Aborting because of mild disability

London

I need to step away for awhile.

I do believe women abort fetuses not only because of the difficulties of raising a child, but because of ableism. There has been much discuss of this in disability studies and there was an article in the New York Times about a woman who aborted a child because of an extra finger. Culture does not, yet, have the perception of disabled people as full human beings. This is reflected in abortion.

You probably don't realize it but your comment about Hawking reflects this opinion You said 'he is who he is because he was not born disabled." Bullshit. A person with the right resources and care CAN be born as disabled as Hawking and stll be an asset to society. I, in fact, am writing a book on someone who couldn't feed himself and needed total care and was one of the most influence people in poetry.

No, I do not know what it is like to have a disabled child. Nor am I saying that anyone should take on that task (or the task of any child). I am saying that once perception of disabled people changes, and they are not viewed as, for example Searching says of their own child drains on our taxes that people who chose to have these kids will have an easier time.

You do not know what it is like to have bodily limittions. When your son was born were you unable to pick him up and walk across the room with him? Do you suffer daily pain and exhaustion just from walking to work? BTW my son is not easy, at all, and raising a son when I am disabled is not easy. WE ALL HAVE OUR CHALLEGNES AND THEY ARE VALID. I don't know if your son is overweight, but mine is. He is as risk of diabetes and heart disease and I have to fight with him constantly to meet these challenges. A different problem than yours, but still difficult

All I want is, ultimately, for ableism to go away. In attitudes, in abortion, in archetecture, everything. That is why I posted the disabled 'porn star." People are automatically horrified by disabled people fucking.

LR; I am so sorry to hear that. You have always struck me as an endlessly loving, patient person. And Kevin, I was thinking about your post al night. It made me feel really heard and understood. A rare thing for a person with a disability/
 
A simple search of these articles you've provided show that the cases presented weren't as straight forward as the media said they were. The only uk stats I can find supporting anything you've said say 20 abortions happened for minor impairments over 8 years. Hardly an epidemic. And that was the Daily Mail.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-388114/Babies-aborted-perfect.html

There is a very tiny chance that someone who was born as profoundly disabled as Hawking could go on to be as functional and academically successful as he is. Yes, they could have a relatively good quality of life and "give", but a world renown professor is a little bit far.

And my sister has MS so I have some idea of the issues disabled parents face. She has chronic pain, tremors, spasms, mobility and dexterity issues..Yes, it is also tough, but different and not to do with abortion.
 
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"There is a very tiny chance that someone who was born as profoundly disabled as Hawking could go on to be as functional and academically successful as he is. Yes, they could have a relatively good quality of life and "give", but a world renown professor is a little bit far."

Totally agreed. Not because of the disability but because of perception of disability, lack of access, and resources.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/13/weekinreview/13harm.html?_r=0

http://parenting.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/03/02/choosing-to-have-a-child-with-down-syndrome/


The bottom line is that a lot of prenatal tests are done to identify deformities in utero and the customary procedure is to encourage abortions,” Mr. Santorum said during an appearance on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”

Unfortunately, in one sense, he’s right. The message that sometimes accompanies positive prenatal testing for Down syndrome is: “You have a defective fetus. Let’s get rid of it so you can try again.” One mother I interviewed was told by her obstetrician, “the quickest, cheapest way to solve this problem is to terminate the pregnancy.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/20/weekinreview/20harmon.html?pagewanted=all
 
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No, because it's extremely difficult to teach a child who cannot move below the neck to read and think to.post graduate level. Hawking had over two decades to do that, plus more when he wasn't as disabled as now. As a result, he can still learn.
 
London and Bofish, I don't think you two are going to come to a consensus here because you're coming from two different cultural backgrounds. London, in the US, there is alot of concern over genetics testing and designer babies in some groups of the population. Whether they're getting their info from tabloids (and I would consider the NY Times to be more of a sensational newspaper than not) or scientific journals, I can't say. But there is that perception here. I am glad that the UK is not as sensationalized.

My husband's step sister had an abortion in 2010 after finding ultrasound tests showed severe spinabifida. There looked to be almost no higher brain development and the last tests before the abortion showed that there was no brain stem either. I for one, could not fathom giving birth to a child who would need life support upon birth and support her decision. My husband, on the other hand, could not understand why she was so upset over the loss of her "baby" when she had chosen to abort it herself. (In his defense, he never believed the child to be alive anyway, so he couldn't understand her desire "poor me attitude" and desire for people to feel sorry for her.)
 
