Sunday, 11 October 2009
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Aborting Babies with Special Needs
When my aunt was 18, she had an abortion. Their was a great possibility that the child could have been born with the elephant man disease, Elephantitis. She felt she was too young to handle the responibility of having a special needs child. Especially not that young.
When my fiance and I went to get out sequential screening [testing for down syndrome, trisomy 18, or an open neural tube defect such as spina bifida] we decided that unless he had some life or death type of problem I would not abort. Unless our son would have died regardless. Thankful, none of that was ever a problem. He was just weighing a bit small and ended up seven weeks premature. But he is doing great. It has been a little tough, especially the first 25 days when he was still in the hospital, but I wouldn't have traded him for the world.
If you were faced with the possibility of your child being special needs, would you abort?
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About the Author
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- From: alternative_mom@xanga
- Name: alternative_mom
- About Me: I'm a different kind of mom. I'm not your typical SUV driving, suburban mom. I'm younger than some mothers. My step daughter was born April 27, 2006 and my son February 15, 2009. He was seven weeks early and spent 25 days in the NICU. I'm currently not married to his father but we are planning to elope here really soon. His father truly is my soul mate and means the world to me. I currently don't work but I just completed my first semester of college but sadly I will no be returning due to school issues. I love my son with my everything. But I definitely feel I have a different take on motherhood and parenting. And life in general.
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Comments (113)
No, like you said unless it was a life or death situation only then would I abort, and even then it would be a tough decision. I'm married but don't have kids yet, but that is in the future with our plans.
i used to think yes, but after thinking about it, no. every life has a purpose. unless of course like you said it was life-or-death, even being a christian i think no life is better than horrible, painful, short life.
Not even in a life or death situation. I don't believe it is my place to decide when an innocent life should end, even if I was the one in danger of losing my life.
I HAVE to put my faith in God and believe that He would present to proper solution for my husband and I.
As I have stated many times; I am the proud mother of the most beautiful little girl in the world who happens to have Down syndrome. Nope, nope, nope...she is the best gift I have ever been given.
I know I'm going to get a lot of hate on this, but there is a probability that I would. But this issue has been on here so many times already...
No way. It would be hard, but no baby deserves to die just because it would be harder to handle than a normal kid. Only if birthing it would kill both me and the baby, like a tubular pregnancy or TTP, would I resort to an abortion.
@Lil_Firefly_25@xanga - I'm with you. There is a possibility I would as well. The abortion issue is always so touchy so I don't want to go into details!
No. I even struggle with whether or not I'd abort with a tubular pregnancy. I think I'd wait until the baby's heart stopped beating on it's own (it always does eventually) and just risk a burst tube. I know it's dangerous, but I just don't think I could kill a baby like that.
There was a couple in Chicago who went in for an ultrasound and were told that their baby had spina bifida. The hospital practice live birth abortion, which was considered by them to be the most humane (this method uses induced labor to force premature delivery, then the baby is wrapped in a small blanket and held by a the parent or a nurse until it dies or, if no one wants to hold it, it was placed in a closet next to the sink or on a shelf to die). Upon the baby's birth, to their shock the baby was perfectly normal, and the cause of the misdiagnosis was the unknown presence of the baby's twin, which also died. Both babies were perfectly healthy.
Now I don't share this true story to guilt anyone, but to put out there that we must remember that when we are talking about abortion, we are talking about a human life, regardless of its developmental condition, disease or not.
My mother was for several years an in-home nurse and took care of a young boy named Anthony. He had several developmental disorders, including one that resulted in the under-development of his legs. He could not walk; the best he could do was shuffle around on his knees, and boy could that kid do it quickly! As he got a little older, the curvature of his spine became such that they removed two ribs and used them as splints to straighten it, just so he could breathe. He also had to have a trachiotomy. He died when he was thirteen, having lived a very full life.
One thing he said once has always stuck with me. Someone asked him if he was ever angry at God for having made him the way he is. I don't think Anthony was even ten years old when he said this, but his response was, "I think that before I was born, God was showing a bunch of people all these different bodies and came to this little broken one and said, "Who will take this body?" And I think I said, "I'll take it so that someone else can have a perfect one."
Anthony was probably one of the most happy and joy-filled people I have ever met.
@gwacemom - God BLESS you!
