This
blog got featured on Momaroo recently. It asks if you would consider abortion if you found out your baby had a disability while in utero. I was appalled and disheartened by the number of women who answered in the affirmative. I realize and understand the pro-choice/pro-life debate is tied into this as well, but I am talking about the reasons WHY these women were thinking about abortion.
My baby will be looked down upon and excluded.--Who says? It's 2009 and not everyone acts like that anymore.
There are so many support groups out there for mothers of kids with disabilities and these people will accept you with open arms. The world is such a huge place--not everyone will behave as you think. People are more accepting of disabilities than in the past. Do you really think death for your child is a better choice than him living a less-than-normal life?
It's not fair to the child to grow up in a world with such conditions.--What's truly not fair is that you are making that decision for your child. He has no say in the matter. Every life deserves a chance to live. Life isn't fair, but everyone of us deals with it. Don't take the easy way out just because you don't
think you can handle taking care of a handicapped child. You will never
know until you have to ford those waters.
These aren't even good reasons to have an abortion! Have you ever considered the possibility of false positives? Doctors can't even tell us 100% for sure if your baby will be a boy or a girl. Would you trust the life of a child to a test?
Say you
do have a perfectly healthy baby. Who's to say that that child won't come down with a disability later in life. Accidents do happen. You cannot say to that child, "Oh, life will no longer be fair for you. The world will be cold to you." There are no guarantees in life.
Have you ever met a person with a disability? They are more than their handicap. They bring light and laughter to the people around them. Today I saw a baby with Down syndrome. She was playing with her father and both of them were giggling. Imagine, a grown man giggling! He was so happy with her and it just goes to show that
a life of disability is not a lesser life.
Comments (173)
i replied to that post. no i wouldnt abort my own child for it having a disability. it is its self and it won't know any different. if someone were to look down on a child for its disability is sick.
"Who says? It's 2009 and not everyone acts like that anymore."
Wow you're naive. Kids are just as cruel as they ever were. The year isn't going to change that.
I personally wouldn't get an abortion for any reason however I'm not going to put down others for their choices either. Nobody needs to defend themselves for their beliefs.
Thanks for this - I think the person who wrote that didn't really think through what they were saying. My main point in commenting was that, as you said, you can never trust a test 100%, and that the world, for the most part, isn't horrible for disabled people. If you are going to say that - you could say that the world is cruel to Jews, and African-Americans, and...women. Should we consider aborting them too?
Don't masturbate, those sperm are all babies that deserve to LIVE! How dare you MURDER them!!
Sorry, but early in a pregnancy I don't think abortion is a moral issue. The author gives a picture of a woman about to drop as if that is when most abortions take place, when it isn't actually true.
Oh, and 1 in 3 pregnancies naturally end in miscarriage. More "babies" are killed by nature's design than by deliberate abortions.
I missed that post I guess.....
I am pro-life all the way. I could never take the life of my child...born or unborn, for any reason. I just can't understand the minds of those who think they can justify it.
I don't think I know a single person who was born with some kind of disability that would say, "I wish my mom would have aborted me." I think they are happy to have a chance at life, no matter what kind of difficulties it may bring. Who doesn't have difficulties in their life anyways, even if they were born perfectly fine and healthy?
Just because a woman is capable of getting pregnant and carrying a baby...it doesn't not give her the right to decide whether that baby lives or not. At that point, it is not just "your body" anymore. You share it with another person and you don't have that right. If you think you can't handle it for whatever reason, you should at least give that baby a chance and let someone who wants that baby despite any health problems, love and raise it like it deserves.
@agnophilo@xanga - then why kill more . . . ?
@xnotxbeautifulx@xanga - Why have an abortion? Because you're not ready to be a parent, you can't support a child, you have health problems which can create childbirth complications etc.
Basically the same reason you should learn sex ed and use a condom.
What is the big moral shame about early abortion?
Why is preventing a person from existing the moral equivalent of killing one that's already here?
Christians oppose early abortion because "the soul enters the zygote at the moment of conception" (the bible doesn't actually say this, but they've got it into their head that it's a christian teaching). But if that's true than god aborts more fetuses than we do anyway.
http://www.catholic.org/hf/faith/story.php?id=34297
In Spanish "aborto" is the word used when either talking about abortions or miscarriages. And, in medical terms, a miscarriage is referred to as a "spontaneous abortion." Meaning they are the same thing.
