Writing in the [UK] Telegraph, Max Pemberton reflects on the case of a baby born in rural India with cranio-facial duplication. In other words, she has two faces. Many in her remote area have hailed baby Lali as a god, and say her presence will bring great benefits to her family.

It would be easy to romanticize a rural Indian community, and I’m in no doubt that our standard of living is, in many ways, far superior. But what is interesting is that one community’s response to something so out of the ordinary can be in such sharp contrast to another’s.

Here, we shy away from difference; viewing it with fear and suspicion — a freakish failure in our increasingly homogenized world. We expect our babies to be perfect in every way, and you can just imagine the horror and trauma that giving birth to such a child here would bring.

Biomedicine gives us a great deal; it makes us live longer, elucidates the complex workings of the body and orders and explains our world. But while it gives us benefits, it can also reduce and diminish us. It makes us scared of difference, of things that don’t fit into prescribed, rigid perceptions of normality. It gives us a fear of the pathological.

The villagers can offer no explanation for the little girl’s bizarre appearance except that she must be a god; a miracle. I can’t help but feel slightly envious of their interpretation, and wish that I too could see a miracle rather than a genetic abnormality.

Pemberton is the author of ‘Trust Me, I’m a Junior Doctor.”

This entry was posted on Monday, April 14th, 2008 at 4:57 am and is filed under NOT2BEMISSED, genetics, medicine, public attitudes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.  Email This Post