Ship of Fools: North Dakota, abortion, and Down Syndrome

Thread: North Dakota, abortion, and Down Syndrome Board: Oblivion / Ship of Fools.

To visit this thread, use this URL:
http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=70;t=030669

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

North Dakota has recently banned abortions for conditions such as Down Syndrome. Most folks who have significant disabilities, or who have children with significant disabilities, see this as a very good thing.

Others aren't so sure.

If we really want to protect the lives of the disabled, is an abortion ban the right way to do it? Will it work? Is the messaging important enough that it doesn't matter whether it works or not?

And what about the argument the author makes about what we should do, instead of restricting abortion?

quote:
If North Dakota really does want it to be “a great day for babies in North Dakota” and wants to prove that “a civil society does not discriminate against people … for their sex or for disability,” it should make the state a welcoming place for people with disabilities. The state could take the cash reserves it has put aside for legal challenges to its laws and use those funds to train public schools to be meaningfully inclusive (as all the best research shows is the way to go). It could provide easily accessible medical care and early intervention. The state could develop independent — but supported — housing for adults with intellectual disabilities so that there are not waiting lists years long. It could improve criminal justice responses to rape — indeed, North Dakota could become a state that works to prevent rape by training men not to be rapists.

It doesn't have to be either/or, of course. It could be both/and.

But if we want to protect the lives of children with disabilities, does it actually do any good to prevent them from being aborted, and not provide them with what they need for a decent life?

Is there any way to build bridges between (usually conservative Republican) people who oppose both abortion and welfare programs and (usually liberal Democratic people) who support a strong welfare state and the right to choose?

It seems to me that they should be able to craft an alliance that would be good for everyone (and in particular for people with significant disabilities).

So ... what do y'all think?

Posted by Leorning Cniht (# 17564) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

If we really want to protect the lives of the disabled, is an abortion ban the right way to do it? Will it work? Is the messaging important enough that it doesn't matter whether it works or not?

It is a fact that having a child with Down Syndrome is a lot more work than having a "normal" child. I have a relative with Down's, and she's wonderfully loving, and an absolute joy to be around, but raising her has been significantly more work for her parents, and that work will continue throughout her adulthood, because she's not able to live an unassisted life.

I wouldn't want to be without her.

However, if we are to permit people to abort their babies because they're not ready for a child, or for whatever reason a child doesn't fit in to the current circumstances of their life, surely we must permit people who think they have the resources - time, emotional, financial, whatever - to raise a normal child but not the extra required to raise a significantly disabled child to make that choice.

The only position I think is pretty much untenable is the one that says "abortion is wrong, unless the kid is disabled".

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Leorning Cniht:

The only position I think is pretty much untenable is the one that says "abortion is wrong, unless the kid is disabled".

Which is, weirdly enough, more or less the law in much of Britain. Abortion on grounds of disability, including Down's, can be carried out at any point up to birth, rather than the 24 week limit for "healthy" foetuses. It's not an idea that sits comfortably with me, I have to say. I can understand it for serious life limiting deformities, but the breadth of what is permitted seems excessive.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by Josephine
If we really want to protect the lives of the disabled, is an abortion ban the right way to do it? Will it work? Is the messaging important enough that it doesn't matter whether it works or not?

In a word, NO.

Worse, you are trying to argue for two different things: one, to protect (I think you mean improve) the lives of people already born; second, whether or not to allow the termination of foetuses before birth.

The church - we - should do out utmost to promote the passage of laws that make the practical elements of day-to-day life better/easier to manage for people with disabilities (and their carers if they cannot care for themselves). Under this umbrella should come legislation to protect such persons from discrimination on the grounds of their disability.

However, this is not the same as preventing people with those disabiities from being born.

Since it is biological fact that foetuses under a certain age are incapable of independent existence it should be argued that any "rights" they may have at a later stage in their development/life cannot be similarly applied before they reach that developmental stage since their very existence is entirely and wholly dependent on another (the mother) who cannot at this stage in their development be replaced by a third party.

As/when/if we reach the stage that a foetus can go from conception to full-term entirely outside the uterus then the situation will be very different.

Any proposed "ban" on abortions is effectively saying that for a period of time - from when pregnancy is known up to and including birth - a woman ceases to have full and final control over her own body: in effect, the state is placing itself as guardian ad litem automatically and, in so doing, depriving her of civil and human rights.

So, nice liberal people who aren't pro-choice: where next?

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

Can I just clarify, L'Organist, you support allowing abortion for any reason, at any stage of pregnancy?

Posted by lilBuddha (# 14333) on :

Let me preface this by saying I wish abortion were much more rare than it is. However, I am not comfortable with making abortion illegal.
----------
Simple answers are simply insufficient.

Downs Syndrome children are generally capable of a high quality of life. As adults they can maintain employment. There are congenital problems with which a person would have no quality of life, Downs Syndrome is not one of them.

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

Arethosemyfeet, I think that is a distortion of L'organist's position. S/he clearly said:

quote:
...foetuses under a certain age are incapable of independent existence it should be argued that any "rights" they may have at a later stage in their development/life cannot be similarly applied before they reach that developmental stage since their very existence is entirely and wholly dependent on another (the mother) who cannot at this stage in their development be replaced by a third party.

In other words, until the foetus is independently viable the mother should be allowed to choose whether or not to continue the pregnancy. Once the pregnancy reaches a stage where the foetus is viable, if the mother does not wish to continue the pregnancy, the state's interest in preserving the lives of its (potential) citizens would be best served by inducing the birth early and putting the baby in an incubator, not by forcing the mother to continue the pregnancy against her will.

Of course if the state has to pick up the bills for neonatal care, finding adoptive or foster parents and funding all the services that the baby will need for the rest of its life, the state may decide it is not quite as interested in preserving life as it thought it was. Intensive care for babies is expensive, and the adoption/fostering system is overloaded already.

UK law does recognise viability as an important developmental stage; 'normal' foetuses can theoretically be aborted up to 24 weeks, though in practice most abortions take place before 12 weeks. The recent attempt to lower the limit to 20 weeks was based on the argument that medical science has advanced to the point where babies born at this stage of a pregnancy can survive.

Posted by Luke (# 306) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
It doesn't have to be either/or, of course. It could be both/and.

Agreed.

quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
In other words, until the foetus is independently viable the mother should be allowed to choose whether or not to continue the pregnancy. Once the pregnancy reaches a stage where the foetus is viable, if the mother does not wish to continue the pregnancy, the state's interest in preserving the lives of its (potential) citizens would be best served by inducing the birth early and putting the baby in an incubator, not by forcing the mother to continue the pregnancy against her will.

But on what basis are the rights of the mother being made more important than the rights of the child?

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

But on what basis are the rights of the foetus being made more important than the rights of the woman?

Of course, the choice of nouns may be taken to indicate a particular slant on the part of the questioner. There are no neutral ones. Mother/child implies the primacy of the latter, since the woman is defined by her relatuonship with the offspring. Woman/foetus, by being opposed to the other version cannot be neutral, but implies the woman to be first in consideration, being the sentient party.

This is a tricky argument, of course, and not one which I would like to see being dealt with glibly, but a woman died in Ireland recently when one side of this argument was taken as more powerful than the other.

[ 17. April 2013, 12:26: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Luke:
But on what basis are the rights of the mother being made more important than the rights of the child?

Mostly on the basis of personal autonomy. The woman is considered to have a greater right to her own body, mostly because it is her own body, than the fœtus has to the woman's body. The alternative is that another individual has a greater right to control a woman's body than she does herself, and that this right can be legally enforced by the state. A situation where someone has a greater right to control your body than you do is sometimes referred to as "slavery".

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by arethosemyfeet
Can I just clarify, L'Organist, you support allowing abortion for any reason, at any stage of pregnancy?

No.

What I support is for a woman to be able to have an abortion on demand up to the stage where the foetus could survive independently of any outside aid suxh as ventilation, steriod injections to make lungs work pre-term, etc. So that would be at about 28 weeks.

After that abortion only on grounds of foetal viability OR after sexual assault.

Do I approve of terminations? No, but I can see ghastly situations where an abortion can be the only reasonable solution.

And before the howls start I very much do NOT imply that the lives of people with disability are not of worth; but I do think it reasonable to give the parent(s) of a foetus who can be proved to be going to be profoundly disabled the choice of whether or not they carry such a pregnancy to full term. Remember, not everyone has it within themselves to be able to cope with either the practical or the emotional demands of caring for and bringing up a profoundly disabled child and adult; as for the state stepping in, I think there is plenty of evidence that the state makes a poor parent.

And to ask someone who knows they are pregnant with a profoundly disabled foetus to give birth because there may be a chance that someone may wish to adopt such a child, personally I think that is cruel.

[ 17. April 2013, 15:48: Message edited by: L'organist ]

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by Luke
But on what basis are the rights of the mother being made more important than the rights of the child?

On the basis that the mother has already been born and is an independent being able to care for herself. The "child" (unborn so actually a foetus) having not been born is not an independent being and will not be so until it is born - in other words is outside the uterus, detached from the umbilical chord and breathing independently.

I think this is absolutely a given until you reach the stage where the unborn can survive independently without intervention - and by putting that at 28 weeks I'm being pretty optimistic.

Rather than arguing against all abortion the pro-life lobby would do better to argue against the sometimes laissez-faire attitude of some women towards contraception.

And to be taken seriously the pro-life lobby needs to stop punishing victims of sexual crime by trying to force them to give birth to their attacker's child, thus imposing a further burden of suffering on someone already traumatised.

There are no perfectly right answers in these sad cases but there can be absolutely wrong ones - and making a rape victim bear her rapist's child is definitely wrong.

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:

quote:
posted by arethosemyfeet
Can I just clarify, L'Organist, you support allowing abortion for any reason, at any stage of pregnancy?
No.

What I support is for a woman to be able to have an abortion on demand up to the stage where the foetus could survive independently of any outside aid suxh as ventilation, steriod injections to make lungs work pre-term, etc. So that would be at about 28 weeks.

And to ask someone who knows they are pregnant with a profoundly disabled foetus to give birth because there may be a chance that someone may wish to adopt such a child, personally I think that is cruel.

I'm not trying to be obtuse, but are you saying the rules should be different, as they are in Great Britain currently, for disabled foetuses or are you saying the 28 week limit you propose should apply to all viable foetuses except for protecting the life of the mother?

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

Arethosemyfeet

I am saying that until c28 weeks we should have abortion on demand - but with greatly increased effort to prevent repeat terminations (in other words get women to manage their fertility responsibly by using contraception properly).

After 28 weeks I think there are situations where a termination can be justified:

serious malformation - where the foetus would not be capable of independent existence
pregnancy resulting from serious sexual assault where the victim requests it
pregnancy resulting from incest - this is most likely in underage females who may well have been unable to report the pregnancy earlier

In the last two cases - pregnancy resulting from assault or incest - then it may well be that, rather than a termination, it is in fact induced labour: in which case the woman can be asked if she wishes to keep the child or not but NO pressure should be brought to bear to make her do so; moreover, in cases of incest any would-be adopters of such children must be made aware that the baby is the product of incest from the outset.

In the first case, if tests show there is catastrophic malformation then the pregnancy can either be terminated or labour induced: if the foetus breathes independently after birth and without medical intervention then the fact that the woman who carried it requested termination should mean that the child becomes a Ward of Court at birth and, if it remains alive, it is put up for adoption - if adopters cannot be found it is the state's responsibility to care for the child for its natural life.

Not perfect, I know, but then these are far from perfect circumstances. In a perfect world there would be a test for every abnormality, moreover all such tests could be carried out early in a pregnancy so that late terminations would become a thing of the past; however there are still foetuses that have abnormalities that don't show up on any scan, nor do they manifest themselves through amniocentesis or CVS.

The threat originally referred to Down's Syndrome: this can be tested for relatively early and so the decision whether or not to proceed with the pregnancy can be taken within the 28 week time limit.