Imagine driving a car... You hit a kid that ran into the street, and they die. You're charged with vehicular manslaughter.
You get pregnant. You don't know about it and you drink some alcohol (or fall down stairs, or use drugs, etc...) and the child dies. Do you suffer jail time because of it? No, you wouldn't. Because at this stage of the game it's not a life you took.
Now, to re-answer the question...I may, possibly, terminate a pregnancy if I knew. And for this reason, when I was pregnant, I did NOT choose to take the optional tests telling me if my child was going to have cystic fibrosis or down's syndrome.
"Who says? It's 2009 and not everyone acts like that anymore."
Yeah, and two days ago I got in a car crash and some kids walking by laughed at me. nothing has changed.
I went to Elementary School in the late nienties/early two thousands, and there was a boy in my class who was disabled [I don't remember the exact disability, as I was very young]. I constantly saw him taunted, mocked, and excluded. Things dont get any better in middle/high school, infact they may even get worse. People say awful things to people about things they can't control. I myself suffer from depression, and I'm constantly being mocked and put down, even though it's out of my control.
Yes, as you mentioned, when you're disabled you can still have a beautiful life. But I don't think it's fair to put ANYONE through the horror of kids in school if they're disabled.
I guess that didnt really clear up my beliefs on this. My only point is, yeah, it's 2009, and kids are cruel as ever, if not more because of technology.
I agree with what you just said...thanks for posting this!!
@agnophilo@xanga - If someone cannot take care of their baby they should give it away for adoption rather then take away a life. Don't have sex unless you're ready to have kids, that's my reasoning.
The big moral shame about abortion: a "zygote" as you say, has the potential of becoming a baby. That baby has the potential to become the person who finds the cure for cancer, who is a great artist, a loving husband/wife, or the scientist who finds an alternative fuel. Who am I to take away that potential? Einstein was thought to be retarded, if his parents had aborted him, we would lack knowledge that we use today. That my friend is the big moral shame, taking away a potential person.
And I love how you immediately condemned Christianity even though I didn't say anything about religion . . . tolerant much?
i agree with you 1,000% !!! people who would terminate their pregnancy over a handicapped child is selfish.
and what's to say if they get pregnant again, then the test says positive again? are you just going to abort any child thats not up to your standards? if you've had too many abortions your chances of having a full term pregnancy lower.None of you are taking into account the original author's heritage, culture and upbringing. Certain social groups still do shun those that are different wether it be appearance or intelligence. It happens all the time, everywhere.
I personally feel that if a parent does not think or KNOWS they are not emotionally capable of handling a handicap child that they have every right to terminate their pregnancy before the fetus becomes viable outside of the womb. I don't know if I personally would do this, but I am glad that I have the right to make the decision. I also don't think its ok for a parent to abandon a child with disabilities to the "system".
i feel like the last post was misconstrued. just because someone will consider it doesn't mean they will abort their fetus. i believe in being able to choose, so i will always support someone's right to consider abortion. the other post was written under the premise that the baby does have a genetic defect that was detected, not that a test came back positive, and one wasn't sure of its validity.
also, sonograms get the sex of the baby wrong because doctors are visually trying to see genetalia, and that's not always easy. with karyotyping, it's pretty hard to miscount the number of chromosomes or mistake an X for a Y.
@xnotxbeautifulx@xanga - einstein didn't have a chromosomal abnormality. it was only thought that he was dyslexic because he was supposedly slow to speak and read.
@agnophilo@xanga - Those tests are not done early enough to allow early abortion of disabled babies. By the time these tests are done the baby has a beating heart, controlled movements, and brain activity.
Yes, a lot of zygotes never implant, or are naturally aborted by the mother's body. Does that make it right to purposefully abort healthy zygotes? By that logic, since people are hit be cars and killed every day it's ok to run down pedestrians who are in your way.
Personally I could never abort a baby for having downs or another defect any more than I could kill a newborn or an adult with the same defect. I also have never met a disabled person who wished they had been aborted. BTW, I'm an RN who currently works in home care.