BD-

You are totally right.

I am sorry to hear about your husband step-sister. That is a case where i would support an abortion. I may not have the strength to abort myself, but I would 100% support someone who decided to abort in that case. Either situation in that case would take bravery.
 
bofish said:
What???? That's an assumption. The brain...last I checked is above the neck.
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Yes, the brain is above the neck, but higher education requires the ability to communicate in more ways than just verbal. There are very few majors where accommodations would make sense for a paraplegic. You are also assuming that their capacity to learn is at college level.

I work as an employment counselor for people who range from learning disabled to moderately mentally retarded (whether you hate the term or not, that is what the state referrals say). Some of them have physical disabilities as well, some are deaf, some blind, some do not speak, some are confined to wheel chairs or require assistive devices. Some are simply not realistic in their employment goals. I had one person who struggled with math, receptive and expressive communication, and thought she was going to be a pediatrician some day. I've had one young man get fired because he refused to disclose his disability (he was mostly deaf and color blind) and wouldn't wear his hearing aids to work because he'd been picked on for them as a child. He couldn't hear clearly when given instructions and would often screw up. His managers just assumed he wasn't paying attention. If he'd been willing to disclose his disability or wear his hearing aids, he'd still have a job today.

I see parents every day with unrealistic hopes for their child or worse, parents who don't believe their child is capable of anything and feel they are entitled not to work because of SSI or SSDI, so why would they want to. But the worst, the parents I really feel sorry for, are the ones who are stuck between caring for their elderly parents and their disabled adult children who have to decide between the two. I have one individual I'm working with who was in the foster care system, she aged out in November. Her foster parents are allowing her to stay with them, provided she gives them all of her food stamps and part of her paycheck once she gets a job. She's only mildly disabled, but has a new foster brother who is severely disabled AND a foster father who is on oxygen and needs lots of assistance. She's now expected to help with the care of both until she gets a job or moves out and that is provided they don't get tired of her and kick her out. All because her caregiver died when she was in middle school.
 
bofish said:
LR; I am so sorry to hear that. You have always struck me as an endlessly loving, patient person. And Kevin, I was thinking about your post al night. It made me feel really heard and understood. A rare thing for a person with a disability/
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As a rule of thumb, I am. But that is my point, what makes you think I'm not? That I had two abortions?
Keeping either of those pregnancies (not the baby afterward, the actual babies) woudl have put the lives of the children I was already caring for at risk-literally. (Not explaining why here-it's irrelevant).

It was a choice I made, because it was the best choice for the family as a whole. Which, as a parent is something we have to do often, make choices that are for the benefit of the whole versus the one.

I do understand disabilities. I have my own (again, not going to elaborate here as it is irrelevant).
I can't (as I said) imagine choosing an abortion for a singular reason. "oh-this one thing isn't what I like/want/need/prefer".
But-people don't do that as a rule of thumb.
They generally have a whole list of pros and cons that they have to deal with.

Also-while I COMPLETELY agree with the need to do away with able-ism, age-ism, sex-ism and pretty much all of the other ism's I am not awake enough to think up at the moment, ending abortion isn't going to accomplish that goal-
it's going to put women's lives at risk.

The reason I'm against monitoring, making laws about, controlling, limiting etc abortion-
is that hypothetically speaking EVEN IF I SAID "I can't keep this baby because they have xyz medical issue"- that doesn't mean that's the whole story. It means its the piece and parcel of what I felt safe saying.
Now-do we need to do some work to make it possible for people to be more open and honest about what is going on for them? Maybe so.
But right now; there are plenty of people who aren't safe being open and honest about any number of things that are true for them. Any of those things could be factors to their wanting an abortion. We aren't privvy to those factors, we can't ensure that forcing them to keep the baby is actually going to result in the baby being SAFE AND CARED FOR. So we need to be EXTRA CAUTIOUS in thinking that by bringing the child to term we are somehow protecting the baby.

That assumption is a fallacy.
Being born doesn't ensure that they "have a chance". Not really. It ensures that they were born. Nothing more and nothing less.
We WANT to believe it is giving the baby a chance. But that isn't true. If the rest of the necessary care isn't put into place, they won't have a chance and guess what? We CAN NOT MAKE THAT CARE BE PUT IN PLACE.

