Aborting because of mild disability

London...

London,

In conversation, you make harsh comments such as "a wife like you" or that "in nonsense." Then, when I address what you said (in this case with articles) you ignore it entirely and go onto the next thing. This makes it hard to have a dialog.

SCat: I 100% agree with everything you said. The exception is the analogy. With Japanese, I was trying to make the analogy between race and disability. This is extremely controversial, but it is my belief that there is no difference between race and disability (or sexuality). Just because a person moves or thinks differently does not make them less than and they should not be treat accordingly.

K- I always love you arguments which I find well-composed and loving. I would only say this about Hawking - which you might agree - if Hawking where a normal disabled dude - he would still be valid as a human being. Disability activists guard against people like him because it perpetuates the idea of the Super Crip meaning if you are disabled by able to be superhuman and "overcome" you are OK and valid. Every disabled person deseveres to be loved, has a sex life, a job and be respected, they don't have to be a genius.

I TOTALLY Understand this was not what you meant...but just saying.
 
Im telling you that is nonsense because it is. I'm saying that as a trained midwife and explaining the actual rationale for those kind of definitive tests. Not the rationale pro life movements claim.

The routine testing that article is talking about has been offered here for years. It's basic first world maternity care and gives people a longer time to get used to the idea of having a child with additional needs. It isn't definitive and some parents opt not to find out. It's news in the US because your universal .maternity care is primitive. Here, it helps to allow people make informed choices and the baby gets the safest birth. Lots of time to get max info and plan ahead.

http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/pages/screening-amniocentesis-downs-syndrome.aspx
 
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Super Crip

" supercrips are those disabled figures favored in the media, products of either extremely low expec- tations (disability by definition means incompetence, so anything a disabled person does, no matter how mundane or banal, merits exaggerated praise) or extremely high expectations (disabled people must accomplish incredibly difficult, and therefore inspiring, tasks to be worthy of nondisabled attention)." From Alison Kaufer

London, you have a point. The attitudes in general about disability in England are vastly different... and I'm assuming Down's doesn't have a high abortion rate there?

But to argue that people do not abort fetuses because they have mild manageable disabilities is nonsense. This does happen. It is the focus of Andrew Solomon's 800 page book.
 
Second article is good. Maybe early diagnosis is why more people with Downs achieve. Born to parents who chose to have them as they are.
 
" supercrips are those disabled figures favored in the media, products of either extremely low expec- tations (disability by definition means incompetence, so anything a disabled person does, no matter how mundane or banal, merits exaggerated praise) or extremely high expectations (disabled people must accomplish incredibly difficult, and therefore inspiring, tasks to be worthy of nondisabled attention)." From Alison Kaufer

London, you have a point. The attitudes in general about disability in England are vastly different... and I'm assuming Down's doesn't have a high abortion rate there?

But to argue that people do not abort fetuses because they have mild manageable disabilities is nonsense. This does happen. It is the focus of Andrew Solomon's 800 page book.
Manageable for who? Who decides what i can manage?
 
I found the follow up to the third article and:


"Jim England, the chief crown prosecutor for West Mercia, said the doctors believed, in good faith, that there was a substantial risk the child would be seriously handicapped. "In these circumstances, I decided that there was insufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction and that there should be no charges against either of the doctors," he said."

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2005/mar/17/health.healthandwellbeing

So basically the baby was believed to be severely disabled. Facial disfigurement was one aspect. Just as i said.
 
I am not trying to guess what people can manage or tell them what to do.

As S. Cat said, women are always the ones to decide. And I feel perfectly comfortable saying someone is a jerk because they abort a child who will be deaf, blind, or have a 'disfigurement." As far as people having a child with the expectation (possibility) of say heart disease: that doesn't make sense to me - ANY child could have heart disease.

I have to friends - one has a baby with Downs. One has a teenager who due to father's abuse (now divorced) won't go to therapy nor school. He does drugs all day and watches TV. Which of these children will mean the longer term care, effort, and stress for their family - who knows. People make the assumption that it is better or easier not to be disabled or parent someone with a disability. I think the assumption that an able child will be easier is a dangerous one.

Btw: I love this woman -she''s hot!

http://femmegimp.org
 
You'd only know if a child would be deaf or blind before they are born if there is a high risk of them having some other condition that presents with those impairments. You'd know that through prenatal screening. So the child is unlikely to be "just" deaf. Hereditary conditions exist but its safe to say this group of potential parents have enough experience of whatever they have/carry to know if it's within their capabilities.

