Along the lines of the sorts of things that make a mother hold her kids underwater in a bathtub until they die, or sit on the couch with a needle in her arm while the stove catches fire next to the high chair.

I had no thought whatsoever about inheriting mental problems or any other illness when I wrote that. I don't like the idea of forbidding having children on that basis.

This is just my opinion, but if there are any genetic problems, mental or otherwise, that are always 100 percent inheritable, and would result in a child having no quality of life whatsoever, there are damn few of them. For example, some very fine people would not exist right now, including one or two I know, if there was a general policy of aborting Down's Syndrome children.

It was only as an adult that I eventually learned that one of my best friends as a child, who lived near my Grandma's house, was retarded. I just knew he was an older kid, a lot of fun, and a good kid.

For the record, I would have no problem with enforced sterilization, of the temporary implant sort (never permanent), of someone with mental issues that would actively endanger a child. But that's not the same thing as eugenics.