I TOTALLY understand WANTING to believe that.
But it's a false belief and we put millions of children into shitty, dangerous, abusive, deadly family environments when we try to paint the picture so simply and make laws with such broad strokes.

In fact, what I am saying is that loving the unborn child means considering what WE can *ACTUALLY* do for that child. When the answer is nothing (I can not do anything *for example* for Nycindie's baby if I were to enforce a law forbidding her to abort) Aborted-the child is not subjected to ongoing abuse. (not saying that Nyc is abusive). Enforcing a law requiring the birth of the child increases the risk that the child will be abused. It increases the risk that the child will be abandoned. It increases the risk for the child-in every way.....

Do I think that my unborn babies could have been wonderful additions to the world? Sure-they COULD HAVE.
But they WOULD have been at risk of being murdered by their brother-who I was already responsible for. A child no one else was going to take. A child who needed MORE care and attention due to his mental health disabilities, brought on after birth, by an abusive mother..... (he's my stepson). I already made that commitment. That 4 year old boy NEEDED ME. The unborn baby I was carrying needed me too. Which comes first?
There's no good answer. But-
knowing that medically speaking, if I didn't terminate the pregnancy, I would be hospitalized and unavailable for the 4 year old and 1 year old and 8 year old standing in front of me-who did not have ANYONE ELSE who could and would take them; that made it EASIER. Not easy, easier.

I totally hear what you are saying-but I think you are failing to see the forest for the trees.
It hurts to know that people are people with the faults and failings that people come with. But denying that it is true, is to deny reality. We aren't all capable of meeting the needs of a child (with or without disabilities) and none of us, not one single one of us, is capable of assessing SOMEONE ELSE with complete confidence and ENSURING that they will follow through on GOOD parenting-for a child that they DO NOT WANT.
But we DO know from studying the effects of being unwanted; the damage that has on children. We DO know that people who don't want a child are less likely to put forth the extra effort (some will-but the stats say less do). We DO know that children who are unwanted are at higher risk of all forms of abuse, suicidal ideation, suicide, depression, anxiety...

We have to make our choices based on what we DO know and what we CAN ensure. Not on what we wish we could ensure...
 
@bofish hawking cannot talk, breathe or move independently. A child who was born with those disabilities would have chronic ill health and not be able to spend adequate time being educated. Next, their limitations would mean teaching them to get their needs met by communicating via a machine that responds to their limited eye and facial movements and that would take most of their limited life to .achieve. They'd more than likely die of a respiratory infection first. Hawking has the advantage of a mature.immune. system. What I'm saying is using him as an example of why we shouldn't abort a disabled fetus is a logical fallacy.
 
Loving Radience: I think you took my sentence wrong... there was no BUT in that sentence. Having two abortions doesn't lower you in my esteem at all. Did you read it - I THOUGH YOU WERE NICE, BUT NOW THAT YOU ARGREE WITH ABORTION, I DONT. LOL That's not what I meant at all! I said you are a nice person, I like your writing and ideas and agree with them. No Buts :)

Brigit: I have been on both sides of that situation.

I taught poetry at United Cerebral Palsy for years. I worked with people with various mental and physical disabilites. Sometimes they thought they were more capable of stuff than they were and this was hard.

I do have to say that UCP rarely, if ever, pushed independence. I do think this is because if the people left the organization would lose funding. UCP in fact calls the people who go there "consumers" which says it all. I did meet a few folks there who should have been in college but UCP would not promote that.

I also have to say because I also have CP, I was always treated like a 2nd class citizen rather than an employee. On a regular basis guards and attendants with high school educations were disrespectful and condescending to me.

