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2. Peter S. Harper, A Short History of Medical Genetics (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 143–45.
3. Other researchers of the time studied human spermatogonial cells, and cytologists “literally waited at the foot of the gallows in order to fix the testis on an executed criminal immediately after death before the chromosomes would clump.” M. J. Kottler, “From 48 to 46: cytological technique, preconception, and the counting of the human chromosomes,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 1974, available at: ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.
4. Wolfgang Saxon, “Joe Hin Tjio, 82: Research Biologist Counted Chromosomes,” New York Times, December 7, 2001.
5. Jérôme Lejeune, Marthe Gautier, and Raymond Turpin, “Étude des Chromosomes Somatiques de Neuf Enfants Mongoliens,” Comptes rendus des séances de l’Académie des Sciences 248: 1721–959. A translated version appeared in Papers on Human Genetics, edited by Samuel H. Boyer (New York: Prentice Hall, 1963), 238–40.
6. Daniel J. Kevles, “Mongolian Imbecility,” in Mental Retardation in America: A Historical Perspective, edited by Steven Noll and James W. Trent, Jr. (New York and London: New York University Press, 2004) 123–27.
7. BBC News: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7967173.stm.
8. Clara Lejeune, Life is a Blessing: A Biography of Jérôme Lejeune (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000). Translated from the original French edition: La Vie est un monheur: Jerome Lejeune, mon père (Paris: Criterion, 1997); Frederick Hecht, “Jérôme Lejeune (1926–94): In Memoriam,” Am. J. Hum. Gent. 55 (1994): 201–2.
9. S. Gilgenkrantz and E. M. Rivera, “The history of cytogenetics: Portraits of some pioneers,” Annales de génétique 46, no. 4 (October–December 2003): 433–42.
10. Marthe Gautier and Peter Harper, “Fiftieth anniversary of trisomy 21: returning to a discovery,” Human Genetics 126 (2009): 317–24.
11. Ibid.; Gilgenkrantz and Rivera, “The history of cytogenetics,” 433–42.
12. Gautier and Harper, “Fiftieth anniversary of trisomy 21,” 317–24.
13. “Perhaps no man ever had a more judicious or more methodical genius, or was a more acute logician than Mr. Locke . . .” Available at: http://www.class.uidaho.edu/mickelsen/texts/voltaire_on_locke.htm.
14. C. F. Goodey, “John Locke’s idiots in the natural history of the mind,” History of Psychiatry 5, no. 18, pt. 2 (June 1994): 215–50.
15. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book 4, ch. 4, section 16.
16. David Livingstone Smith, Less than Human: Why We Demean, Enslave, and Exterminate Others (New York: St Martin’s Press, 2011).
17. Josef Warkany, “Congenital Malformations in the Past,” Journal of Chronic Diseases, August 1959, 84–97.
18. Júlio César Pangas, “Historical Review: Birth Malformations in Babylon and Assyria,” American Journal of Medical Genetics 91 (2000): 318–21; Kathryn L. Moseley, “The History of Infanticide in Western Society,” Issues in Law and Medicine 1, no. 5 (1986).
19. Moseley, “The History of Infanticide in Western Society.”
20. Phillip Lopate, The Art of the Personal Essay: An Anthology from the Classical Era to the Present, (New York: Anchor Books/Doubleday, 1994).
21. Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays of Montaigne, translated by Donald Frame (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1958), 538.
22. Warkany, “Congenital Malformations in the Past.”
23. Ibid.
24. E. Martin, Histoire des monstres de l’antiquité jusqu’à nos jours (Paris: Reinwald et Cie., 1880).
25. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-6232759-503544.html; “Del. Marshall says abortion remark misconstrued, apologizes,” Fredrick Kunkle, Washington Post, February 23, 2010.
26. http://www.anencephalie-info.org/e/index.php.
27. Dale Evans, Angel Unaware (Grand Rapids, MI: Fleming H. Revell, 1953).
28. Cheryl Rogers-Barnett and Frank Thompson, Cowboy Princess: Life With My Parents Roy Rogers and Dale Evans (Lanham, MD: Taylor Trade Publishing, 2003).