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
After 28 weeks I think there are situations where a termination can be justified:
serious malformation - where the foetus would not be capable of independent existence
pregnancy resulting from serious sexual assault where the victim requests it
pregnancy resulting from incest - this is most likely in underage females who may well have been unable to report the pregnancy earlier

I can't help but notice that "danger to the life or health of the mother" is absent from your list, despite being one of the more common reasons aborting a late-term pregnancy.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

... Because I said on demand. After 28 weeks in England, Wales & Scotland you'd have an emergency caesarean if the health of either mother or foetus was at risk. Northern Ireland is another matter - but then you'd be in deep s**t if you lived in the Province in any case ... better than the situation south of the border on paper but the reality?

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
... Because I said on demand.

So if you're having a medical emergency (or anticipating something that will become an emergency if not dealt with), you have to claim to not want to do anything about it? Does asking for help while you're hemorrhaging count as a "demand"? The "on demand" terminology seems deliberately opaque. It's certainly not a phrase we ever see applied to any other medical procedure.

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

Luke:

quote:
But on what basis are the rights of the mother being made more important than the rights of the child?

I think Croesus, L'organist and Penny S have already answered this. But on what basis do you think you have the right to force an unwillingly pregnant woman to carry a foetus to term, regardless of any risk to her own life and health?

As a man, you will never be in this situation yourself. Perhaps you could consider how much you personally would be willing to risk - in time, money and physical danger - to save the life of a total stranger? If the answers are not 'nine months', '$X' [where X = whatever it costs to have a baby in North Dakota; presumably quite a lot of money if the woman has to pay medical bills herself] and 'willing to throw up every morning for about three months, look like a blimp for 4-5 months, endure agony for 24 hours or so and have your private parts permanently scarred' then you would probably have an abortion if you didn't want the baby, too. And that's not even considering situations where continuing the pregnancy poses a risk to the woman's life or where the foetus is so badly deformed it will die almost immediately after birth.

I do know someone who became pregnant after being raped and chose to keep the child, and I admire her greatly. But I don't think it is right to force someone to do this; as Croesus says, hijacking someone else's body for your own ends is usually called slavery.

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

IANAL, and laws differ in different places.

That said, where I live, the legal code requires parents to support their children. Where parents fail in this duty, parental rights can be terminated, the parents subjected to criminal penalties, and the children, if not adopted, can become wards of the state.

Given a legally-imposed duty to support children once they're born, I think the state should not also be able to mandate that families must bear children they have reason to believe they cannot support. Where I am, state and local supports for families with disabled children are, well, dismal.

This means that families pretty much bear the full physical, emotional, social, psychological, and financial costs of rearing a child with one or more disabilities. These can be enormous, and they're generally life-long.

Families who produce a child with a disability have a 1-in-4 chance of remaining intact. A horrifying majority of families with kids who have disabilities are headed by single moms (who, if they can work at all, earn at best 3/4 what a similar male head-of-household can earn), which effectively consigns those moms to public assistance where the disabled youngster requires full-time care. In addition, there are the sometimes daunting burdens of advocating (constantly!) for a child's learning needs in a public school system which has NO incentive to meet those needs (and the paperwork burden for this alone can be staggering); overseeing that child's possible unusually high medical expenses; purchasing fitted equipment for a child whose size naturally changes; dealing with the higher-than-average emotional and psychological issues that may accompany that child's development, and the fact that even where there are two parents, one may have to abandon his/her career in order to ensure the child's ongoing care -- give me strength.

Rearing a disabled child can be isolating, impoverishing, stigmatizing, and can eat up every iota of energy, time, and attention the responsible parent(s) can muster.

Since my state also has a loooong waiting list of adults with disabilities in dire need of services (and I suspect there are other states in this situation), with only a slim chance at present of seeing that list eliminated or reduced (budget constraints), I say, if states hold parents responsible for care, then parents must be able to decide for themselves about bringing disabled children into the world. There will still be disabled children born. Not every disability can be revealed through prenatal testing. And there's no shortage of disabilities which only appear (or are incurred) after birth.

If we're going to prevent families from electing termination where they lack the financial, emotional, physical, social, and psychological resources to cope, then states had damn well pony up with the Cadillac services and supports those families often need.

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

Too late to edit, but forgot to add:

Children with disabilities are twice as likely to be abused as nondisabled children.

Children with disabilities are five times as likely to be bullied as nondisabled children.

If Birth, excuse me, North Dakota wants to protect the lives of people with disabilities, start with what happens to them once they've been born. When we've got those issues sorted, they can start implementing their version of The Handmaid's Tale.

Posted by Arethosemyfeet (# 17047) on :

@L'organist: broadly agree with you then.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by Croesos
So if you're having a medical emergency (or anticipating something that will become an emergency if not dealt with), you have to claim to not want to do anything about it? Does asking for help while you're hemorrhaging count as a "demand"? The "on demand" terminology seems deliberately opaque. It's certainly not a phrase we ever see applied to any other medical procedure.

???

We're talking about a woman wanting or needing a termination here.

Pre-natal bleeding, up to and including haemorrhaging will always be seen as cause for concern and any woman will seek medical advice/help in a situation like that.

"On demand" means exactly that: I am pregnant, I don't want to be, the pregnancy is less advanced than 28 weeks therefore I want AND GET a termination.

As for a phrase not applied to other medical procedures: aesthetic cosmetic surgery? vasectomy? vaccination before travel? None of these are strictly necessary, all have to be requested by the person on whom the procedure is to be performed.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by Porridge

If Birth, excuse me, North Dakota wants to protect the lives of people with disabilities, start with what happens to them once they've been born. When we've got those issues sorted, they can start implementing their version of The Handmaid's Tale.

Agree totally.

And that situation is the same for the UK.

In the UK you can even be disabled BY THE PROCESS OF BEING BORN and not get help: friends with a severely disabled child (can't sit/swallow/speak) have only now been given a court date for a hearing - and now, finally, the hospital have admitted negligence: the child has just had 20th birthday... [Mad]

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
???

We're talking about a woman wanting or needing a termination here.

Pre-natal bleeding, up to and including haemorrhaging will always be seen as cause for concern and any woman will seek medical advice/help in a situation like that.

But what kind of help could she get, given that "medical necessity" doesn't appear on your list of legitimate reasons a pregnancy shouldn't be carried to term (if past the 27th week of gestation)?

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by Croesos
But what kind of help could she get, given that "medical necessity" doesn't appear on your list of legitimate reasons a pregnancy shouldn't be carried to term (if past the 27th week of gestation)?

Croesos: do you not understand how a late termination is carried out?

Pre c14 weeks a termination can be achieved by using the so-called abortion pill (mifepristone) which can be taken at home - result is something like a very heavy and painful period. Other methods are ventouse (suction) or D&C (also known as a scrape).

Post c14 weeks and pre-23 weeks you can still use mifepristone but (a) a much higher dose is required; and (b) it requires medical supervision in a clinic or hospital; it is vital that medical staff ensure the uterus is clear otherwise patient may get septicaemia. Plus in very rare cases there may be a risk of haemorrhage - so supervision. This need for supervision is why it can be preferable to use D&C for later terminations since one can then be sure that the uterus is clear.

Post 23 weeks foetuses are only going to get out by either vaginal delivery or caesarean.

If a later termination is necessary it will be achieved either by inducing labour or by performing a caesarean - they may call it "surgical termination" but a caesarean is what it is. So, a late termination is really early birth.

Croesos: your "medical necessity" is covered by the three grounds I give where a termination is sought. If you are thinking of a case where the mother's life or health is in danger then an early delivery will be done. - and whether or not the foetus survives is in the lap of the gods. If it is a late termination then no efforts will be made to assist the early foetus to breathe; if not, then medical intervention may be made to help the new-born breathe.

Late termination is very distressing for everyone - the mother as well as the medical staff. THAT is why any attempts by legislators, however well-meant, to make early termination more difficult or to bring down the gestation limit on terminations - may well bring about the very kind of terminations that they are most against.

Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
... pregnancy resulting from serious sexual assault ...

WTF is a "serious" sexual assault? Are there light-hearted or humorous sexual assaults? Flippant or casual sexual assaults? Or is this just another way of saying women lie about rape?

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

Soror Magna: I'm in total agreement with you about sexual assault - perhaps I've spent too long around people who frame charges etc? I didn't and don't wish to offend and I certainly do not view any kind of sexual assault as anything other than a violent infringement of basic rights.

I used the expression "sexual assault" because conception can occur without penetrative rape - rare, I agree but has been known.

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Post 23 weeks foetuses are only going to get out by either vaginal delivery or caesarean.

If a later termination is necessary it will be achieved either by inducing labour or by performing a caesarean - they may call it "surgical termination" but a caesarean is what it is. So, a late termination is really early birth.

Other way around. They may call it a cæsarian, but an early termination is what it is. Unless performed at full term, a cæsarian is a method of ending a pregnancy early. The pregnancy is being terminated prior to full gestation.

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Croesos: your "medical necessity" is covered by the three grounds I give where a termination is sought. If you are thinking of a case where the mother's life or health is in danger then an early delivery will be done.

Which is still a form of aborting (i.e. prematurely ending) a pregnancy.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by Croesos
Which is still a form of aborting (i.e. prematurely ending) a pregnancy.

...err in which case any woman whose live, wanted baby is delivered by caesarean section is, in fact, having an abortion??? [Confused]

Sure

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:

quote:
posted by Croesos
Which is still a form of aborting (i.e. prematurely ending) a pregnancy.
...err in which case any woman whose live, wanted baby is delivered by caesarean section is, in fact, having an abortion???

Only if the cæsarian is performed before full gestational term is reached. Abortion is the early termination of a pregnancy.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:

quote:
posted by Croesos
Which is still a form of aborting (i.e. prematurely ending) a pregnancy.
...err in which case any woman whose live, wanted baby is delivered by caesarean section is, in fact, having an abortion???
Only if the cæsarian is performed before full gestational term is reached. Abortion is the early termination of a pregnancy.

Where "early" means "before viability."

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

Thank you Josephine [Overused]

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:
Where "early" means "before viability."

This is a term whose definition alters with every infant and every technological advance in life-saving measures.

I was born 2 and 1/2 months premature (birth weight: 1 pound, 13 ounces) after a pregnancy complicated by hyperthyroidism and heavy smoking. I was "set aside" at birth as probably not viable and doctors went urgently to work on my mother, who was presenting life-threatening issues of her own (and already had three kids at home). When I failed to croak while they saved my mother, I was then provided with care myself.

My parent were advised to institutionalize me, since docs claimed I would never develop normally, either intellectually or physically. I am grateful to my father for rejecting this idea outright.

Nevertheless, it's also true that in that time and place, few children born this early or this underweight survived, partly because efforts to save them were then less advanced -- and also less often attempted.

Posted by Luke (# 306) on :

Jane, being a person I think I'm uniquely qualified to talk about whether or not unborn children are persons. The general consensus on this thread so far seems to be that the mother's "rights" (that's assuming "rights" are the best way to think about ethics) are more important then her baby's because she has, to borrow Crœsos' phrase, "personal autonomy."

However that's an inadequate definition of a human person. Does autonomy mean freedom to breath and eat? Surely there's more to a human person then whether or not they have the freedom to exercise their legal rights or whatever it is that being 'independent' means.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by Luke
Jane, being a person I think I'm uniquely qualified to talk about whether or not unborn children are persons. The general consensus on this thread so far seems to be that the mother's "rights" (that's assuming "rights" are the best way to think about ethics) are more important then her baby's because she has, to borrow Crœsos' phrase, "personal autonomy."

However that's an inadequate definition of a human person. Does autonomy mean freedom to breath and eat? Surely there's more to a human person then whether or not they have the freedom to exercise their legal rights or whatever it is that being 'independent' means.

"unborn children". I'm interested that you use that expression: do you refer to the undelivered progeny of equines as "unborn horses/mules/zebras"; do you eat "roast unborn calf" with your Yorkshire pudding? etc, etc, etc

"autonomy" - generally taken to mean freedom and/or independence: a creature attached to another by an umbilical cord which is its sole source of nutriment and life-sustaining substances cannot be said to be autonomous. We're not talking "freedom to breath and eat" as if this is an exercise in choice but as an ability to breath and eat without the intervention of another - human being or machine.