The other way babies are born blind or deaf is through birth injury. They are starved of oxygen during labour and suffer HIE. The areas of the brain affected may be those responsible for sight or hearing. Premature babies are susceptible to brain injuries too. Both through lack of oxygen and their high risk of hemorrhage. They have weak vessels and unstable blood pressure, bad combo. Of course, in the case of prematurity and injury during labour, people aren't choosing to become parents of a disabled child.
 
And I'm talking about the book you referenced, how can he define manageable?
 
I hate the terms Pro-Choice and Pro-Life. As if to say people who believe abortion is murder are somehow against a woman's right to choose what to do with her body and that people who belief it's simply a choice are somehow pro murder. The arguments seem to be mutually exclusive of each other.

I tend to lean toward pro life not because I know for a fact that its a human life, but because I don't think that's something I'm willing to risk. And generally I am against any religion or "opinions" being enforced by the government but in this case if it is a life then its not just about the woman's choice but also the baby's life.

Having said that, if I were pro choice and believed without a doubt that the fetus was not yet a real person then I would be 100% in favor of abortions for mentally handicapped people. I have an autistic kid and while I love him dearly the drain on not just myself, but my wife, his little brother and all our family members that have had to chip in both with time and energy and with money is amazing. Not to mention all the experts who so lovingly give of their time. All your tax dollars are helping pay for it too.

On top of that my child will probably never be able to get married and if he did I don't know how to tell him he really can't have children. This would be very good for society as a whole.
 
Seeking Answers - I understand that raising your child must be a times difficult. Maybe even sheer hell. I do have to say that (if I'm hearing this right) you wish you could have aborted your child. I think that's a pretty harsh thing for a parent to say. I cannot know what difficulties go on in your home. I have read about families whose kids with autism have very very hard times. So, I'm partly horrified and partly empathetic. I can also say this - my friend whose able-bodied, brilliant son smashed in their window and tried to beat her with a broom and hasn't been in school in two years. How is having an abled child a guareteer?

I do take strong issue with the comment "You tax dollars are paying for it." Personally, I want my "tax dollars" to go toward helping disabled people and the elderly. I DON'T want them going toward over paying senators and senseless wars.

I wonder (also) what you think of this - I have heard argument after argument against paying for special education. I was an inner city school teacher for 6 years. I taught teens who did not want to be there, who sold drugs on school, never did work, and stayed in the system until 21. Many of these then went to jail. I never never ever heard or read one argument about the drain these students put on the system - you can't say that - it's racist. But you can be against "special ed."

London, Solomon's book isn't about what is manageable and what is not. It's about something that he calls (I think) cross-parenting - i.e. parenting a child who is different than you. It details Deaf culture and interviews many parents who thought they would abort and ended up having their child and finding happiness in that child. It discloses a lot of prejudice the parents self-admit to having.

I'm actually not sure, London of your "argument." Is it that parents DO NOT abort disabled fetuses for aesthetic and ablest reasons.
 
No great answers here, just more stuff I've thought of that I wanted to share.

Re:
"Personally, I want my 'tax dollars' to go toward helping disabled people and the elderly. I *don't* want them going toward overpaying senators and senseless wars."

Here here. Same principle applies to special ed.

And aborting just because a certain disability "offends the mother's social preferences," is obviously deplorable, and I think everyone here would agree on that point. It would be like aborting because your child was going to have green eyes when your heart had been set on blue eyes. And aborting "to do my part to rid the world of Down syndrome" is also a horrid thing to do. Again I think everyone here would agree on that.

Re (from an earlier post):
"I would only say this about Hawking -- which you might agree -- if Hawking where a normal disabled dude -- he would still be valid as a human being. Disability activists guard against people like him because it perpetuates the idea of the Super Crip, meaning if you are disabled, by being able to be superhuman and 'overcome,' you are okay and valid. Every disabled person deseveres to be loved, have a sex life, a job and be respected, they don't have to be a genius."

I totally agree. I guess I refer to Hawking mainly because he challenges people's assumptions about disabled people and their "value to society." In other words, if one disabled person happens to be a Stephen Hawking, who's to say what value another disabled person might have? If I was a pregnant woman with a child I knew would have (not just mild but) severe disabilities, I'd have a hard time deciding whether to abort. You just can't know what gifts and values a child will give to the world -- nor can you know what gifts and values the child will glean from the world.

