The doctrine of Original Sin appears in two Abrahamic religions of the First World, the religion of the Israelite tribes, which by the first century of the Common Era had been named Judaism; and the religion based on a first century practitioner of that religion, Jesus of Nazareth, Christianity.
A common expression in these religions is, Through Adam (the symbolic first man) did all men sin; every person is born inheriting this sin. We, until Christian salvation, are all sinners.
Disabled people, particularly so. Consider the passage from the Gospel of John in the Christian scriptures, where Jesus is confronted with a man born disabled. “Master,” the people ask, “who sinned, this man, or his parents, that he was born thus?”
Particularly for clefted people, by and large physically able except for the social stigma (implied in the catchphrase “I don’t care if it h-words the Governor), Original Sin can produce a kind of knee-jerk discrimination at the very outset of our social interactions.
In our medical care, the dogma of Original Sin can make a diagnosis of illness an accusation of illness.
A personal example. In middle age, the back pressure from prostate enlargement produced blood changes. I was sent to a specialist who said these changes were a multiple myeloma indicator. Although I asked if the prostate condition could be the cause, he performed a bone marrow biopsy and had me undergo a skeletal X-ray. Although a second opinion said the biopsy did not indicate cancer, and the X-ray didn’t find anything, he wanted to start chemotherapy. I insisted on waiting until we actually knew something.
Not only is the doctrine of Original Sin a harmful premise which frequently produces unfounded accusations, there are counter arguments in the very religions from which it arose; and in secular society it violates it violates a founding liberal principle: the presumption of innocence. I was attending the christening of a grandchild when, to my astonishment, the priest read a passage from the Torah/Tanakh which contradicted a dogma of his faith. Ezekiel 18 is an extended argument against Original Sin: “Yet say ye, Why? doth not the son bear the iniquity of the father? … The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, …But if the wicked will turn from all his sins that he hath committed, and keep all my statutes, and do that which is lawful and right, he shall surely live, he shall not die.” (Emphasis added)
Likewise, for Christians, in the parable of the prodigal son, Jesus is saying that he does not hold with the dogma of Original Sin either. Key passage: “He came to himself.” As in the passage from hundreds of years earlier, the key word is “turn.”
Original Sin makes a society which is inclined to be prejudicial toward the clefted even more so. But there are countervailing arguments in the very religions originating it, and our universal justice assures us that the presumption of innocence is our unalienable right.
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A reciprocity principle: If a remark or an action or an attitude would be seen as discriminatory if directed toward a minority, it is discriminatory for us. We have exactly the same civil rights, even if the justice system does not act as if we do.