"independent" means exactly that.

If you want a literal, accurate definition of what a foetus is biologically then the answer is a parasite - an organism that lives on or in an organism of another from the body of which it obtains nutriment.

And before the howls of protest start:

Although rare, there is a condition that occurs where one of a set of mono-zygotic twins will become embedded within the body of the other and will be present as a mass of cells - sometimes teeth, hair, etc being present: these masses are called "parasitic twins".

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

Luke:

quote:
Jane, being a person I think I'm uniquely qualified to talk about whether or not unborn children are persons.

I'm a person, so I am also uniquely qualified. I happen to be a person who has undergone the experience of carrying and bearing a child, so I think that makes me more of an expert on the *practical* aspects of pregnancy and childbirth than you. This doesn't seem to have slowed you down at all, so let's move on. Unless you wish to argue that women are not really people?

You haven't answered my other question. How much trouble would you personally be prepared to go to in order to save the life of a total stranger?

[ 23. April 2013, 14:09: Message edited by: Jane R ]

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Luke:
being a person I think I'm uniquely qualified to talk about whether or not unborn children are persons.

Using this standard also qualifies a pigeon to discuss the flight potential of eggs, and a kumquat to hold forth on the juiciness of seeds.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by Porridge
Using this standard also qualifies a pigeon to discuss the flight potential of eggs, and a kumquat to hold forth on the juiciness of seeds.

How do we know that pigeons don't discuss the flight potential of eggs?

Actually, provided they are thrown the correct way an egg can be "flown" for quite a distance - I know because our quaint village fete has an egg-throwing competition (done in pairs) and the winning distance is usually somewhere near 30 feet. The rule is the egg must be caught intact for distance to count.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Luke:
Jane, being a person I think I'm uniquely qualified to talk about whether or not unborn children are persons. The general consensus on this thread so far seems to be that the mother's "rights" (that's assuming "rights" are the best way to think about ethics) are more important then her baby's because she has, to borrow Crœsos' phrase, "personal autonomy."

I think you missed the most important part of what Crœsos said, which is as follows:

quote:
The woman is considered to have a greater right to her own body, mostly because it is her own body, than the fœtus has to the woman's body. The alternative is that another individual has a greater right to control a woman's body than she does herself, and that this right can be legally enforced by the state.

It's not that her rights to her body are more important because she has autonomy. Her rights to her body are more important because it's her body.

That's why no one can demand that you donate a kidney, a lung, and half your liver to keep them alive, even if you are the only person on the planet who is a good match they will surely die if you don't. You can live perfectly well with one kidney, one lung, and half a liver. But they are your kidney, lung, and liver. You have a greater claim to them than anyone else, not because you are autonomous, but because you are a person, and you have the right to the integrity of your body.

That is the argument that is being made here. It's not about an abstraction like autonomy. It's about a woman's body -- her womb, her abdominal muscles, her blood, her skin, her heart, her lungs, her pancreas, her joints, her ligaments, her kidneys, her teeth. It's not an argument about whether the fetus is a person. It's about whether a woman has the right to control what another person does with her body.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Luke:
Jane, being a person I think I'm uniquely qualified to talk about whether or not unborn children are persons.

This is clearly a new use of the word "uniquely" with which I was not previously familiar.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

Luke, though, you got me sidetracked. I didn't want to argue about abortion rights on this thread. I wanted to explore what we might do to make it less likely that a woman who finds out she's carrying a child with significant disabilities will choose to have an abortion.

As an ardent pro-life Christian, what would you propose?

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

Josephine:

quote:
It's about a woman's body -- her womb, her abdominal muscles, her blood, her skin, her heart, her lungs, her pancreas, her joints, her ligaments, her kidneys, her teeth.

Sorry, I got sidetracked as well. Let's not forget:

Her time (going to medical appointments, giving birth, caring for the child, etc etc)
Her money (paying for aforementioned medical expenses, even if the child is given up for adoption)

And in some cases:

Her job (pregnant women are more likely to be sacked; women with children are perceived as being less reliable than other employees)
Her marriage/Significant Relationship (some men can't cope with the strain a disabled child puts on a relationship)
Her family (there is quite a lot of stigma to having a Downs Syndrome child, as if it were catching)

These are all issues that increase the likelihood that women will choose to have an abortion. They aren't doing it in a vacuum; the support they can count on from members of their family and the rest of society, the medical care available and the effect it will have on their job are all things they need to take into account. If they have no family willing to help, have to pay all their own medical bills and are likely to lose their job as soon as they reveal that they are pregnant, making abortion illegal is likely to drive them to suicide or a backstreet abortionist.

Making medical care free at the point of use in North Dakota would probably do more than any other single measure to reduce the number of abortions. Improving support services for families with disabled children would help as well. Educating people about Downs Syndrome and changing attitudes towards disability would perhaps remove the social stigma, though prejudice is often very deeply entrenched and difficult to change.

Of course, these measures would cost a lot more than simply making abortion illegal and don't come with a heartwarming dollop of misogyny.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by Jane R
Improving support services for families with disabled children would help as well. Educating people about Downs Syndrome and changing attitudes towards disability would perhaps remove the social stigma, though prejudice is often very deeply entrenched and difficult to change.

...You are still working on the premise that money, support, education will work like magic.

What you fail to address is that there are some people - men and women - who have the honesty to admit they do not want to be the parent of a severely disabled child.

Whether you consider this acceptable or not is beside the point: forcing someone to give birth when they don't want the foetus and don't want to go through the process of giving birth is unreasonable.

It is NOT the business of the state or the church or the "pro-life" lobby to force a woman to give birth to any foetus, regardless of condition of that foetus and regardless of whether the intention is that the woman be made to bring it up or it is given to others for adoption. It is her body, the foetus is in existence only through her, it is up to her what happens to it.

Posted by Jane R (# 331) on :

L'organist, I agree that nobody should force women to give birth if they don't want to. I am not a hardline pro-lifer as you've probably gathered. What I was trying to do was answer Josephine's question about what other measures (besides making the procedure illegal) might reduce the number of abortions. I don't think anything will get the number down to zero; the best we can do in an imperfect universe is remove the practical difficulties in the way of continuing the pregnancy.

Nobody has yet pointed out that in some cases the woman is persuaded or forced into an abortion by her family or husband/boyfriend. The anti-abortionists don't seem to be so interested in condemning them, for some reason.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
What you fail to address is that there are some people - men and women - who have the honesty to admit they do not want to be the parent of a severely disabled child.

I don't think very many people want to be the parent of a severely disabled child. But many are willing to be the parent of a severely disabled child, if they can figure out a way to manage it.

The practical difficulties of being a parent of a child with even mild or moderate disabilities are significant.

If a pregnant woman knows that the child is likely to be disabled, and is willing to be the mother of that child, what do the rest of us owe her and the child to allow her to do that? Is it "her choice, her problem"? Or do the rest of us have an obligation to help? If so, how?

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

The practical difficulties of being a parent of a child with even mild or moderate disabilities are significant.

. . . do the rest of us have an obligation to help? If so, how?

So let's consider what the rest of us already do for the nondisabled child.

1. In the U.S., at least, at a minimum, we school that child from K-12 (or K through dropout age, where that may be a factor and differs from age 18). We all kick in for the cost of this through various tax structures.

2. We require that parents provide adequate food, shelter, & clothing for that child birth through 18, and where parents cannot do this, we provide a range of public benefits in an effort to ensure adequate food, clothing, shelter.

3. Where parents refuse or can't begin to do this, we provide a foster care system in an effort to ensure that kids get all the above.

4. In some states, we also provide low-income kids with basic medical and (sometimes) dental care.

So we can start with the assumption that these items must be provided to all living children, with or without disabilities, since to do otherwise is to discriminate against a class of humans on the basis of characteristics over which they have zero control.

I.D.E.A., or the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act is meant to ensure a free appropriate public education for children with disabilities. This would work significantly better if it were funded differently. Right now, it's funded (at least in my state) primarily with local property taxes. This turns local taxpayers into adversaries of the families among them whose kids have larger-than-typical educational needs. If the feds would pony up the money for kids' SPED services, it would make Town Meeting Day in my state less of a horror show for the family whose kid needs hearing aids, a wheelchair, special transport, and a full-time aide in class, along with services from a speech therapist and an OT.

It would also help to recognize that some people with disabilities are able to do some work, and to set up the disabilities benefits system (not to mention the work "system" in such a way that those able to work are not penalized for doing so. Having a disability should not condemn an individual to permanent cripplingly-desperate poverty.

Respite care needs expansion. We need more respite workers, more kinds of respite, and more in-home supports.

I have a client who needs total care. When she awakes in the morning, she begins to vocalize her one and only word: "Ma!"

She utters this word roughly once every two seconds the entire time she is awake (less often while being fed, though it doesn't stop, and she often chokes as a result), and she is awake about 18 hours a day. She is "Ma!" now 32, "Ma!" and she "Ma!" has been "Ma!" doing this "Ma!" from about "Ma!" age 6 "Ma!". Her mom is single, has no other children, and gets 5 days of respite care a year where she gets some quiet time by herself. I can't speak for anybody else, but I personally am ready to bite holes in the windshield by the time I leave my home visits with this client, and how her mother has managed to keep from going utterly bonkers all these years I cannot begin to imagine. So: more respite care.

Supported work: This needs some re-thinking. Too often I've seen companies "hire" a worker with a significant disability, along with the support person, and "design" the supported job by dumping into it all the tasks that other workers would rather not do. NO. NO NO NO NO NO. If you're going to hire a supported employee, carefully design the job to fit the individual's strengths and skills. Carefully eliminate all the stuff that will frustrate, unnerve, rattle, and otherwise discombobulate the individual. Do NOT expect/demand the support person to pick up all the slack and do the job FOR the person with the disability.

Aargh. I have lots, lots more. But I just can't. It means, I guess, re-designing the entire universe.

Posted by Luke (# 306) on :

L'organist: So you're saying a human person is someone who can eat independently?

Jane R: Not sure why I need to answer that question. (I suspect it's a trick question designed to make me look like a meany, which you probably assume I am already.)

Jospehine, surely the unborn baby isn't merely an extension of the mother's body? For most of history and in much of the world the woman continues to sacrifice her body, her sleep, her energy and in some cases her job prospects for the infant, who for a while, is completely dependant on her care, just as he or she was inside the womb. In addition what you're saying seems ethically dubious: 'That someone dependent on another has fewer rights than the person they are dependent on.' To put it another way, autonomy should not equal preeminence over another's rights.

quote:
As an ardent pro-life Christian, what would you propose?

What you suggested earlier, better support for parents of disabled kids. I'd also want to see less of the first trimester scan for Down-syndrome.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by Josephine
I don't think very many people want to be the parent of a severely disabled child. But many are willing to be the parent of a severely disabled child, if they can figure out a way to manage it.

OK - so they're willing. And, as you say, they then have to figure how a way to manage it - which is for THEM, not the rest of us.

quote:
If a pregnant woman knows that the child is likely to be disabled, and is willing to be the mother of that child, what do the rest of us owe her and the child to allow her to do that? Is it "her choice, her problem"? Or do the rest of us have an obligation to help? If so, how?

What do we owe her: sympathy, compassion, such help as we (individuals) are prepared and able to give freely.

But if she makes that choice - and it is choice if she has been told pre-natal that she is carrying a foetus who will be severely disabled and she chooses to go forward to the pregnancy anyway - then it is up to her to find the way forward. Standard help as it available for all children - child benefit, etc - but it is not fair to expect "society" to pick-up an open-ended tab because she has made a conscious choice to have a severely disabled child.

"Society" should pay as much as it takes for children who are severely disabled because of catastrophic accident during the process of birth because that is not predictable. But it is entirely unreasonable to expect "society" to fund the long-term care of a child who has been born after tests have been carried out which show there is no chance of independent living.

If the woman, or couple, in the case are "pro-life" that is their choice, but equally it is then up to them to find a way - perhaps with other "pro-lifers"? - to make it possible for the damaged child to be cared for.