The flip side: When I moved to NY with an ability to type fast and a Masters degree and four years experience, I went to work at a temp agency Rather than hiring me. they sent me to a "disabled" temp agency. I wanted to be a cashier at Macys (I had 3 years experience as a cashier and director of customer service in a highly trafficked museum shop). The woman at the temp agency told me I wasn't qualified to work at Macy's and gave me a mind-numbing data entry job. I quite that job because the open-minded Jewish people at JCC wanted a disabled employee and hired me to be an assistant to an excutive. When I quit the temp job they were pissed because the people I worked for complained they didn't want anyone because I was the best empolyee they had. I went onto be a high school teacher and professor (despite my typing errors). i finally quite and did go on SSDI and now I write full-time. Why? Well, if you have even a mild diwsability in the US, you have to push and push to get a job. I was sick of being turned down for job after job by people less brilliant than me because I didn't walk straight and had a slight speech impediment. I was FIGHTING to work???? What? I was also a person who GAVE up their SSDI in order to teach which I made very marginaly more money at. So, here's the situation. I teach at a job where I have to commute 2 hours, beg for that job, come up against prejudice every day because the students have no concept of disability and unlike gay and race disability studies and awareness and history is not taught in school AND make marginally more money.

How do you deal with parents who don't think their child is capable when he/she is? How do you deal with employers who only want abled employers? How do you deal in general with people who underestimate other's abilities?

Finally, what is the difference between a person who isn't marketable because of their impairments and a person who isn't marketable because they were raised poor and not educated or is on drugs or isn't motivated or the 1000 other reasons abled people are not a success? Is marketability what makes a person valuable?
 
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bofish said:
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.
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I'm not saying I would have aborted "my child". If indeed a fetus is nothing more than that then you aren't aborting a child, but what might be a child. The bigger question is whether I would want my child to have autism if I could choose and the answer is an emphatic no. So if we could eliminate autism from the gene pool by canceling every pregnancy that might end up being autistic then my child wouldn't be autistic.

All of this of course would be based on the theory that you aren't actually ending the life of an actual "child" when you have an abortion.

If indeed I had never had my special needs child due to a different sperm fertilizing the egg then I'm sure I would love that child equally and the burden on everyone involved including society would be much less. That burden includes the burden on my child himself who has to fight sooooo hard just to learn how to count much less understand why the world around him doesn't make any sense.

In my opinion if a fetus is nothing more than a fetus then aborting special needs fetuses is no different than genetically choosing a sperm which would have no autism gene in it, which I would be in favor of. There are certain traits that I think should not be ones to genetically remove from the gene pool because I think diversity is very important, but autism is not one of them. If I could cure every autistic child on the planet tomorrow then I would. If I can say that about it, then certainly I would be in favor of making sure the child who was born to me didn't have it to begin with.
 
Kdt, I think you misunderstand what autism is. It is a brain disorder. The brain literally does not function correctly. It is not just a social preference thing. The social issues involved in autism are difficult no doubt and usually derive from certain parts of the brain functioning incorrectly. It doesn't just function differently. It functions incorrectly. This causes all sorts of problems not just for society but the child themselves. My son for instance has sensory processing disorders. This does not just affect him socially. He can't process even some simple tasks. He can't recognize facial expressions. He has little ability to empathize and will likely one day be a danger to society because if it. All sounds come in at the same intensity and he has no ability to filter them out or send the sounds to the correct area of the brain to process them. Because of this his IQ is 58. He can't process his own emotions so he sometimes threatens to kill people because he is so amped up and he doesn't know how to control it over something as simple as losing a game on his I pad.

We love to talk about that one autistic kid who happens to be a genius at something to pretend like autism is a good thing. But for every one of those there are 100 more that can't even speak. And I've never once met a parent when asked if they could cure the autism in their child wouldn't give every dollar they had to make it happen.
 
Seeking Answers- I understand where you are coming from. I can never know exactly, but I can empathize and understand.
 
I wouldn't. But my child is relatively high functioning with an advanced IQ.
 
How do we choose who has marketable skills and who doesn't is based on what skills they possess and what skills are in demand in the job market in our area. We had one high functioning woman referred to us that we had to turn down. Yes, she had a college degree in office administration, but she had left the job market 20 years ago when her physical health declined. She no longer has an understanding of current office technology, she can no longer type the required speed for the job, is not familiar with current operating systems, MS office or any of the other required aspects of the modern day office work place. Can she learn them, probably, but my job is not to educate her, it would be to market her to an employer and I can't do that if she has no marketable skills in teh field she wants to work in. Is it sad, yes, but it is also the truth. And we call them consumers, because it is more respectful than clients (which sounds clinical and like they are patients rather than partners). We call them consumers because we offer a service and they are buying into our service. We could also call them customers, like some of the other local agencies do, but that would imply that we work for them instead of collaborating with them. *shrugs*

