Tom Coburn Quotes

As I noted to my colleagues in the Roberts' hearings, in a year between 80 percent to 90 percent of the children in America diagnosed with Down's Syndrome will be killed in the womb simply because they have a positive genetic test which can be wrong, and is often wrong, but they would have a positive genetic test for Down's Syndrome and they will be killed.America is poorer because of such a policy.

My blood runs cold when I hear the 'great news' that we have found a marker for the Down's syndrome gene, which means we can identify it more easily. Why is that good news? It's only good news if you're going to terminate.

"Let's say we discover the gene that says the kid's gonna be gay. How many parents, if they knew before the kid was gonna be born, [that he] was gonna be gay, they would take the pregnancy to term? Well, you don't know but let's say half of them said, "Oh, no, I don't wanna do that to a kid." [Then the] gay community finds out about this. The gay community would do the fastest 180 and become pro-life faster than anybody you've ever seen. ... They'd be so against abortion if it was discovered that you could abort what you knew were gonna be gay babies."

It's just been so heartwarming to see my clothes on people in wheelchairs and people needing physical support.

We recognized in 1996 that, with progress in the field of genetics accelerating at a breathtaking pace, we need to ensure that advances in treatment and prevention of disease do not constitute a new basis for discrimination.

Like the early days of the Internet, the dawn of personal genomics promises benefits and pitfalls that no one can foresee.

The magnitude of discrimination and stigma faced by people with disability in Australia cannot be underestimated. People do not understand disability, and people fear what they don't understand.

I'm officially disabled, but I'm truly enabled because of my lack of limbs. My unique challenges have opened up unique opportunities to reach so many in need.

You go, well you can't joke about race. Well if you're from a different race and that's your experience of the world and you want to talk about that, then fine. Or you can't talk about disability, but disabled comics can talk about that.

My sister learned she was a carrier for a recessive disease, Bloom syndrome, late in one of her pregnancies. I remember the panicked call and the weeks of worry as she and her husband awaited his test results; if he was also a carrier, this meant their daughter had a one in four chance of being born with the disorder.

The Human Genome Project alone is the Full Employment Act for bioethicists.

I think it would be great if in 50 years you could find out lots more about the conditions your child is going to have - and if we lived in a society that is so tolerant that many things that might now lead to abortion would then be seen as part of human variance.

Most powerful is when you see a person on camera with a disability, and it's not the point of the story. That's happening more and more. Not enough, let's be clear, but it's happening more.

I've never been tall. So it's not like I was six-foot, got paralyzed, and now I'm in a wheelchair. It doesn't really faze me all that much.

When I first had my legs amputated, it was hard for me to be positive and feel pretty. Many people don't know that someone with a disability can be strong and beautiful and successful as an athlete.

Am I complaining about my deafness? No, I am not.

There's a wide variety of diversity, with people that have disabilities from R.J. Mitte in 'Breaking Bad' to Danny Woodburn being a little man.

The arrogance of the able-bodied is staggering. Yes, maybe we'd like to be able to get places quickly, and carry things in both hands but only because we have to keep up with the rest of you ... We would rather be just like us, and have that be all right.

...No opening sermons concerning children with humps and fins for limbs, who nonetheless, immortal souls all, deserve life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happy Meals.

Paralympics... fascinating because just watching anyone with a major disability trying to do everyday chores is fun to watch.

Why? Because free prenatal testing ends up in more abortions and, therefore, less care that has to be done, because we cull the ranks of the disabled in our society.

I know that there'll be a continuation of making the world more accessible for people with disabilities.

How strange it is that people of honest feelings and sensibilty, who would not take advantage of a man born without arms or legs or eyes—how such people think nothing of abusing a man with low intelligence.

Technically I can get out of my wheelchair and crawl around and do things, but when I've traveled and they've lost my wheelchair in transit, I feel like I need to be bound to it. My functionality and autonomy are often bound to this.

[Jane] Roe has made it not only possible, but has found it constitutional to kill a whole class of people, simply because of their genetic make-up.