It cannot be right or fair for a particular interest group to force the rest of us to give them a blank cheque to fund the consequences of their beliefs when those consequences are not inevitable.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by porridge
I have a client who needs total care. When she awakes in the morning, she begins to vocalize her one and only word: "Ma!"

Do we assume that this "client" has never been able to communicate in any way? If so, then how have they become your client: it is the mother who is your client, surely? (Sorry to be nit-picking, but...)

The birth of this person, at 32 years old, presumably took place before reliable testing was available and therefore her mother is due all the help it is possible to give to enable her to cope with this severely damaged child.

However, had she had a reliable test and then CHOSEN to have the child anyway I would say that society had no more duty to provide, either financially or practically, for this child than for any other.

Luke
Like the way you pick me up on one thing - yes, children can't eat independently until they can use a knife and fork, I'll give you that. So, I should have said a foetus who has the potential to eat independently.

I note you make no attempt to answer any of my other points.
[Devil]

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
Do we assume that this "client" has never been able to communicate in any way? If so, then how have they become your client: it is the mother who is your client, surely? (Sorry to be nit-picking, but...)

Personally, I work pretty hard at not assuming things about my clients (I'm human and fail, of course). What I know is that my client, and that IS the nature of our relationship, has not yet consistently made other word-like vocalizations, and frankly, "Ma!" may only be a noise and not a word, since I have no evidence the syllable carries actual meaning (i.e. a label for her primary caretaker) for my client. Her mother believes the syllable is a referent to herself, and I go along with this, as she seems to derive comfort from her belief, and this in turn is of benefit to my client.

When pregnancy began, mom was a low-income single teen (and though never in the disabilities system herself, might actually qualify; she seems pretty slow on the uptake) on her own mom's state public assistance. The pregnancy + her single status made her eligible for state aid. Grandmother has since passed away.

Theoretically, pregnancy also entitled mom to prenatal care in the state where I live. Unfortunately, my state's Medicaid reimbursement rates for OB-GYN services are so low (and malpractice suits so common, according to docs) that very few doctors will take on such patients, and the few who do are solidly booked-up. Mom got free pregnancy testing from Planned Parenthood, plus a couple of checkups as pregnancy progressed when she could actually make it to the clinic (no transport, public or private). If there was prenatal testing, there's no record of it in my agency's files.

Why is her daughter my client and not the mom?

Daughter was clearly disabled at birth. Birth to age 3, daughter was therefore entitled to Early Intervention Services under state law; then entitled to FAPE in public school under state and federal law, and on reaching age 21 and aging out of the public school system, was "entitled" to disability services under state law. I use scare quotes because the original legislation was in fact a guarantee of fairly good services, which the state ran under Medicaid, for adults we were then busy restoring to community settings under supervision while we closed down our one and only institution serving people like my client.

During my client's growing-up years, that law was gutted, and basically means that adults like my client are "entitled" to whatever services the state scrapes up a few dollars for, and which vary enormously from one legislative session to the next. My client is currently on a waiting list for housing, a waiting list for several specific therapeutic services, and a waiting list for a case manager. My job is to design services intended to keep the client from deteriorating, apparently in order that she can be placed on further waitlists for those services.

Whatever I/my agency recommends that can actually be implemented must be justified as being for the client's benefit, not the mom's. We can never assume their interests are the same.

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
However, had she had a reliable test and then CHOSEN to have the child anyway I would say that society had no more duty to provide, either financially or practically, for this child than for any other.

I wasn't involved in this particular case that early on (only in the last roughly 10 years).

But as noted above, the mom currently presents as somewhat cognitively challenged. I have no idea if she could have grasped the implications of any testing if she'd had tests, and if they were then available. It's quite possible the pregnancy resulted from rape, at least statutorily. She has never shown the slightest interest in men (or women) or sex since I've known the family. Caring for my client -- which she actually does quite well -- is pretty much the sum total of her existence.

Beyond that, I fail to see why, when a parent makes a decision we disagree with, we should take our anger out on the kid. If client's mom were smart, had had tests, knew her baby would never be self-supporting, and decided to go forward anyway, what happens to the baby when mom, 2-3 years later, abruptly realizes it's all much harder than she expected?

Do we really want to penalize the child for the parent's lousy judgment?

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Luke:
Jospehine, surely the unborn baby isn't merely an extension of the mother's body? For most of history and in much of the world the woman continues to sacrifice her body, her sleep, her energy and in some cases her job prospects for the infant, who for a while, is completely dependant on her care, just as he or she was inside the womb.

No, post-birth an infant is dependent in a very different way than it's parasitic attachment inside the womb. For starters, despite your obvious assumption that child care is inherently "women's work" there's no actual necessity that the birth mother be the one who "continues to sacrifice her body, her sleep, her energy and in some cases her job prospects for the infant".

quote:
Originally posted by Luke:
In addition what you're saying seems ethically dubious: 'That someone dependent on another has fewer rights than the person they are dependent on.' To put it another way, autonomy should not equal preeminence over another's rights.

I think it's even more ethically dubious to claim that one person has a "right" to the use of someone else's body, and that this right can be legally enforced by the state. For whatever reason this kind of thinking only seems to apply the uterus. The ethical problems inherent in the government enforcing a kidney patient's "right" to some else's healthy kidneys seem a lot more obvious for some reason. Perhaps it goes back to the assumption of what constitutes "women's work".

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by Porridge
Beyond that, I fail to see why, when a parent makes a decision we disagree with, we should take our anger out on the kid. If client's mom were smart, had had tests, knew her baby would never be self-supporting, and decided to go forward anyway, what happens to the baby when mom, 2-3 years later, abruptly realizes it's all much harder than she expected?

Do we really want to penalize the child for the parent's lousy judgment?

I agree its a tough call, but if a situation is that Mum has tests, is bright enough to take on board the results show a severely damaged foetus, and decides to go ahead anyway then why should "society" pick-up the pieces when she wants to bail out.

It's not about "taking out anger" but rather not succumbing to moral blackmail.

The key word here is CHOICE. Don't forget that before any woman has this sort of test she will receive counselling about the possible results.

More so, when a test result is given that the foetus is catastrophically damaged the psych/counselling team will have several sessions with any woman - especially is she says she is going ahead with the pregnancy - to point out in graphic terms just what is wrong, what the consequences will mean for the foetus, and what the reality of daily life will be.

We all of us face choices every day: most are trivial but some aren't. And we all of us can face situations where the bad choice we made earlier comes back to bite us.

As for penalising the child, well the children of willingly-married violent alcoholics are penalised every day by the bad choice of their parent. Its not FAIR but its FACT and sometimes the consequences of our lousy choices impinge directly on others - and the maker of the lousy choice has to cope with that too.

If all the ardent pro-lifers out there had more balls and less mouth they could prove how pro-life they are by running a no-strings total package rescue service for instances like this. Now wouldn't that be great and, IMHO, rather more to the point that terrorising people who work in women's clinics or hand out free contraception.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

Luke
I’m sorely tempted to respond to your reply to Josephine with a simple “Yes” but [Roll Eyes]

quote:
Surely the unborn baby isn't merely an extension of the mother's body?

Yes, it is exactly that: the foetus is attached to the host (mother) by a cord. That remains the case until after delivery when the cord has to be cut.

quote:
For most of history and in much of the world the woman continues to sacrifice her body, her sleep, her energy and in some cases her job prospects for the infant, who for a while, is completely dependant on her care...

(ignoring your Patience Strong-like tone) We all know that women have to make huge sacrifices to care for their infants; that is why in many societies woman work together to share the burden. In better-off or more hierarchical societies the childcare may be hived off with people using wet-nurses, nannies, childminders and then teachers. What is your POINT?

quote:
...just as he or she was inside the womb.

Actually no. In utero a foetus is ultimately portable and incapable of independent movement away from the mother: in layman’s terms, it doesn’t require feeding (breast or bottle), nappies, clean clothes, amusement, constant watching to stop it wandering off, housing, etc, etc, etc

quote:
...In addition what you're saying seems ethically dubious: 'That someone dependent on another has fewer rights than the person they are dependent on.' To put it another way, autonomy should not equal preeminence over another's rights.

How so? My child (living, born) has fewer rights because it is not autonomous but dependent – I decide what car we have because (a) I’m paying and (b) I can drive. It can remark that it doesn't want to be a passenger in a cat-sick coloured deeply uncool Vauxhall but no more: if that's the car I get then that's the car it travels in. Before birth the situation with a foetus is the same because it has no existence without the existence of the mother.

If we take what you are saying to its logical (!) conclusion than a child can take an autonomous decision that it wants to go to Eton and, notwithstanding parental views on private education or ability to pay fees, demand the “right” to go there.

Your last, throwaway line is deeply worrying:

quote:
I'd also want to see less of the first trimester scan for Down-syndrome.

WHY? Even if all terminations were made illegal tomorrow, surely even you can’t be so monstrous as to deny parents as much time as possible to get to grips with the idea that they are having a child who may have special needs. [Mad]

This line of yours is not something clever and pro-life, it is SICK. [Projectile]

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
I agree its a tough call, but if a situation is that Mum has tests, is bright enough to take on board the results show a severely damaged foetus, and decides to go ahead anyway then why should "society" pick-up the pieces when she wants to bail out.

You know, I'm interested in this word "damaged," which you've applied more than once to people with disabilities. I currently have 44 clients on my case load, and while they're none of them what anybody might consider "normal" (whatever THAT means), only one is what I'd call "damaged." Originally "normal," he sustained a traumatic brain injury in his early teens, through foolhardy behavior.

Should we chuck him off our rolls? It was his own fault, after all.

As to the others, they arrived in the world with a variety of challenges.

I myself have a moderate-to-severe hearing impairment and vision issues, dating from birth.

Shall I chuck myself overboard too?

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

Porridge
Sorry to use "damaged" - what other term would you prefer: impaired? affected? handicapped? challenged?

It is blindingly obvious that I'm not talking about people who suffer catastrophic injury, either at birth or after.

Similarly I'm not talking about infants who after an incident-free birth prove to have something majorly out-of-the-ordinary in developmental terms which didn't show up in pre-natal testing.

What has been at issue is a proposed scenario where a pregnant woman is told after pre-natal testing that the foetus she is carrying will never be capable of independent life through something going wrong in its development in utero - for example Anencephaly - : if a decision is made by the woman to proceed with the pregnancy even after the full extent of the problem has been explained, why should there be an expectation that "society" should give a blank cheque to cover the costs of looking after this infant, if it survives birth?

No, I am not suggesting that you "chuck yourself overboard" because I'm not talking about various things that many of us have wrong that can be sorted out post-natal. I'm talking about things for which there is not and cannot be any remedy or curative therapy.

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
I'm talking about things for which there is not and cannot be any remedy or curative therapy.

Well, there's a basic problem with assumptions and predictions of this nature.

The problem is this: we have barely any idea about what can be remedied or cured. This is a field whose surface we've barely scratched.

Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that the client who yelps "Ma!" will never learn to read or hold a job or toilet, feed, or dress herself. If we're justified in making assumptions like these, then we'd also be justified in withholding, say, educational services from this person. Why send her to kindergarten to learn her ABCs when it's obvious she'll never be able to read? What would be the point? Why pour vast quantities of money, time, effort, and energy into an endeavor doomed to failure from the get-go?

In fact, up until the first version of the I.D.E.A. passed in the U.S., this very assumption kept thousands of kids out of public school -- and most of them could -- and did -- learn and progress, once they got the chance.

The thing is, research goes on out there in fields which attract funding. New compensational methods are discovered. New drugs are created. New technology develops into assistive devices. New strategies or new understandings of atypical responses help us design new training/teaching techniques. Of course, this all takes money.

When we describe people as "incurable" or "hopeless" or "not worth the investment needed," our efforts on their behalf either dry up, or shift in focus from actual amelioration to simple maintenance: keep them fed, clothed, sheltered, and alive. We create a self-fulfilling prophecy thereby. We cadge up some jerry-rig scrapbag of services, throw them in the general direction of the client, and when the client fails to turn miraculously "normal," we say, "See? Pointless. Not worth doing. Cut the budget."