My son was born with an undetected birth defect in his ureters and had multiple UTI's and kidney infections at an early age. His kidneys and bladder were adult sized by the time he was 5 due to reflux. When he was young, the specialists wanted to wait until he potentially outgrew it for surgery. In the interim, my husband was discharged from the ARMY for medical reasons. The new specialist in our home state refused to believe our son's initial diagnosis and attributed his condition to being uncircumsized and early potty training, until he was hospitalized with a kidney infection at 3 1/2. It was only then that they agreed to operate. My husband and I chose not to have any other children after him believing that between his medical issues and my husband's, it would be unfair to any other children to have to be born into a situation where they would not get the fullest amount of attention that they deserved. I, thankfully, never had to have an abortion because my birth control has not failed since my son. But I understand those who choose abortion rather than subjecting their children to a life of hardship for whatever reasons
 
Re (from BrigidsDaughter):
"There are very few majors where accommodations would make sense for a paraplegic."
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I was wondering if you could go into a bit more detail with that statement? Do you mean the college couldn't afford the accomodations?

Re (from seakinganswers):
"KDT, I think you misunderstand what autism is. It is a brain disorder. The brain literally does not function correctly. It is not just a social preference thing."
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Right; agreed. I think I miscommunicated. If an abortion is chosen strictly for reasons of social preference, then that's a bad thing. However, choosing to abort because the child would have autism isn't necessarily a "social preference" thing and thus I'm not necessarily opposed to such a choice. In fact, I'm not necessarily opposed to aborting (what would be born as) a Downs child either. I'm just saying that there'd be a difference between one person who said, "I don't want to have a child who will suffer with/because of this disease, and/or I'm not willing/able to care for such a child," and another person who said, "Ewww! Downs? You mean my child'll be some kind of a retard? That's sick! I won't tolerate that in my home." Obviously I am exaggerating, but my point is, I'd be more concerned about the *why* than I would the *what* when it comes to abortion.

I know that a fetus is not literally a baby, and I am not an expert. But I have heard that a (sufficiently developed) fetus suffers when it is aborted, and for that reason, I think abortion should seldom or never be a decision that is made lightly.

A more complicated question (beyond the scope of this thread but related to it) would be, what if technology was so advanced that parents could hand-pick the DNA that their children would have? What if they could choose blue (instead of green) eyes? What if they could certainly choose an abled (not a disabled) child? Indeed, what if they could directly choose the kind of personality (e.g. pleasant rather than unpleasant) their child would have? Should humanity then choose to remove all disabilities from the gene pool? Indeed, would humanity then be morally obligated to remove all disabilities from the gene pool? No child (or fetus) would have to suffer through the abortion process in order to make that happen.

That's obviously not a question for this generation, but I'll bet it's a question some future generation will be asking itself. Perhaps people will be debating which disabilities should be removed and which should be saved. Perhaps people will be debating what counts as a disability at all. Perhaps people will be debating which non-disability traits should also be removed from the gene pool. If those debates are likely to confront our descendants, then I wonder if now isn't the time for us to start asking ourselves those questions. I'm too chicken to cast the first vote, but I'd probably go along with the idea of eliminating Downs and autism -- not eliminating living people who already have those conditions, of course, but eliminating the genes that would cause those traits in future generations. Note that I said I'd go along with it ... not that I'd be the first person to vote for it.
 
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K- This is interesting topic: Here is an article about a family who decided to have a disabled baby on purpose.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/liveonline/02/magazine/magazine_mundy040102.htm

As far as your other question - I would not eradicate disability myself, at all. I understand clearly both sides.

Side 1 - It is hell of difficult to raise a disabled child. It takes patience, finances, the child can be violent, they may need 24 hour care, they may never be independent.

Side 2 - Instead of getting rid of disabilities - society could embrace them and change their prejudice. The problem is that people with this type of thinking are the same people who say 'I'd rather be dead than be like you or have a child like you." Where does that put me?

Say we got rid of Downs...ok, how would we then secure the funding for people alive now with Downs?

Why would say a movie star with Downs have a worse quality of life or value than a abled-bodied drop out druggy. The issue with this argument (which I'm not totally disagreeing with) is that it starts with the premiss that being abled-bodied is best. And I don't buy that, necessarily. i think there are 1000 factors that go into whether a person is worthy and has a good quality of life.

