Main trends of research in the social and human ... - unesdoc - Unesco

358 Jean Bourgeois-Pichat
dures for new cells, from the initial cell onwards, remain fragile for some time
afterwards, and changes in the chromosomes take place during the fist months
of pregnancy. The reason for some of them is known, but we are far from know-
ing the reasons for all of them. There are perhaps social reasons also, but all
that remains to be discovered. No doubt during the next few years we shall have
an answer to these questions. To know what happens between conception and
birth is of capital importance. Only in this way may we hope to be able to
guard against defective evolutionary processes, or even intervene in really
serious cases.
The following concrete example will help to clarify this last point. We know
already how to discover, before birth, certain changes in the chromosomes and
it is possible, for example, to predict with certainty if a pregnant mother will give
birth to a Mongolian child. Diagnosis is still far from easy, and the method
cannot be applied to all the products of gestation, but perfecting the method is
only a matter of time. No additional discoveries are needed and later on it will
apply to changes other than those which produce Mongolian characteristics. ln
the name of what principle will it then be possible to refuse to carry out an abor-
tion in the case of a mother who is known to be about to give birth to a de-
formed infant?
Infertility
16. Thus, sooner or later, the mechanisms set in motion by the fertilizing of the
ovum come to a halt. If everything has gone well, they have been functioning
for nine months and a live child is born in good health. If there has been any
deficiency in their functioning, that child may have some deformation. It may be,
too, that the gestation period ended with a miscarriage or a still-birth. Now,
suppose we leave the child for a moment, well or ill-formed, as the case may be,
to pursue its life in this world, and concentrate on the mother.
17. Up to then, she was fertile, since she conceived only a little while back. But
when we consider a whole group of such mothers who have just given birth to a
child, we know that all the time a certain number of them will become infertile,
thus being unable to continue to procreate. And we know also that age is the
deciding factor of this infertility. Even the person most ignorant of such matters
knows very well that nearly all women are in a condition to procreate some
time after puberty and that nearly all are sterile at the age of fifty. It follows,
therefore, that progressive infertility must take place in between those two age-
limits. But that is about all we know - at any rate so far as the present popula-
tions using contraceptives are concerned. We know a little more about popula-
tions in which married couples do not control their own fertility, whether it be
the present populations of the undeveloped countries or, better still, the age-old
populations of Europe. However, we know next-to-nothing about the laws
governing progressive infertility with advancing age in the populations of in-
dustrialized countries, and in any case the causes of such infertility remain
unknown to us.8