When I was born, my parents were advised to institutionalize me, as I was sure to experience physical and mental limitations.

I do have a serious hearing deficit. I needed some accommodations in school. Yet I also have a graduate degree in my field, work full-time (well, OK, more than), and manage to live a fairly satisfying life.

At the same time, I get paid crap for what I do. When my old hearing aids went belly-up, the new ones I needed cost a third of my annual gross income and were not covered by any insurance. I became a charge on the public purse: I went to Vocational Rehabilitation, was evaluated and assessed, and got new hearing aids (which together cost about 5 times what I paid for my current car, bought used) so I can continue to work.

It would have been simpler and cheaper (maybe) to write me off as hopeless and incurable (in fact, nothing can be done about my hearing [I]at present[/].

The truth is, very few of us -- maybe none -- are truly independent beings who get on without help. And all of us have reason to hope for a future in which our limitations can be eased.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
I agree its a tough call, but if a situation is that Mum has tests, is bright enough to take on board the results show a severely damaged foetus, and decides to go ahead anyway then why should "society" pick-up the pieces when she wants to bail out.

If someone decides to ride a motorcycle without a helmet, and crashes and is brain damaged, why should "society" pick up the pieces?

If someone decides to smoke, and develops lung cancer or emphysema or any of the other chronic diseases caused by smoking, why should "society" pick up the pieces?

If someone decides to go mountain climbing, or sailing, or hiking in the wilderness, and doesn't come home on time, why should "society" send out search and rescue teams, and fly the lost and injured ones out on helicopters, and take them to a trauma center for treatment?

The reason "society" picks up the pieces in all of these cases is exactly because we are a society. We are our brothers' keepers. We can encourage each other to behave in a safe and sensible way, even pass laws to prevent the riskiest things, but if someone makes bad choices and is injured by them, the rest of us take care of them.

Or we should. As Christians, in particular, we owe them that care, because they bear the image of Christ.

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

There's also the simple fact that society necessarily includes all its members -- these fallible, misguided, foolhardy, abnormal, funny-looking, funny-acting, limited beings: us.

Posted by North East Quine (# 13049) on :

L'organist,

quote:
I'm talking about things for which there is not and cannot be any remedy or curative therapy.

Our son was diagnosed as having gross skeletal deformities in utero. Specifically, we were told our son's arms would never be long enough for him to be able to wipe his own bottom, etc etc. We were stongly advised to terminate the pregnancy. In the event our son was still-born. But someone else with the same initial diagnosis as our son won Golds at the Paralympics in both Beijing and London, was awarded first an MBE and an OBE and is by any definition extremely successful.

quote:
More so, when a test result is given that the foetus is catastrophically damaged the psych/counselling team will have several sessions with any woman - especially is she says she is going ahead with the pregnancy - to point out in graphic terms just what is wrong, what the consequences will mean for the foetus, and what the reality of daily life will be.

It wasn't quite as formal as that, but we did have to regularly sign a piece of paper that we understood that our baby would be born with gross skeletal deformities, would never be able to wipe his bottom, walk for any distance, wear normal clothes, would have a restricted nasal passage which meant that a normal cold could prove catastrophic etc etc. But we were also put into contact with a family who had a son with the same condition, whose son was swimming at international level in disabled sports, and was in mainstream education.

An in-utero diagnosis is not always clear-cut; as our consultant pointed out there is (or was then) no way of measuring our unborn son's cognitive level.

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

I am not talking about whether or not people have the right to do ahead with a pregnancy after a test has shown malformation or developmental problem.

What I am saying is that there has to be serious debate about how far we - "society", you and me, taxpayers all - are prepared to go if a decision is made in North Dakota to halt terminations.

In the case of Anencephalic foetuses, most do not survive but some do. Since they have no neo-cortex there can never be cognition: but if just enough brain develops there can be instances where these foetuses have a breathing reflex and so they survive birth. There are some other, granted very rare, conditions with similar distressing results.

What are you going to do in this instance: it can be argued that, with no possible chance of cognition or consciousness, these foetuses are never actually alive? What is your view.

As for seeming unfeeling: my partner and I suffered a late-miscarriage which proved to be a foetus with only very partial brain development, and other physical malformations. But there was sufficient neocortex for it to have breathed if the pregnancy had been nearer to full term. There was also the possibility that any future pregnancy would have resulted in the same malformations and there were then no fool-proof tests to conclusively show whether or not this was the case before 24 weeks. I saw the foetus that was miscarried - it is not something that I'm ever likely to forget.

No, don't say sorry: think about the situations that face people and for which there cannot be a remedy and then pronounce that all "life" is sacred. And, if so, decide on the "who, how, where, how long, etc" of care.

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
. . . think about the situations that face people and for which there cannot be a remedy and then pronounce that all "life" is sacred. And, if so, decide on the "who, how, where, how long, etc" of care.

L'organist, I have no quarrel with couples who decide to terminate a pregnancy, whether on the basis of "this is not the right time for us to become parents" or on the basis of "we just can't cope with the outcomes we apparently face." A foetus is not a person, pace Luke.

Once a living, breathing baby is involved, though, we do have a person, and a new member of society. That person may be extremely atypical, but is still a person, with the rights that pertain to personhood. That person may lack functions or abilities most others have, or may have functions or abilities the rest of us lack. S/he is still a person, and a member of our society, and we owe it to that person to see to it that s/he has the opportunity to access whatever our society can offer by way participation.

Anencephaly is rare and tragic. At the time of this writing, there's little which can be done for a person with anencephaly beyond basic maintenance. We don't currently have skills or technology to "cure" this person.

Not all that long ago, we likewise could have done nothing for a person whose heart, lungs, or kidneys failed. Now it's fairly common for some of these people to get transplants. Science moves forward. Will brain transplants ever be possible? I don't know; it certainly looks unlikely from where we stand at the moment -- just as unlikely as heart or kidney transplants once looked. We're now able to build electronic "eyes" that help blind people see. Could we at some point develop electronic "brains" to help an anencephalic person function?

All I'm saying is that assuming the future will be exactly like the present is nearly always a mistake. I have seen people "incapable" of reading begin to read. I have seen people "unable" ever to walk again walk anyway. I have seen people deemed "unemployable" settle into jobs and become at least semi-independent.

That's what keeps me in a profession that pays so poorly, that is rife with risk, that is often frustrating, that includes miles and miles of the reddest bureaucratic tape you ever saw, that can be exhausting, and that ultimately is all about realizing, now and again, real, palpable, astonishing human potential.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

Here's an article from Salon by a parent whose son has Down Syndrome.

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

I think we (society as a whole) SHOULD pick up the pieces, if not for the sake of the child's humanity, then for the sake of our own.

It's just wrong to look for return-on-investment from a person. That's appropriate for inanimate objects.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
I think we (society as a whole) SHOULD pick up the pieces, if not for the sake of the child's humanity, then for the sake of our own.

Exactly.

quote:
It's just wrong to look for return-on-investment from a person. That's appropriate for inanimate objects.

And not even always for inanimate objects. We spend enormous sums of money preserving and curating objects in museums, solely because they are unique and precious. ROI isn't the point there. And ROI shouldn't be the point in our dealings with each other, either.

But that's not what I was coming back to this thread to say. I was coming back because the idea that we wouldn't help with expenses for a disabled child if the mom could have gotten an abortion has been haunting me. That is pure and unadulterated economic coercion. I suspect all of us are dismayed or revolted by the idea of a boyfriend telling a woman that she has to have an abortion or he'll leave her, or some such something. "Have an abortion or we'll make sure you live in abject poverty for the rest of your life" hardly seems different.

And if it is the mother's sincerely held belief that the fetus is a human person, and she would be murdering her baby if she had the abortion, what, then, are we asking her to do? I know that most women do not suffer psychological harm from abortion -- but I think a woman in that situation surely would.

Besides, if you are for choice, choice should include the choice to keep the baby. If we agree that real choice means that the rest of us must share responsibility for the choices that result in no baby (e.g., providing free or low-cost access to contraception and abortion), it seems that real choice means that the rest of us must also share some responsibility for the choices that result in a baby.

Pro-lifers, of course, should embrace shared responsibility for that choice as well. I'm not sure why we don't hear more from them, demanding expanded access to low-cost medical care for all, demanding that Congress not hold Head Start hostage to the sequester, and indeed insisting that Head Start and related programs be expanded, and so on with other programs and policies that make it easier for women to "choose life."

Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :

Well, I'm saying and doing the kind of supportive type stuff you mention, but there's no likelihood any media type is ever going to want to interview me. And I'm not the only one.

Posted by Luke (# 306) on :

L'organist, you wrote earlier:

quote:
"autonomy" - generally taken to mean freedom and/or independence: a creature attached to another by an umbilical cord which is its sole source of nutriment and life-sustaining substances cannot be said to be autonomous. We're not talking "freedom to breath and eat" as if this is an exercise in choice but as an ability to breath and eat without the intervention of another - human being or machine.

From what you said there it seems like your reducing a human person to their ability to eat and drink independently.

Adding the word "potential" only complicates your position, potential what ... ?

If you're feeling sick you should take a bex and have a nap.

Crœsos :

quote:
No, post-birth an infant is dependent in a very different way than it's parasitic attachment inside the womb.

So cutting the umbilical cord turns a parasite into a human? (By your reasoning here infanticide is merely an extension of abortion!)

But more significantly this business of "personal autonomy" and "parasites" wrongly focuses our attention on the unequal relationship between the mother and the unborn child in her womb and obscures the fact that there two actual human beings involved. Yes, two people in an unequal relationship, but people nonetheless. Their relationship does not does define their humanness and it definitely does not give the person with more power, the right to kill the other.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

Luke, so far, you seem to be evading any real engagement with what others are saying here. So please answer two simple, direct questions:

First, when my father was dying of liver failure, had you been a perfect match, would it have been morally right to take a lobe of your liver and give it to him against your will? Why or why not?

Second, what public policies do you advocate in order to make it easier for a woman carrying a disabled child to choose to carry the pregnancy and deliver and keep the child rather than to choose an abortion?

Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :

It fascinates me that there are Christians out there who support abortion. Mind blowing stuff.

Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :

quote:
loggats: It fascinates me that there are Christians out there who support abortion. Mind blowing stuff.

You learn something every day [Smile]

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

I came across a not unrelated issue in the letters page of the Guardian last week. There had been a report that babies did much better when, at birth, the people responsible for the delivery (midwives or obstetricians) waited until the cord stopped pulsing to clamp it off, allowing all the blood to enter the baby. This seems obvious, really. There was an account of two babies born to the same woman, one with the cord severed early, one allowed to complete its task, the first looking blue for a while, the second looking much healthier.

The letter, from a representative of the Anthony Nolan Trust, was against this procedure being followed, as they depend on the storage of cord blood for helping the children they support.

It seemed from the way that this was expressed, that they felt they had an ownership of the blood that overbore the ownership of the baby whose blood it was. And that seems wrong to me.

And it seems related to the way in which some people argue that the baby has an ownership over its mother's body which overbears hers. It is not an easy situation, ever, but

I'm not sure where that sentence was going. I can't help thinking, however, that the adult woman does have a value which cannot be diminished by her becoming pregnant. Which must not be diminished, or transformed into a motherhood which denies her individuality as a person.

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

It's fascinating to me that some Christians seem willing to remove from women the free will that Christians claim God grants human beings. Or does God only grant that to people with penises?

I don't happen to claim "Christian" as one of my personal labels. Nevertheless, it's choice I actually support, not abortion itself.

Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:
It's fascinating to me that some Christians seem willing to remove from women the free will that Christians claim God grants human beings. Or does God only grant that to people with penises?

I don't happen to claim "Christian" as one of my personal labels. Nevertheless, it's choice I actually support, not abortion itself.

Sure sure. Anyway, if you're not a Christian then you're not one of the Christians supporting abortion I'd be shocked by.

"Supporting" a woman in making the terrible decision to kill her baby is pretty sick for anybody though.

Posted by Garasu (# 17152) on :

Sophie?