From an outsider's perspective, and I've been told this many times, I don't have a good quality of life - and yet, I own property in NYC, have a good husband, two Masters, and a great poetry career.

Attitudes that we should get rid of disabilities make disability into the fault of the person. I see disablity as a societal issue, not a personal problem. It's not a problem that people use a wheelchair,. it's a problem that the store is not accessible.

Brigit - what would you tell some like me who is highly qualified and educated by faces prejudice in every interaction?
 
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KDT - People go to college with the goal of getting a career afterwards. So while, there are reasonable accommodations that can be made to allow a paraplegic or quadriplegic to attend class, they are severely limited in career choices by their disability AND that is without factoring in intellectual disability, which means that they are limited in their choice of majors by default. From my experience, the problem comes after an individual has attempted college (or even gotten a degree), because while the law says that employers must make reasonable accommodations, it also says that they must not be cost prohibitive. For example, putting in a ramp is not cost prohibitive, but structural changes may be. For example, a small business owner was willing to work with our program to hire people with disabilities, however, they were renting space in a strip mall and were not allowed to make changes to the plumbing or wall structures and as they were not a restaurant, were not required to have handicap accessible rest rooms. There for it was not reasonable for them to make the accommodations necessary to hire an individual who was paralyzed from the waste down and slowly losing their upper body function as well, even though that individual had many years of cashier experience.

Bofish - I don't know what to tell you. ACCESS-VR formerly Vessid, would have hooked you up with a program like mine and from the sounds of things, you would definitely be employeable in my area of upstate NY, but there seems to be less prejudice in my area. I am not very familiar with NYC and have only been their once.
 
kdt26417 said:
Re (from BrigidsDaughter):


I was wondering if you could go into a bit more detail with that statement? Do you mean the college couldn't afford the accomodations?

Re (from seakinganswers):


Right; agreed. I think I miscommunicated. If an abortion is chosen strictly for reasons of social preference, then that's a bad thing. However, choosing to abort because the child would have autism isn't necessarily a "social preference" thing and thus I'm not necessarily opposed to such a choice. In fact, I'm not necessarily opposed to aborting (what would be born as) a Downs child either. I'm just saying that there'd be a difference between one person who said, "I don't want to have a child who will suffer with/because of this disease, and/or I'm not willing/able to care for such a child," and another person who said, "Ewww! Downs? You mean my child'll be some kind of a retard? That's sick! I won't tolerate that in my home." Obviously I am exaggerating, but my point is, I'd be more concerned about the *why* than I would the *what* when it comes to abortion.

I know that a fetus is not literally a baby, and I am not an expert. But I have heard that a (sufficiently developed) fetus suffers when it is aborted, and for that reason, I think abortion should seldom or never be a decision that is made lightly.

A more complicated question (beyond the scope of this thread but related to it) would be, what if technology was so advanced that parents could hand-pick the DNA that their children would have? What if they could choose blue (instead of green) eyes? What if they could certainly choose an abled (not a disabled) child? Indeed, what if they could directly choose the kind of personality (e.g. pleasant rather than unpleasant) their child would have? Should humanity then choose to remove all disabilities from the gene pool? Indeed, would humanity then be morally obligated to remove all disabilities from the gene pool? No child (or fetus) would have to suffer through the abortion process in order to make that happen.

That's obviously not a question for this generation, but I'll bet it's a question some future generation will be asking itself. Perhaps people will be debating which disabilities should be removed and which should be saved. Perhaps people will be debating what counts as a disability at all. Perhaps people will be debating which non-disability traits should also be removed from the gene pool. If those debates are likely to confront our descendants, then I wonder if now isn't the time for us to start asking ourselves those questions. I'm too chicken to cast the first vote, but I'd probably go along with the idea of eliminating Downs and autism -- not eliminating living people who already have those conditions, of course, but eliminating the genes that would cause those traits in future generations. Note that I said I'd go along with it ... not that I'd be the first person to vote for it.
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Sounds like you and I probably agree. I would say the one way you could draw a line in the sand would be similar to how psychologists draw a line in the sand. If a disability whether it be autism, schizophrenia, or no legs is considered debilitating then it's worth eliminating from the gene pool. If its considered aesthetic like how many fingers you have or the color of your skin or even the sex of the baby. Or a mental personality thing like ADD, then you roll the dice and I think it would be unethical to start making those changes.
 
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