@Kaol
The availability of ultrasound, pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (PIGD) and embryo-selection, amniosentesis, selective abortion and so on means that we are less in the lap of the gods than we were a generation ago, so I suppose that there might be fewer disabled people being born in the West.

You also have to take into account, though, the social aspect of disability. I don't think that the social model is entirely convincing, but it's true that some things are disabilities only in a certain context. Dyslexia, for example, is only a problem in literate societies (in fact, I believe that it's only a problem in alphabetic societies: it doesn't matter in Chinese, for some reason). Is it a disability? Yes. I think so. Is it "inherently" a disability? I think not. The same applies to, say, myopia, and doubtless to many other things, too. Deafness is the controversial one at the moment: there's a long-running debate about deliberately selecting for deafness. Some people think that that's a disability: others (mainly deaf themselves) disagree.
( Enzyme is powered by sunlight, Wed 23 Apr 2008, 13:08, Reply)