Posted by Crœsos (# 238) on :

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
It fascinates me that there are Christians out there who support abortion. Mind blowing stuff.

I'm fascinated that someone's mind could be blown by this. Given the well known statistics of how many women have abortions and how many profess to be Christians, simple mathematics dictates that there has to be some overlap. Of course, maybe they're all exceptional cases.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
"Supporting" a woman in making the terrible decision to kill her baby is pretty sick for anybody though.

So if she makes that decision we should what? Cut her off? Shoot her? Report her to some authority? Why must religions advocate killing their own wounded?

Posted by Louise (# 30) on :

hosting

This thread seems to be straying off topic towards a general discussion of abortion. Can I remind posters that there is a large general thread for that? May I also suggest that posters new to the board read more widely in the abortion threads on the board and get a sense of the range of views here. If you just want to lob insults at people who think differently from you, we have a Hell board for that.

Many thanks
Louise
Dead Horses Host
hosting off

Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
"Supporting" a woman in making the terrible decision to kill her baby is pretty sick for anybody though.
So if she makes that decision we should what? Cut her off? Shoot her? Report her to some authority? Why must religions advocate killing their own wounded?

We should do everything in our power to change her mind, we should pray for her and for her unborn child, and we should create a community that is open to supporting her and her child - where having the baby is not a terrifying and lonely prospect and the only resolution she can see is death.

And if she's already had an abortion we should commit ourselves to easing her wounded soul and psyche, assisting in whatever small way we can in reconciling her with the Living God.

Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Louise:
hosting

This thread seems to be straying off topic towards a general discussion of abortion. Can I remind posters that there is a large general thread for that? May I also suggest that posters new to the board read more widely in the abortion threads on the board and get a sense of the range of views here. If you just want to lob insults at people who think differently from you, we have a Hell board for that.

Many thanks
Louise
Dead Horses Host
hosting off

Understood, thanks.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
We should do everything in our power to change her mind, we should pray for her and for her unborn child, and we should create a community that is open to supporting her and her child - where having the baby is not a terrifying and lonely prospect and the only resolution she can see is death.

Be specific, please. If a woman is pregnant, and the doctor tells her the child will be severely disabled, what, exactly, are you prepared to do to support her and her child? What policies are you prepared to advocate, and what, exactly do you do, and have you done, to encourage your elected representatives to enact those policies?

What level of taxation are you willing to endure to pay for the medical and educational needs of her child? What level of job protection are you willing to insist that her employer provide her, given that she will miss work far more frequently than other employees, often with little or no notice, because of her child's medical needs?

Besides being shocked, what are you going to do?

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by Luke
If you're feeling sick you should take a bex and have a nap.

1. What the hell is a "bex"? The only Bex I know is a small place in Switzerland with a salt mine.

2. Your implication that someone whose views you don't share must be feeling unwell is just rude.

WHY NO ANSWER TO MY EARLIER QUESTION ABOUT YOUR EXPRESSED WISH TO BAN SCANS?

Cat got your tongue?

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by loggats
It fascinates me that there are Christians out there who support abortion. Mind blowing stuff.

Yes. I was fairly mind-blown when I learned that Augustine of Hippo and his mistress had practised "post-natal abortion" - thats infanticide to you and me.

quote:
"Supporting" a woman in making the terrible decision to kill her baby is pretty sick for anybody though.

As is "supporting" someone who is struggling to come to terms with news that their longed-for pregnancy has not got a brain by telling them that they must carry the foetus to full term.

It all depends on your point of view.

I'd reiterate what Josephine asked:

What would you be prepared to do to "support" someone who is expecting a child with, say, Down's Syndrome. I don't mean "society" - I mean you personally.

Are you prepared to pay increased taxes so that proper financial support can be given to the family?

Are you prepared to look after the child to give respite care, perhaps even adopt the child?

Are you prepared to foot the bill for these committments to be open-ended and limitless.

Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :

You're both asking whether I could somehow equate a human life with money... never, because human lives are more precious than any amount of cash.

Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
You're both asking whether I could somehow equate a human life with money... never, because human lives are more precious than any amount of cash.

Government policy is full of calculations like this, though. To claim otherwise, you're saying infinite money should be spent on, for example, research into gene therapy to treat conditions like Down's Syndrome in utero.

Infinite money is clearly not available, though, so the question remains: what concrete proposals are you making regarding the support and treatment around conditions like Down Syndrome?

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

I don't think that is what is being asked. It is not what amount of money would equate to a human life. It is what should be invested into making that life worth living.

A life spent, mercifully briefly, in intense pain beyond any relief, was what was chosen against by a friend of mine, who did choose not to bear the foetus full term. The being was already, apparently, suffering.

I would not have wanted to bear a child with Down's syndrome who would also have inherited the family tendency to depression, but fortunately never had to make the decision either way.

The question asked above was about whether a society which insisted on that child being born would also provide enough support to her or him to live a life that developed the full potential for happiness and taking a valuable part in that society. That isn't about equating human life with money.

There are many people whose lives may well be of infinite worth, but whose lives are not worth living because of the society around them. Litter pickers on rubbish tips, for instance. The sewing woman employed at the collapsed building who has lost her hands and can no longer work for her family's living for another. It is not very helpful to say that they have life, which is worth more than money, and walk away with no money being offered.

That is what that question was about.

[ 03. May 2013, 10:29: Message edited by: Penny S ]

Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
You're both asking whether I could somehow equate a human life with money... never, because human lives are more precious than any amount of cash.

If policy were framed this way we'd reduce the speed limit on all roads to 10mph and take the hit to the economy

[ 03. May 2013, 10:32: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]

Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :

Even framing the value of human life in terms of usefulness seems wrong. Isn't there intrinsic value to human life?

Can't our suffering, united to the Cross, become redemptive?

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
Even framing the value of human life in terms of usefulness seems wrong. Isn't there intrinsic value to human life?

Of course there is. But feeding a baby costs money. Doctor visits cost money. Feeding tubes, physical therapy, occupational therapy, MRI scans, orthopedic appliances, they all cost money. Respite care, if you can get it at all, costs money. It costs money for a school district to put in ramps and elevators, to hire special education teachers and paraeducators, to buy scientific calculators with a large screen and large buttons and other equipment that is modified for use by someone with visual and motor impairments.

And then there are the indirect costs. Giving up a management job that pays $150K a year to take part-time work because your child requires so many medical visits and so much at-home therapy, that's a real cost. And can you pay your rent, buy health insurance, and buy food and clothing and books and other necessities on your part-time salary for yourself and your other children and your disabled child?

If you are horrified at the idea of a woman aborting her child because the child is going to be disabled, you should realize the cost you are asking her to bear.

The child's value is immeasurable. How much of YOUR money are you going to put towards this infinitely valuable little human being, to make it possible for the mother to keep her child? How much are you willing to have your city, your state, and your country raise YOUR taxes to pay for things the child and the child's family need? How much of YOUR time are you willing to spend writing letters and meeting with YOUR elected officials, arguing with them that the amount of the budget being spent for the needs of people with disabilities is too small, and must be increased?

That's not asking you what value you put on the child. That's asking you whether you are willing to share the burden that you are shocked that another person might find too hard to bear.

quote:
Can't our suffering, united to the Cross, become redemptive?

Of course it is. But insisting that someone else should suffer, without lifting a finger to help them, is not redemptive but damnable.

So how much are you willing to suffer for the disabled child and the child's mother, how much of their suffering are you willing to take on, for your redemption and the salvation of your soul?

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by loggats
You're both asking whether I could somehow equate a human life with money... never, because human lives are more precious than any amount of cash.

No, I didn't and I'm not.

But the issue I did raise was whether you as a member of society were prepared for society to give a blank cheque on a limitless number of occasions. Unpalatable though that question may be, it is a serious issue that needs to be addressed.

I note you didn't answer the other question: would you personally be prepared to look after/offer respite care to/foster/adopt a baby or child with complex needs.

You see, priest friends have in the past spoken in much the same terms as you until faced with the issue of the WHO comes up: then they shuffle feet and mumble something about "wonderful" and "saintly" people who are prepared to "sacrifice" their lives/time etc, etc, etc.

But where are these saintly people and is there a limitless supply of them to go with the bottomless pit of cash.

So, loggats: assuming you don't get ordained, how do you fancy shouldering the lifetime care of an individual with such complex problems they have no physical independence, cannot communicate, and where cognitive function is doubtful - in fact they may not have the capacity for consciousness?

Posted by Penny S (# 14768) on :

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
Can't our suffering, united to the Cross, become redemptive?

Not an idea I've grown up with, but, I'm prepared to accept that someone may take that attitude to their own suffering, and admire them for it.

I am not prepared to accept a society in which people insist that others, without any choice, or in some cases even the ability of mind to make a choice, should suffer pain which they themselves have not experienced and cannot experience.

It's not a toothache we are talking about. Nor, and I hope you will take this in the spirit in which it is intended, is it six hours of torture. Life in agony (whether physical, emotional or mental) is of questionable value, unless the person concerned has chosen it, knowing what they have chosen. It is not for others to inflict, however holy their intentions.

Religions with a belief in reincarnation have ways round this, of course. The saintly can chose such a life before rebirth to help others. Not Christians, though.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
You're both asking whether I could somehow equate a human life with money... never, because human lives are more precious than any amount of cash.

Nope. Not what we're asking. We're informing you that taking care of a human life costs money, and asking how much you're willing to chip in.

Your refusal to recognize the question, much less answer it, makes it seem that you believe that human lives are more precious than any amount of cash, as long as it's not your cash that's required.

Posted by Louise (# 30) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:

quote:
posted by Luke
If you're feeling sick you should take a bex and have a nap.
1. What the hell is a "bex"? The only Bex I know is a small place in Switzerland with a salt mine.

2. Your implication that someone whose views you don't share must be feeling unwell is just rude.

Hosting

My apologies, I was unsure about this expression, because I was unfamiliar with it, but have checked it and realise that I missed a personal attack.

Luke, this is a Commandment 3 warning, do not make personal attacks on other posters

quote:
3. Attack the issue, not the person

Name-calling and personal insults are only allowed in Hell. Attacks outside of Hell are grounds for suspension or banning.

L'organist, I'm sorry for missing this, but it doesn't mean you may reply in kind - all personal conflicts must be taken to the Hell board.

Thanks,

Louise
Dead Horses Host

Hosting off

Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
You're both asking whether I could somehow equate a human life with money... never, because human lives are more precious than any amount of cash.
Nope. Not what we're asking. We're informing you that taking care of a human life costs money, and asking how much you're willing to chip in.

Your refusal to recognize the question, much less answer it, makes it seem that you believe that human lives are more precious than any amount of cash, as long as it's not your cash that's required.

You have no idea how much of my money, time and prayer life is centred around others in need and I don't think justifying myself in that way on an online forum means very much.

At the end of the day I don't think that it's acceptable to say that since some people aren't willing to shell out cash, then realistically we've got to consider abortion. Nope - I can't look at this kind of thing in that way.

Posted by art dunce (# 9258) on :

Do not, as some ungracious pastors do,
Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,
Whiles, like a puff'd and reckless libertine,
Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads
And recks not his own rede.

Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :

God has given you one face and you make yourselves another. You jig and amble, and you lisp, you nickname God’s creatures and make your wantonness your ignorance.

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
You have no idea how much of my money, time and prayer life is centred around others in need and I don't think justifying myself in that way on an online forum means very much.

No, we don't. And you still don't answer the question.

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
At the end of the day I don't think that it's acceptable to say that since some people aren't willing to shell out cash, then realistically we've got to consider abortion. Nope - I can't look at this kind of thing in that way.

False dichotomy. The decision isn't between cash vs. abortion. The decision is actually about whether all members of a given society deserve that society's help; it's also about who gets to determine what is actually helpful in a given situation, who is actually a member of society, and, ultimately, a question of group rights and individual rights.

Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Porridge:

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
You have no idea how much of my money, time and prayer life is centred around others in need and I don't think justifying myself in that way on an online forum means very much.
No, we don't. And you still don't answer the question.