I, to be perfectly honest, struggle with this one. I'm pro choice (although that doesn't necessarily mean pro abortion) and after reading that Jodi Picoult book Handle With Care, I started to wonder about this. I think my opinion has changed now that I have two daughters. Before, I would have said I would keep the baby regardless because that's what would have felt the most right. Now, I don't know.
On the one hand, any serious complications in a pregnancy and child can completely damage a family emotionally, spiritually and financially. The other children may suffer because of the one different child and that's not really fair to them. On the other, how can I explain to my daughters that yes, we adopted them and chose them and love them but we got rid of another child because we didn't think we could handle it.
And then, to throw a wrench in all of it, my husband and I ARE open to adopting a child with a health issue like Hep B or HIV positive status. So how could we draw a line and say these medical concerns are acceptable and these other aren't? But on the other hand, I don't know how well I would handle a child with spina bifida or Down's or any other serious physical complication.
I think it's not our place to judge someone who does make that decision (not that any comments have) and I think it's good that we have the right to make that decision.
no
No. People with special needs can have amazing lives, and I do not want to be the person responsible for preventing that from happening. I'm not God.
@Lil_Firefly_25@xanga - I have to agree with you; I think this topic has been asked and answered many times over. No offense to the author, more a suggestion to the editors that perhaps we find new topics.
New topic please.
@averyswife@xanga - They're actually starting to develop a procedure where they remove the fetus from the fallopian tube (or wherever - ectopics can develop outside the uterus entirely, anywhere in the pelvic/abdominal cavity, though it's rare) and they implant it into the uterus. It's not perfect yet, but they're trying!
I am completely pro-choice.
And still I would not abort a child with special needs unless those needs were incompatible with life, e.g. brain/heart/lungs not developed/not present, etc. I will deal with mental or physical handicaps as long as I know that I will not give birth to a child that will certainly die in pain shortly after.
And I would abort if my life was in serious jeopardy. My husband supports whatever decision I would make, but he has said that he would be devastated to lose me and raise our child without me.
But I won't judge anyone for choosing to abort in those cases.
I used to think NO way. But Now I am not truely sure,. Over the course of the last few months I have learned to realize not everyone is face value and that people may say one thing and do another. So unless I was there and was facing it head on it is really hard to say..
***I am sure to be mocked and made fun of soon as I always am buy certian people cause I disagree****
Such a hot topic, but I have to say, I'm quite impressed with the level of respect women are having for each other on this thread regardless of where they stand on the issue!
My husband and I opted to skip out on those kind of tests. We knew that regardless of what the situation, barring immediate threat to my own life, we would be having our baby no matter what. Thankfully, we have been blessed with a perfectly healthy little guy.
We aren't planning on being pregnant a second time for a few years, but I will say that our standard will remain the same. I know that there are women who would carry to term a child whose existence threatens their (the mother's) lives, but I honestly don't know what we would do. I want to say that it wouldn't matter, but I don't know if I could knowingly do something that could possibly leave my oldest son without his mother and my husband without his wife. I don't think that's selfish when you're considering the well-being of the others in your own family.
But like I said, this isn't a situation that I'm currently facing, so I really don't have any real input because unless I'm faced with this would I know what I would do.
No, only if their life or mine would be in danger.
nope, didn't even get any testing done because I would have kept the baby regardless
that's a really hard situation. i do not think i would get an abortion. it would be really hard, but i would love my baby regardless.
No, there are four special needs people in my family, all ranging from 3years to 16years (all having diffrent needs) and they are the most colorful parts of our family. All of them are absolute dollbabies and I wouldn't trade in any of them so I sure as heck wouldn't give up my own child just because they would be diffrent. Grant it, those four can be a handful and do have special needs but, just being in our family and all the love they bring more than makes up for it.
Good golly no.
No, I would not. My second pregnancy had a very rough start with me in the ER twice for excruciating pain. At first they thought it was a tubal pregnancy but ultrasounds showed it was not. When I went in to see an OB after that, she told me I should get an abortion because there was probably something wrong with the pregnancy (special needs) considering my visits to the ER and pain. I told her flat out I would do no such thing and switched doctors immediately.
That baby is my youngest daughter - who is not a special needs child. Healthy, and beautiful. She just turned one. Every day I see her walking around, laughing, smiling, and living...I'm so glad I did not listen to that stupid doctor.
Maybe. I think I would abort period unless I planned on having the child. I think that special needs children are still human beings (once they are born into the world), so I wouldn't say something like "oh this kid is gonna be retarded, might as well abort."