My Beautiful and Creative Mom, Laurie Schwent

If you knew your baby would inherit bipolar disorder would you gene edit or consider abortion? It’s a tough ethical question.

We could risk making the world a blander, more homogenized place if we get rid of the genes for manic-depressive illness. I’m the daughter and granddaughter of creative bipolars. My grandparents took their lives and Mom has considered it. My daughter is a born creative. Bipolar is highly heritable. When I think of how my mom and grandparents suffered from mental demons, I question if I’d wipe mental illness genes off the face of the earth forever if I could. If I never had to worry about inheriting or passing along mental illness, would I?

Aristotle, the father of western philosophy observed decades ago, “No great genius has ever existed without a strain of madness.” The long list of famous creative bipolars pushed the boundaries of the norms and we are all better off because of it.