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
At the end of the day I don't think that it's acceptable to say that since some people aren't willing to shell out cash, then realistically we've got to consider abortion. Nope - I can't look at this kind of thing in that way.
False dichotomy. The decision isn't between cash vs. abortion. The decision is actually about whether all members of a given society deserve that society's help; it's also about who gets to determine what is actually helpful in a given situation, who is actually a member of society, and, ultimately, a question of group rights and individual rights.

It's a question of whether it's ever acceptable to end the life of an unborn child, for whatever reasons you might imagine are justifiable.

I don't think it's ever right to do that.

Posted by Louise (# 30) on :

hosting

Can people knock it off with the point-scoring literary quotes please? They're easily seen in this context as sly personal attacks. Posting a Shakespearean insult also does not get around Commandment 3 and 4 which ban all personal insults/conflicts on boards outside of Hell.

As I have noted to other posters, if you want to insult other people, you need to take it to the Hell board. If people with strongly expressed views annoy you and you want to have a go at them rather than the issue - you must either post a thread in Hell or not post about that at all.

If you feel offended or personally targetted by someone's post - please do not make a personally insulting reply on this board - start a Hell thread to take issue with them. Hosts will deal with any personal attack here. If you think we've missed one - feel free to PM us. Tony is away, and I am hosting on my own, so please contact me if I've missed something.

Thanks,
Louise
Dead Horses host

hosting off

[ 03. May 2013, 22:27: Message edited by: Louise ]

Posted by Dogwalker (# 14135) on :

This was reposted today on Facebook by a friend from Church.

It reenforces the issues that families have supporting children with issues.

'Exhausted' parents leave autistic son at government office.

I have four brothers and three sisters. The middle girl, M, has Down syndrome. The youngest was born three years later.

My mother told me one time that she had no memory of the youngest as a baby, because she was so focused on caring for M, who had real feeding issues. Care of the youngest was shared among my grandmother, my father and the six older brothers and sisters.

I can't imagine what it would have been like for my mother to try to do it alone, on a minimum income.

The fact of the matter is that abortion has little to do with the question of societal support. Without support you're going to have much worse outcomes -- abandonment (see above), divorce, suicides, family murders, and who knows what else.

Posted by Net Spinster (# 16058) on :

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
It's a question of whether it's ever acceptable to end the life of an unborn child, for whatever reasons you might imagine are justifiable.

I don't think it's ever right to do that.

Even to save the life of the woman? Even to save the life of the woman when the fetus is already doomed but not yet dead?

Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Net Spinster:

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
It's a question of whether it's ever acceptable to end the life of an unborn child, for whatever reasons you might imagine are justifiable.

I don't think it's ever right to do that.
Even to save the life of the woman? Even to save the life of the woman when the fetus is already doomed but not yet dead?

Cos that's why women generally have abortions, right?

However, if the death of fetus comes about as a result of procedures to save a mother's life, that's not the same thing as an abortion. Also there are some very heroic women who have laid their own lives down that their children might live. I guess many of you would think that's tantamount to child abuse cos the kid would grow up without a mum - though knowing their mother was a sainted woman who died that they might live is something to think about too.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
It's a question of whether it's ever acceptable to end the life of an unborn child, for whatever reasons you might imagine are justifiable.

I don't think it's ever right to do that.

It might surprise you to know that I agree with you. I think abortion is always, under any circumstance, a very serious sin. I find the idea of abortion because the child will be disabled horrifying.

If I want to prevent abortions, I have to understand why women choose to have abortions, and do what I can to change the situation so that they feel that they have other, better choices.

So, in the particular, specific case of a woman who knows that her child will be disabled, the reason that woman chooses abortion is because she believes that raising the child will be too difficult. So if you don't think she should have an abortion, what do you think will help her make a different choice?

Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Josephine:

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
It's a question of whether it's ever acceptable to end the life of an unborn child, for whatever reasons you might imagine are justifiable.

I don't think it's ever right to do that.
It might surprise you to know that I agree with you. I think abortion is always, under any circumstance, a very serious sin. I find the idea of abortion because the child will be disabled horrifying.

If I want to prevent abortions, I have to understand why women choose to have abortions, and do what I can to change the situation so that they feel that they have other, better choices.

So, in the particular, specific case of a woman who knows that her child will be disabled, the reason that woman chooses abortion is because she believes that raising the child will be too difficult. So if you don't think she should have an abortion, what do you think will help her make a different choice?

A network of support must be provided. I believe the Church definitely does this in various ways.

Also... I think another important element here (that's not being addressed) is the grievous error in the formation of a person's conscience that leads to considering and carrying out this kind of act.

I don't mean to sound disrespectful, it's just important that the people involved really understand why what they're considering is so terribly sinful - because, while helping out and forming a community able to respond to the needs of child and mother is very important, there's a more fundamental problem and perverse world view that needs to be addressed here.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
A network of support must be provided. I believe the Church definitely does this in various ways.

Obviously not well enough. What the church does really well is make it more likely for people to get pregnant, and harder for them when they do.

Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
A network of support must be provided. I believe the Church definitely does this in various ways.
Obviously not well enough. What the church does really well is make it more likely for people to get pregnant, and harder for them when they do.

Yep, because pregnancy is a disease and meeting Western culture's standards for economic self-satisfaction is the only real virtue.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
A network of support must be provided. I believe the Church definitely does this in various ways.
Obviously not well enough. What the church does really well is make it more likely for people to get pregnant, and harder for them when they do.
Yep, because pregnancy is a disease and meeting Western culture's standards for economic self-satisfaction is the only real virtue.

Huh? Non sequitur.

Unplanned pregnancies are a reality, and helping human beings is a mandate.

Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
A network of support must be provided. I believe the Church definitely does this in various ways.
Obviously not well enough. What the church does really well is make it more likely for people to get pregnant, and harder for them when they do.
Yep, because pregnancy is a disease and meeting Western culture's standards for economic self-satisfaction is the only real virtue.
Huh? Non sequitur.

Unplanned pregnancies are a reality, and helping human beings is a mandate.

Helping doesn't include securing abortions. You might as well help someone into oncoming traffic.

More should be done to meet the needs of people in difficult situations, yes.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
Helping doesn't include securing abortions.

Again another non sequitur. I sure as hell didn't argue for that, and neither has Josephine. If I could ask you to respond to what I actually say, and particularly not to respond to things I don't say in such a way as to make it look like I said them, the conversation would flow much more easily.

Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :

Sorry. I think I'm taking the whole horse flogging thing a little too literally, and I'm rambling to boot.

What ways of fulfilling our mandate to help human beings do you suggest?

[ 04. May 2013, 08:09: Message edited by: loggats ]

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
Sorry. I think I'm taking the whole horse flogging thing a little too literally, and I'm rambling to boot.

What ways of fulfilling our mandate to help human beings do you suggest?

I suggest looking at the reasons women have abortions, and if any of them are amenable to being worked on, working on them. So for instance one reason women have abortions is that they don't have medical care, either for themselves prenatally, or for the baby once it arrives. In this country, the very same people who make the most noise about abortions also fight against universal medical care, which has the potential to significantly reduce the number of abortions. Other examples include daycare, paid leave, and living wage. There are probably many, many others.

What I can't stand, though, is people who think that the way to solve the abortion problem is to make it illegal, while at the same time they work like hornets to make more and more people likely to choose to have an abortion -- by making it harder and harder to parent, especially for single mothers. The hypocrites who SAY they oppose abortion, when in fact everything they do politically increases the number of abortions.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
So, in the particular, specific case of a woman who knows that her child will be disabled, the reason that woman chooses abortion is because she believes that raising the child will be too difficult. So if you don't think she should have an abortion, what do you think will help her make a different choice?

A network of support must be provided. I believe the Church definitely does this in various ways.[/quote][/qb]
Can you please describe the various ways in which the Church provides a network of support for families with disabled children? What support is provided, how a parent would access that support, how the church provides and funds it?

Because, frankly, I suspect that whatever support you're talking about is a fantasy. I'd love to be wrong about that. So prove me wrong. Please.

Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :

I can only talk with any confidence about where I'm from, Malta (a European island in the Mediterranean sea).

The National Commission document for Persons with Disability includes a pretty comprehensive look at services available. And these are three explicitly Christian (specifically Catholic) groups that offer assistance, whose websites I found browsing Google for a few minutes:
Id-Dar tal-Providenza ("House of Providence"), Caritas and Inspire Malta

The government provides a Disabled Child Allowance, and we have national healthcare here in Malta. Also while guaranteeing freedom of religion (or indeed no religion) as a constitutional right, the Constitution of Malta establishes Catholicism as the state religion. So there's motivation there from the Church in many spheres of outreach.

Anyway, that's some of the stuff I could find after a little look around the internet.

(ed. fix link)

[ 04. May 2013, 14:49: Message edited by: loggats ]

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

It's not just the churches who are providing the major support, then, loggats; it's your country, your fellow taxpayers. National health insurance and a disabled child allowance are HUGE benefits. Perhaps Christians in Malta have been a major force in getting those kinds of programs passed and funded. You should know that those programs don't exist in the US. Further, the Christians in this country who are the most politically active see programs like those provided in your country as "socialism" and oppose them vehemently.

If it would help you understand the situation in the US, loggats, and why many people here believe it would be impossible for them to raise a child with a disability:

Health insurance is provided by your employer, if your employer chooses to provide it. If you're in a part-time or low-wage job, your employer probably chooses not to provide it. So parents, to provide medical care for a disabled child, must find a way to work full-time for a company that provides medical insurance.

Day care providers don't do things like physical therapy exercises, tube feeding, or the like. So if your child is tube fed, or requires special exercises, or anything else out of the ordinary, the day care will either not accept your child, accept the child only if you provide (at your own expense) an assistant to stay with the child at the day care, or if a parent comes to the daycare whenever necessary to do the procedures the day care won't do.

Employers don't like it when a full-time employee can't actually work full-time because they're spending too much time caring for their disabled child. So if you're doing what you have to do to care for your child, you're likely to get fired. That's completely legal -- most states here are "at-will employment" states, so they can fire you for any reason or no reason at all.

Paid sick leave is also something that employers can choose to provide or not. My employer provides a maximum of five paid sick days a year. I'm in a state that allows me to take those days for the care of a sick child, but many states don't require employers to allow that. Parents do have a federal right take what's called Family Medical Leave to care for a sick child, but that's unpaid leave. (And there are many exceptions -- if you work for a very small company, for example, you may be denied the leave.)

So to get medical care for your child, you have to work, probably full-time, for an employer that provides good medical insurance. (Medical insurance plans vary enormously; most have strict limits on the amount of services such as speech therapy, occupational therapy, physical therapy, etc., that they cover. If your child has eight therapy appointments a week, and your insurance will only cover five a year, you have to come up with the money to fund the difference.)

If you can't work enough hours to satisfy an employer, you lose your job, and therefore your income AND your medical insurance. And so you can't provide for your disabled child, or your other children, or yourself.

Caring for a severely disabled child can be enormously stressful. There are respite care programs, but qualification requirements are stringent (they may only take care of children with certain diagnoses, for example), and waiting lists are many years long.

I could go on, but I think that should give you an idea of the situation here. It might help you understand why women who are pregnant with a disabled child might feel desperate enough to think that, while abortion might be bad, the alternative is worse.

[ 04. May 2013, 16:11: Message edited by: Josephine ]

Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :

Thanks for including all that information Josephine. I knew that the US didn't have national healthcare but I guess I didn't really understand how pervasive a problem that is, involving all sorts of other issues. It seems inconceivable that Christians would disparage the introduction of a system where healthcare would be available to all - I'm not sure why it equates with 'socialism' (in an unqualified way) and why that would dismiss it without a second thought.

I can't imagine how horrific a situation it must be for a woman caught between having a baby with severe special needs and the knowledge that there's no system to help her (and her husband hopefully, not sure if the single mother assumption is warranted) take care of the child. But nothing can justify wickedness.

Posted by Josephine (# 3899) on :

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
Thanks for including all that information Josephine. I knew that the US didn't have national healthcare but I guess I didn't really understand how pervasive a problem that is, involving all sorts of other issues.