If I had a pregnancy that could not be carried to term because of some crazy health condition I would not have an abortion. I would have labor induced and birth the baby and allow it to die naturally while warm and comfortable if survival was not possible. In abortions babies are cut apart while alive or have their skin burned off with salt until they are dead. That is unbelievably inhumane and I could never subject my baby to that, no matter what the situation was.
Thanks for writing this. I agree with pretty much everything you said; it's generally how I responded when I read that post from a week or two ago.
@xnotxbeautifulx@xanga - I do have a slight issue with that argument - you could also be aborting the next Hitler, you know? But regardless, I would consider it, but I wouldn't be able to do it. I plan on forgoing those tests, because I know I'll still have the baby, and I don't want to spend my pregnancy stressed and worried. Life only gives you what you can handle, right? Wishful thinking or not, that's how I live.
@Riftsong@xanga -
"Those tests are not done early enough to
allow early abortion of disabled babies. By the time these tests are
done the baby has a beating heart, controlled movements, and brain
activity."
I wasn't even talking about that. Btw I'm pro-choice, but against late-term abortions.
"Yes, a lot of zygotes never implant, or are naturally
aborted by the mother's body. Does that make it right to purposefully
abort healthy zygotes? By that logic, since people are hit be cars and
killed every day it's ok to run down pedestrians who are in your way."
Are you saying you believe running down pedestrians and having an early abortion are morally equivalent?
"Personally
I could never abort a baby for having downs or another defect any more
than I could kill a newborn or an adult with the same defect. I also
have never met a disabled person who wished they had been aborted.
BTW, I'm an RN who currently works in home care."
I'm pretty sure some people with severe disabilities or deformities wish at some point that they had never been born, but you're right, if the deformity was detected late enough in the pregnancy I would go on and have the child unless they were going to be in horrific pain or die very young or something.
"If I had a
pregnancy that could not be carried to term because of some crazy
health condition I would not have an abortion. I would have labor
induced and birth the baby and allow it to die naturally while warm and
comfortable if survival was not possible."
No, I mean a health condition that would kill YOU. Like some forms of diabetes. The movie steel magnolias is about a woman with diabetes who is told not to get pregnant, gets pregnant and the stress on her organs kills her. Happens all the time.
"In abortions babies are cut
apart while alive or have their skin burned off with salt until they
are dead. That is unbelievably inhumane and I could never subject my
baby to that, no matter what the situation was."
Actually that's total bullshit. It's misinformation popular on pro-life websites. The actual procedures are saline abortions and D&E procedures. Saline saline is lightly salted water, not napalm, it is used to induce uterine contractions and dislodge the fetus, ending the pregnancy, not "burn the fetus alive" as pro-life websites claim. So far as "partial birth abortion" which you're referring to, I did a blog about it awhile back, here is the link.
@SnowFrog@xanga - great post i agree with you
@whitetrashpoet@xanga - You never know what kind of child you are going to be gifted with. You won't know if your baby is the next Hitler or the next St. Teresa. I do know that every baby should be loved though, not aborted because someone cannot deal with a child at that time. Adoption :)
@MissPixieGlitter@xanga - Some researchers claim that in Einstein's childhood he experienced mild forms of autism or Asperger's sydnrome. Simon Baron-Cohen, who is the director of autism research at Cambridge University even believes this and has written about it.
Also once people start deciding that being mentally or physically retarded is bases enough to abort a baby, they'll also decide that any other issues that are wrong with a baby are going to mess with that person's life. So why not just kill that baby until you get a perfect baby? Which is never going to happen, humans aren't perfect.
@PoetMcChick@xanga - "And, in medical terms, a miscarriage is referred to as a "spontaneous abortion." Meaning they are the same thing."
If they were the same thing, the word "spontaneous" would not be used. Spontaneous abortion means that the death of the child was natural and outside of the mother's control. An abortion is a deliberate termination of a living child. Not even close to being the "same thing."
@BunnyParfait@xanga - @ChelseaSmilesMore@xanga - I'd rather be optimistic and naive than a hopeless cynic.
@RoAngie467 - Who said anything about someone being a hopeless cynic? If anything that's what you're being. Why are you so rude to others because they're far less naive and far more realistic than you could dream of being?
@Ancient_Scribe@xanga - Thank you for the link. Beautiful story.