Attitudes of the future orthodox theologians towards eugenics and social inclusion of the persons with intellectual disability

Understanding of intellectual disability in orthodox tradition is based upon ontology of personhood. Each person should be seen as an image of God (imago Dei) irrespective of his or her abilities. The objective of this research was to determine attitudes of future orthodox theologians towards eugenic interventions in a domain of intellectual disability, as well as their attitudes towards social inclusion of the persons with intellectual deficits. The sample consisted of 448 students of the University of Belgrade. The whole sample was divided into four subsets: 126 students of the Orthodox Christian Theological Faculty (OCTF), 137 students of the Faculty of Special Education and Rehabilitation, 85 students of the Faculty of Philology and 100 students of the Faculty of Economics. Attitudes towards eugenic interventions were determined using the Scale of Attitudes Toward Mental Retardation and Eugenics (Antonak et al., 1993). It was revealed that OCTF students had significantly higher scores than other students (F(3,444)=4.084; p=.007). However, post hoc analysis revealed only two items, which significantly contribute to observed differences. These items are related to social exclusion and eugenic abortions. OCTF students were reluctant to accept the idea of partial social exclusion of the persons with ID, presumably based on orthodox notions on ontology and soteriology. In addition, those parents who deliberately give birth to a child with disability were not seen as irresponsible, due to the fact that Orthodox Church regards human life as a gift from God. It could be concluded that OCTF students expressed more negative attitudes towards eugenic interventions and more positive attitudes towards social inclusion of persons with ID comparing to other participants.