5.2. At Harvard

Fate lay heaviest on her after a mid-pregnancy test revealed her child's Down syndrome. At the Harvard bookstore she picked up a 1950s-vintage text about the mentally retarded. It had a section about Down syndrome children and "gave absolutely false information about the inability of such children to control their bodily functions, and their antisocial inclinations." Further, it listed their IQ as about 35, which it proceeded to compare with a chimpanzee (50) and an oak tree (3)! "It was impossible for me to keep from calculating that this meant my son's IQ would be about 130 points below the average of my oft-tested siblings, and only 32 points higher than the plants in Harvard Yard."

At the time, Beck could only believe all this. She didn't know, for example, that Adam's skills at socialization, like those of other Down syndrome children raised lovingly, would prove superior to most normal persons'. Amid her confusion and torment, she sat through a Sociology of Gender seminar where one class session was about "New Obstetrical Technologies." A young man leaned across the table and declared, "It is the duty of every woman to screen her pregnancies and eliminate fetuses that would be a detriment to society!"