect infants who would become perfect adults. The various breakthroughs cause regular surges of hope and controversy. Even if it could be done, who would decide on the definition of perfect?
In my novel ‘Brief Encounters of the Third Kind’ Susan Dexter gives birth to a baby who appears to be perfect, but why is the mother so terrified?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Brief-Encount...