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Show To Marry or Not Is Girl's Problem In March of Dimei Research Projecl $Lt h 1 1 ,: S !K r". Even in today's sophisticated sophisti-cated society, many 13-year-old girls dream of the knight on a white charger who will sweep them off to a fairy-tale wedding in a land where "they lived happily hap-pily ever after." But for some, among them Roxanne Myrick of Oregon City, Ore., the plot is more complicated. , Roxanne, an exceptionally pretty and bright teenager, is almost certainly the carrier of an abnormal gene, which is one of the units of inheritance that govern all our traits. Because of this faulty gene, in a few years she will face critical decisions. de-cisions. Those decisions will revolve around whether (1) to marry and risk having children with defects (2) to marry and not have children (3) to marry and adopt children or (4) to remain single. Roxanne is one of a family of six who are part of a continuing con-tinuing research project under way at the March of Dimes Birth Defects Center at the University of Oregon Medical School, Portland. The others involved are her parents, Dan and Bonita Myrick, her brothers, Rory, 7, and Robert, S both of whom are mentally nt, and a sister, Rhonda, y mentally damaged and n a state institution, anne's father explains s. -thing of the problem from the viewpoint of a perplexed parent "My wife and I have been told that we may have passed on to Roxanne a legacy that might cause her to give birth to retarded children, as my wife and I have. The geneticists geneti-cists tell us that the chances are 2 in 3 that she has inherited a faulty gene. If she marries a man with the same faulty gene and the chances of that are remote but not astronomical each time she has a child the odds will be 1 in 4 that her baby will be retarded, like her brothers and sister." - At age 13 Roxanne does not spend a great deal of time thinking about marriage. But how much does this merry-eyed merry-eyed child know of her probable prob-able genetic inheritance? "Roxanne already knows that she is almost unquestion- ROXANNE MYRICK, 13, supervises play of her two mentally damaged brothers who, with all the other members of this Oregon family, are key figures in a March of Dimes project. ably the carrier of some unknown un-known recessive gene, just as her parents are," her mother explains. "The child certainly could not keep from asking us questions. For instance, she knows that Rory and Robert don't act like other small boys. And, as with all of us in the family, she has given blood samples many times at the March of Dimes Birth Defects Center in Portland. "When the time comes for marriage, we would suggest to Roxanne that she ask her fiance to work up as complete a family tree as possible," the mother says. "The idea would be to check out whether, in his background, there was any history of some metabolic disease like the one ailecting our family." The child's mother gives the impression that, if she were In Roxanne's situation a few years hence, she would favor adopting adop-ting children. "I love all my children very much. But I wouldn't take a chance of having any more. We have two adopted boys to whom Roxanne is devoted. If it is definitely proven that there is little likelihood of her children chil-dren being normal, then adoption adop-tion should come easily to her if her husband would accept not having their own." Roxanne was asked what she would do if her future fiance fi-ance showed reluctance at marrying into her family. "What would I do?" the young lady echoes, blue eyes Hashing. "If he wouldn't accept ac-cept my two little brothers and my sister, I'd tell him to get lost." |