Ellen Painter Dollar’s Response: Embracing the Cure

Last updated on: February 15, 2010 at 1:51 pm by Amy Julia Becker

Ellen Painter Dollar’s Response: Embracing the Cure 2010-02-15T13:51:00-05:00 Amy Julia Becker

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Christianity Today has published a response to my recent article (“Considering Curing Down Syndrome with Caution“) by my friend Ellen Painter Dollar. An excerpt from Ellen’s response:

As someone who embraces the fallen-world narrative in explaining my own genetic disorder, I was caught up short by Becker’s dismissal of that narrative as explanation for illness and disability. When she used the term “broken,” of course, she was referring to spiritual brokenness. But as someone with osteogenesis imperfecta (OI), also known as brittle bone disease, I can’t help hearing it literally as well. I am more broken than other people. My body does not function as it should. Bones support our bodies’ most essential functions. The reason that babies with the most severe type of OI die soon after birth is that their rib cages cannot support respiration. Bones are designed to break only under extreme stress—a skiing accident, a fall from a tree, a car crash. When I was about four, I sat down on the bathroom floor to talk to my grandmother as she was brushing her hair, and my femur (thigh bone) broke. This is not how it is supposed to be. My body and my bones are deficient. And I wish they weren’t, even though I understand that my bones and my identity are so intertwined in ways good and bad that “me” without OI would be a very different “me.”

To read more, click here.

I am currently working on a response to Ellen’s article, although CT may well decide that enough is enough on this topic! Either way, you’ll get my thoughts here by tomorrow morning.

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