And I forget sometimes that there are countries that provide fairly comprehensive benefits for people who need them. That background information is important to having a real conversation. And I am impressed with what your country, and the churches in your country, provide.

quote:
It seems inconceivable that Christians would disparage the introduction of a system where healthcare would be available to all - I'm not sure why it equates with 'socialism' (in an unqualified way) and why that would dismiss it without a second thought.

It's inconceivable to me, too, but it's the reality here.

quote:
I can't imagine how horrific a situation it must be for a woman caught between having a baby with severe special needs and the knowledge that there's no system to help her (and her husband hopefully, not sure if the single mother assumption is warranted) take care of the child. But nothing can justify wickedness.

In 2011, about a third of all children in this country lived in single-parent homes. I couldn't find any evidence that the percentage is significantly higher for children with disabilities, so I think we can assume that it's similar.

So we can't assume that any given child with a disability is living in a single-parent home, but we know that many, many of them are. And we know that a family that includes single parent with a disabled child is particularly vulnerable to financial and other pressures.

You're right, of course, that this vulnerability doesn't justify wickedness. But if it makes the wickedness understandable, then, with understanding, one can begin to change the situation in ways that will help people who are in desperate situations feel less desperate and make other choices.

Telling them that they're wicked, without providing any help, is also wicked. And if we could help, but don't help, we are also guilty of the wickedness.

Posted by Antisocial Alto (# 13810) on :

Just so those outside the US are aware, it is actually quite difficult to get health insurance to cover even the routine delivery of a "normal" child in the States.

My family buys individual health insurance because the plan at my husband's work is prohibitively expensive. (For him alone it's about $40 a month, for all three of us it would be $700.)

When I was shopping for our insurance a couple of months ago I found that there were fifty plans available for us to buy in our state. Wanna guess how many of those fifty had any maternity coverage option at all? Three. And you have to pay extra for the coverage. And there's a twelve-month waiting period before it covers anything. So on top of our regular premiums I would be paying an extra $75 a month, for a full year, before our insurance company would give us a dime towards having any child. Let alone a disabled child.

Starting next year all plans will be required to cover maternity with no waiting period under the Affordable Care Act. This is good because at least people will be able to get coverage immediately, but I suspect they're going to use it as an excuse to jack up our premium cost.

It is this kind of thing that needs to be fixed before we can expect the abortion rate to go down. If an unexpected pregnancy puts a woman on the hook for the full $6000 it costs even for a routine, unanesthetized delivery of a "normal" baby with no complications (plus probably $100 each for all the prenatal appointments, plus the ultrasound, plusplusplus...) then some people are going to choose abortion over forcing their family into bankruptcy or homelessness.

By comparison, at Planned Parenthood an abortion would cost about $300 to $1000 for a D&C or about $300 to $800 for a pill. It's 6 to 20 times cheaper to get an abortion than to deliver a child.

Also, care under Medicaid (government medical funding for the poor) is becoming more difficult to get because more and more doctors won't treat Medicaid patients- the reimbursements from the govt are too small to cover the doctors' costs.

It all adds up to extreme financial pressure to abort.

Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Antisocial Alto:

It all adds up to extreme financial pressure to abort.

It all sounds quite sinister.

Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on :

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
... I can't imagine how horrific a situation it must be for a woman .... But nothing can justify wickedness.

Nothing that you can imagine justifies wickedness. But you can't imagine how it feels to have to make that choice. Logically, that leaves space for a non-wicked justification.

I would also add that generalizing from Malta to any other place in the world is, well, [Killing me]

Malta is a cool place, but it isn't like any other place, except maybe the Vatican City.

Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Soror Magna:

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
... I can't imagine how horrific a situation it must be for a woman .... But nothing can justify wickedness.
Nothing that you can imagine justifies wickedness. But you can't imagine how it feels to have to make that choice. Logically, that leaves space for a non-wicked justification.

I would also add that generalizing from Malta to any other place in the world is, well, Malta is a cool place, but it isn't like any other place, except maybe the Vatican City.

I wasn't generalizing, I was answering a specific question. But yep - in lots of ways, Malta has maintained something of an authentic Christian heritage. But that's fading fast.

I disagree that there's a "non-wicked justification" for abortion. Abortion is the intentional and direct killing of an innocent human being. It is an intrinsically evil action, in fundamental conflict with moral law.

Posted by John Holding (# 158) on :

And, just to be clear, so far as I am aware in Canada at least and I'd guess in most Western countries, any resources the Roman Catholic has to spend on abortion and its associated issues are entirely devoted to the (in Canada's case, totally lost) cause of making it illegal. Not one cent, so far as anyone can tell, goes to help mothers in difficulty, not one cent goes to providing an alternative to abortion, not one cent goes to support families with disabled children. What help there is all comes from the state. There may be some faithful RCs who deote personal resources (the kind you're not willing to talk about) to helping, but from the RC church itself -- nada.

John

Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by John Holding:
And, just to be clear, so far as I am aware in Canada at least and I'd guess in most Western countries, any resources the Roman Catholic has to spend on abortion and its associated issues are entirely devoted to the (in Canada's case, totally lost) cause of making it illegal. Not one cent, so far as anyone can tell, goes to help mothers in difficulty, not one cent goes to providing an alternative to abortion, not one cent goes to support families with disabled children. What help there is all comes from the state. There may be some faithful RCs who deote personal resources (the kind you're not willing to talk about) to helping, but from the RC church itself -- nada.

John

Canada is one of the very few countries in the world that has absolutely no criminal law restricting abortion at all... I think the Church is justified in fighting that kind of damnable attitude towards human life, and trying to restore some semblance of human dignity.

And this whole "so far as anyone can tell" business just sounds like a cheap shot at the Church.

Posted by mousethief (# 953) on :

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
And this whole "so far as anyone can tell" business just sounds like a cheap shot at the Church.

I disagree. The church needs to be out in front of people trying helping other people, not hiding. If nobody can tell they're doing anything to help, then they should be called on it.

Posted by loggats (# 17643) on :

quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
And this whole "so far as anyone can tell" business just sounds like a cheap shot at the Church.
I disagree. The church needs to be out in front of people trying helping other people, not hiding. If nobody can tell they're doing anything to help, then they should be called on it.

The Church does a lot of charitable work in public... I don't think one person's opinion automatically means that she doesn't. But I don't live in Canada, don't know anything about the bishops there and can't be bothered to spend time online looking for answers. But yes, the Church should be out in full force especially if nobody else is doing anything.

Posted by Antisocial Alto (# 13810) on :

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
Canada is one of the very few countries in the world that has absolutely no criminal law restricting abortion at all...

And yet strangely their abortion rate per capita is still quite a bit lower than the States'. Even though there are parts of the US where there aren't any abortion providers for hundreds of miles.

If anything we should be imitating them, not the other way around.

Posted by Haydee (# 14734) on :

quote:
Originally posted by Antisocial Alto:

quote:
Originally posted by loggats:
Canada is one of the very few countries in the world that has absolutely no criminal law restricting abortion at all...
And yet strangely their abortion rate per capita is still quite a bit lower than the States'. Even though there are parts of the US where there aren't any abortion providers for hundreds of miles.

If anything we should be imitating them, not the other way around.

Which goes back to Josephine's OP - how do we prevent abortions, given that the legality or otherwise of abortion isn't the defining factor in a woman's decision?

Surely the best case scenario is that women don't want/need/have/whatever word you want to use abortions, whatever the law says about it?

Of course another option, sadly all too common here in South Africa, is for a woman to abandon the baby after birth. Depending on where & how she abandons it the baby may or may not survive.

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

To return to the situation posited in the OP, it might be worth looking at the alternatives, from a US woman's PoV. Let's also assume a single woman, since it's at least possible that single women seek abortion more frequently than do married women. Let's further assume that she learns from prenatal testing that the child she carries has Down syndrome.

Problem One: the stigma and accompanying opprobrium attaching to an out-of-wedlock pregnancy.

This stigma has lessened in and even vanished from many segments of US society, but there's no guarantee that our hypothetical single woman lives in one of these segments. If young / poor enough to live in her parents' home, she could be evicted and/or disowned (I've seen this happen).

To the extent that this is a problem, what should society / we do about it, and how would it lessen the chances of the woman seeking an abortion?

Problem Two: Poverty.

The second-biggest contributor to swelling the ranks of the US poor (after unemployment) is the growing percentage of single-parent families, especially those headed by women (who earn on average roughly 3/4 of what men earn). A woman who "chooses"* to carry her Down syndrome fetus to term and raise the child on her own faces a future of poverty. There are of course exceptions, but the number of Down syndrome babies born to high-income single women or to women who are already independently wealthy is probably negligible.

* Note that abortion is increasingly difficult to obtain in many parts of the US, and the difficulty is greatly exacerbated in the case of women who are young and/or poor and/or rural. Would L'organist reconsider his/her position on helping mothers of disabled children who wished to abort, but were unable to do so?

Note that "official" poverty thresholds set by the US government could more accurately be labeled "destitution" thresholds. The federal minimum wage (currently $7.25/hr) in my state buys workers who earn this roughly 60-70% of a wage a single independent person can actually live on. People earning this wage generally qualify for few if any public assistance programs, even though it's virtually impossible to live on such a wage.

Down syndrome, as an outcome, spans a wide- ranging spectrum, and a prenatal test will rarely reveal the possibilities. At one end, there's severe cognitive limitation, major heart problems, and a need for 24/7 supervision; at the other end, I know a Down syndrome person who attends college and is nearly indistinguishable from peers except for the typical "mongoloid" facial features, short stature, and the tongue-too-wide-for-the-jaw which creates speech issues. Most Down syndrome folks, of course, fall somewhere between these extremes, but special cardiac care and often surgery for their child is something many parents of Down syndrome folks face, along with shortened life expectancy and a much-higher-than-average chance of Alzheimers by mid-forties in adults with Down syndrome.

How should we address the issue of poverty for these families, whose earnings will be further reduced by the child's likely need for extended supervision at least in childhood, and possibly life-long? Carers in the field earn about $10/hour; clearly, hiring carers isn't an option for a single woman earning $7.25.

Problem Three: For the typical unwanted pregnancy, relinquishment (giving up for adoption) remains a possibility. Infants with disabilities are adopted at much lower rates than "normal" infants. Rates of adoption decrease with every year a "typical" child gains in age.

How shall we address the problem of reduced possibility of adoption for the relinquished Down syndrome baby?

Posted by Soror Magna (# 9881) on :

The silence is deafening.

Posted by Louise (# 30) on :

hostly note
Loggats got two weeks shore leave on another board, so yes he is currently silent
L

hostly note off

Posted by L'organist (# 17338) on :

quote:
posted by porridge
Would L'organist reconsider his/her position on helping mothers of disabled children who wished to abort, but were unable to do so?

err, I don't recall expressing a view about that but: if the problem is money, I'd be prepared to give to a charity that enabled women desperate for a termination but unable to pay to be given either grants or outright gifts so they could terminate an unwanted pregnancy.

Frankly, better that women determined on termination have a legal abortion in a well-run clinic than making life so hard that we see a return of back-street abortions.

Posted by Porridge (# 15405) on :

quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:

quote:
posted by porridge
Would L'organist reconsider his/her position on helping mothers of disabled children who wished to abort, but were unable to do so?
err, I don't recall expressing a view about that but: if the problem is money, I'd be prepared to give to a charity that enabled women desperate for a termination but unable to pay to be given either grants or outright gifts so they could terminate an unwanted pregnancy.

Frankly, better that women determined on termination have a legal abortion in a well-run clinic than making life so hard that we see a return of back-street abortions.

Not sure that here in the US, money solves the problem. A 15-y.o. in the rural midwest, where clinics are few and far between, may have no way to get to a clinic, which may be hundreds of miles away and may involve at least an overnight absence from home (possibly more, in states where they've passed waiting-period legislation). This in turn will likely mean having to tell her parents who, in some states, may be able to stop her having the abortion.

Scarcity of clinics + scarcity of willing docs + state laws can make the whole endeavor impossible.

UBB.classic^TM 6.5.0