29. H. Allen Smith, “King of the Cowboys,” Life 15, no. 2 (July 12, 1943): 47–52.
30. Susan Schweik, The Ugly Laws: Disability in Public (New York and London: New York University Press, 2009).
31. Lorraine Wilgosh, Dick Sobsey, and Kate Scorgie, “Cultural Constructions of Families of Children with Disabilities,” in Culture Plus the State, edited by James Gifford and Gabrielle Zezulka-Mailloux (Edmonton: University of Alberta Press, CRC Studio, 2003).
32. Hilary Spurling, Pearl Buck in China: Journey to the Good Earth (New York: Simon and Schuster, 2010).
33. Pearl S. Buck, “The Child Who Never Grew,” Ladies’ Home Journal, May 1950.
34. “Legalize Mercy Killings,” Collier’s Magazine, May 20, 1939. Details on contributors available at: http://colliersmagazine.com/.
35. Foster Kennedy, “The Problem of Social Control of the Congenital Defective: Education, Sterilization, Euthanasia,” American Journal of Psychiatry 99 (1942): 13–16; Thorsten Noack and Heiner Fangerau, “Eugenics, Euthanasia, and Aftermath,” International Journal of Mental Health 36, no. 1 (Spring 2007): 112–24; M. Louis Offen, “Dealing with ‘Defectives,’ ” Neurology 61, no. 5 (September 9, 2003): 668–73.
36. Pearl S. Buck, The Child Who Never Grew (New York: John Day, 1950).
37. Roy Rogers and Dale Evans, with Jane and Michael Stern, Happy Trails: Our Life Story (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1994).
38. Andrew S. Levitas and Cheryl S. Reid, “Historical Review: An Angel With Down Syndrome in a Sixteenth-Century Flemish Nativity Painting,” American Journal of Medical Genetics part A, vol. 116A, issue 4 (February 1, 2003): 399–405.
39. Susie Nash, Oxford History of Art: Northern Renaissance Art (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008).
40. Maryan W. Ainsworth, From Van Eyck to Bruegel: Early Netherlandish Painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1999).
41. Guy C. Bauman, The Jack and Belle Linsky Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1984), 68.
42. Max J. Friedländer, Early Netherlandish Painting From Van Eyck to Bruegel (London: Phaidon Press, 1965), 34.
43. Herbert Hohler, “Changes in Facial Expression as a Result of Plastic Surgery in Mongoloid Children.” Aesthetic Plastic Surgery 1, no. 1 (December 1976): 245–50. Dr. Hohler was awarded the Heinrich-Bechhold Medal 1977 for this paper.
44. Amy Harmon, “The DNA Age: Prenatal Test Puts Down Syndrome In Hard Focus,” New York Times, May 9, 2007.
45. Eunice Kennedy Shriver, “Prenatal Testing: Supporting parents of children with Down syndrome,” America: The National Catholic Weekly 196, no. 17 (May 14, 2007).
46. Roger D. Klein, MD, JD, and Maurice J. Mahone, MD, JD, “Medical Legal Issues in Prenatal Diagnosis,” Clinics in Perinatology, part I, vol. 34, issue 2 (June 2007): 287–97.
47. Friedlander, Early Netherlandish Painting, 39–43.
48. Gregory Gallagher, By Trust Betrayed (New York: Henry Holt, 1990), 195.
49. http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2011/08/24/2550278/speaker-wants-to-compensate-sterilized.html.
50. John Langdon Down, “Mental Affections of Childhood and Youth” (lecture). Published in Classics in Developmental Medicine, vol. 5 (Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications, 1990), 3–4.
51. John Langdon Down, “Observations on the Ethnic Classification of Idiots,” London Hospital Clinical Report 3 (1866): 259–62.
52. http://www.princeton.edu/˜psinger/faq.html, accessed May 29, 2012.
53. Helga Kuhse, ed. Unsanctifying Human Life: Essays on Ethics (New York: Blackwell, 2002), 2; Michael Specter, “The Dangerous Philosopher,” The New Yorker, September 6, 1999.
54. Arthur Caplan, Time, April 18, 2005.
55. Peter Singer, Practical Ethics (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1979).
56. James Boswell, Life of Johnson (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 333.
57. I learned this during a visit to the Harthiem Castle Memorial, a T-4 killing center, in Alkoven, Austria.
58. Harriet McBryde Johnson, “Unspeakable Conversations,” New York Times Magazine, February 16, 2003.