Rants: On The Contemporary Family and Political Use of Disabilities

Goodness gracious, this works even less well on men than on women. Really, it is one thing to adopt a child as a single parent, but another to use a surrogate to have a biological child while single. The Pop Luck Club? There is no luck involved here. And who is it lucky for? Not the child, that's for sure.

This is absolutely related to our contemporary understanding of sex as just for pleasure. Now children are just for our pleasure, too. When sex and children are separated, and when this separation goes to its logical conclusion, the result is extraordinarily disordered.

Also, I just received a phone call from Obama's campaign. The man from the campaign's voice sounded like he had a serious disability. This is unbelievable--disability as a marketing ploy. Okay, if you have a child with Down Syndrome, it is one thing to acknowledge this child as a part of your family. It is another thing to use diabled people to staff the phone bank in order to prevent people from hanging up and to create sympathy for your message.