If I may exploit another marquee name, Helen Keller also comes to mind. If her mother had been able to abort under reasonable conditions, and had that mother known that her child would be deafblind, would a choice to abort have been wise? kind? justifiable? honorable? Contributions to society aside, what about Helen herself? Is it fair to make a child go through life that way (just for the benefits to society)? What would Helen herself get out of life, that would make it worth living? Anything? How could her mother know all that ahead of time? Note that things were looking pretty grim for Helen before Anne Sullivan showed up.

And indeed, what if a pregnant woman could somehow also know that her unborn disabled child would *not* become a marquee name?

http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/8579599/chy-johnson-boys

The girl in the above story -- Chy. While she was in the womb, what if her mother knew of Chy's disability (and perhaps she did), and what if Chy's mother knew that Chy would certainly be neither a Stephen Hawking nor a Helen Keller? Then what? Abort the child? Spare her the bullying she'd endure before she was rescued -- and let's assume Chy's mom had no idea there'd be any rescue (an all-too-reasonable assumption). What could she expect Chy to get out of life?

And in relation to the Super Crip idea: What, indeed, does Chy give back to the society that learned to embrace her? a crudely-drawn birthday card for Carson Jones? an extra cheer for the Bulldogs?

You see, those are quantifiable contributions. But I submit that Chy's best contribution can't be quantified. What she gave the world around her was an opportunity to rise above itself, to learn to accept whereas before it only knew how to bully, and above all, to discover the joy of giving and receiving love. In an age of emotional isolation and teen suicide, you can't put a price on that. Everyone in Chy's story gave and received more than we could ever quantify.

Any woman pregnant with a disabled child knows only about the disability itself. That woman cannot know what that disability will mean or how it will affect anyone, not even the child hirself. Which is why I say, surely such a woman can only make a choice based on her own feminine intuition.

Let's just say that if Chy hadn't been born, I'd have never been reading a story that brought tears to my eyes.
 
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I wouldn't say that women abort due to any one detail. (I know you were asking London what her/his argument was-but it caught my eye).

Having had two abortions and three live births-I know I certainly didn't have "one reason" for why I kept the three I kept or aborted the two I aborted.
There was a plethora of reasons. It came down to there being more pro's than con's in three cases and less in 2 cases. Not necessarily numerically-but in terms of greatest risk.

Also-I have a child who is functionally not disabled, but was a holy terror ( I won't go into detail-but suffice it to say he was locked up by age 4 for assault that easily could have been murder).
Knowing that there is or isn't a disability ALONE wouldn't be cause (to me) for an abortion. BUT-there is no such thing as "alone" there are thousands of mitigating circumstances that come into play.

Where one person may be capable of being a good parent to a child (any child), another may not.
At any rate-it's not the governments place to decide.
 
My argument is that you read pro choice articles that aren't based on science. You can't know off a scan your child is just deaf, so nobody is aborting a child who is only deaf. Just like the guardian article, the baby didn't just have a cleft palatte. It's the media making a story. You don't apply logic to what you read.and you don't seem to understand prenatal screening very well.

As LR said, the reasons for abortion are rarely straight forward.

You said his book was about the abortions of fetus with manageable conditions. Nobody can decide what is manageable or minor for someone else.
 
Hawking was an able bodied child. He is who he is because of that. If he was born profoundly disabled, he would not be known. His mother did not raise a disabled child. Big difference. You've never raised a disabled child either, bofish, you've been one but you haven't dealt with the responsibilities of raising one. It's 24/7. No let up. You struggle with being the primary carer of an eleven year old child who is able bodied and neurotypical. You need more support for that. You have no idea.
 
In relation to what I was saying about the baby not just having the relatively minor impairment that is reported, this is also relevant for people with Downs. There are several complications that someone with Downs could have such as heart defects. When someone is pregnant with a child who is thought to have Downs, part of the investigations well be to have some idea about whether the baby has these complications and how severe they are. Some babies with Downs are not compatible with life outside the womb. They are unable to sustain their life and will die wheezing and gasping in the arms of their parents soon after birth. Statistics do not tell you the actual extent of the health problems that aborted fetus would have gone onto have, it just says Downs.
 
If Chy's mum knew about her disability beforehand, she might have been able to opt not to have a child who will never be fully independent or at least had the opportunity to prepare herself and her family for the monumental commitment of raising a child who will probably never be a functioning adult and you'll more than likely have to watch die before you.
 
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