An Abortion to Avoid Having a Baby With Minor Disabilities Is Morally Permissible

Commentary Abortion

Disability, Prenatal Testing and the Case for a Moral, Compassionate Abortion

Aug sixteen, 2012, 3:50pm Vyckie Garrison

Having an abortion to prevent a kid from being born with Down's syndrome or some other disability tin be a positive moral choice. Okay, at present let's go along (bold you're not already plotting my demise).

past Sierra @No Longer Quivering

Note: If the headline didn't already clue you in, this is controversial subject matter. If yous come away from this article thinking that I abet genocide of a disabled population or the compulsion of women meaning with disabled fetuses into abortion, that I hate disabled people or recall that Down's syndrome people don't deserve to live, you have failed to empathise my signal. Delight walk away from the calculator, breathe securely, and start once more from the beginning.

I believe that it is possible and desirable to respect disabled people while nonetheless working to eliminate genetic disorders so that children who might have had Down's syndrome or cystic fibrosis (or any other disease) have a hazard to be born without them. I believe that abortion of a disabled fetus can exist a empathetic choice made for morally sound reasons, and does not at all conflict with the respect due to disabled people. I am firmly pro-option, and I believe strongly that the wellbeing of all born persons in a family unit is paramount before because the needs of a fetus. My position is that fetuses are incapable of being self-aware and therefore cannot experience suffering the mode born persons do. The prevention of suffering is central to my moral beliefs.

If you're already angry, please stop reading and go get yourself a nice cappuccino. Have a cute day. And then, if you yet actually want to read this, take frequent breaks to punch a pillow with a "how-do-you-do, my name is Sierra" badge stuck to it.

Roe has collapsed and Texas is in chaos.

Stay upwards to date with The Fallout, a newsletter from our expert journalists.

SUBSCRIBE

Her.meneutics, the "for women" arm of Christianity Today, recently ran an commodity by Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra on prenatal testing:

What Y'all Need to Know About the Hidden Benefits (and Costs) of New Prenatal Tests

Evidently, scientific discipline tin can do something awesome: tell you the genome of your fetus within the second trimester:

Using a blood sample from the mother and saliva from the father, scientists at the University of Washington mapped out the entire genome of a child while he was in the womb. The discovery, which was published June 6 in Scientific discipline Translational Medicine, makes it possible to spot disorders from sickle cell disease to cystic fibrosis to Down syndrome in the second trimester of pregnancy.

Best of all, at least for those of us who shiver at the idea of an amniocentesis, is that it's noninvasive.

About x percent of the free-floating in a mother'due south blood belongs to her infant, and by comparing her blood with her own and the father'due south DNA, scientists can pinpoint which DNA belongs to the baby. From in that location, they can sequence the child'due south unabridged DNA code. Or at least, they can get pretty close. Their accuracy rate was most 98 per centum in the infant boy they tested.

Zylstra says that, "at start blush," this information looks "incredible." Yes, it does. Becauseit is. This kind of technology gives u.s. more than control over our ain reproduction, which ways that we're better able to brand ethical decisions most our parenting. As Zylstra points out, parents who are expecting a special needs child tin fix in advance for what that ways.

But there's a catch, says Zylstra:

You can be emotionally prepared for his birth. You could choose a C-section if that was warranted, or line upwards services for him, or join a back up group.Or arrest him.That'due south the rub, said Factor Rudd, president of the Christian Medical and Dental Associations.

It's difficult to imagine this test wouldn't be the instigation of selective abortions, since many women with prenatal diagnoses of Down syndrome currently abort, he said. "It'southward search and destroy that we practice that now with Downs," he said. "And to what benefit do we do that? If we look at the statistics or surveys that come from families that have raised a Downs individual, 97 percent said information technology was rewarding."

It'south a life worth living, and many see that, says Amy Julia Becker, who has written extensively almost her daughter with Downwardly syndrome. Center conditions and respiratory troubles often suffered past those with Down's syndrome can be treated, life expectancy has risen from 25 to 60, and by all accounts,raising a son or daughter with Down's syndrome tin can be a wonderful souvenir. The numbers are tricky, but Becker says that about 70 percent of babies prenatally diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted.

"Ultimately, the problem is that nosotros take a society that says information technology's okay to impale unborn babies," Rudd told me. "If that weren't permissible, this information wouldn't be misused."Prenatal testing in a country with legal ballgame lets parents determine if that child is "good enough" to live, he said. But equally imperfect, capricious, sinful beings, how do nosotros figure we're smart enough, or good enough, to gauge everyone else's shot at life?

"Who are we to say that cystic fibrosis is such an overwhelmingly terrible disease that they shouldn't exist allowed to alive?" Rudd said. "Do we say that near a 1-year-old who is diagnosed? What's different about a younger kid?"

At that place are a lot of pieces to this pie, so I'm going to address them problem-by-trouble. Set? Here we go. This article:

1. Fetishizes disability.
2. Dehumanizes children.
3. Downplays economic concerns and long-term viability.
4. Minimizes the suffering of childrenand caregivers.
5. Is logically inconsistent.
6. Conflates fetuses with born children, and therefore
7. Devalues labor, commitment and motherhood.

Before we go whatsoever farther, hither is my main point:

Having an abortion to forestall a kid from being built-in with Down's syndrome or another disability can exist a positive moral pick.Okay, now let's go along (assuming you're not already plotting my demise).

ane. Fetishizing inability

The disability rights move is hugely important and I support it. It's especially vital for individuals with mental illnesses, who are ofttimes judged every bit "not really disabled" considering there's zero visibly wrong with them. Disabled people accept a long history of beingness medically driveling, used as examination subjects without consent, existence abandoned or forced to live in squalor, and being mostly reviled, disrespected and treated similar freaks. Wedemand a movement to rectify that and prevent information technology from ever happening once more. I'm glad we accept ane.

Now. Here's where I depart from Zylstra and other activists.

Respecting the rights of disabled people doesnothateful honoring or celebrating disability itself. Apart from the perspective and political activism that many disabled people have institute via their experiences every bit a discriminated-against class, I'd wager near people who are disabled would rather not be. Only like poor people value their wisdom merely would actually rather not be poor. I've been a poor kid. I'yard nonetheless pretty poor. I've learned a hell of a lot about empathy from beingness poor. But would Icull to be poor? No. Would I want others to be poor kids? No. Would I jump at the chance to stop poverty once and for all? Yeah! I desire people to listen to what I've learned, simply I don't want them all to take to learn information technology the hard way, like I did. I would wager that at least some disabled people feel the same.

When you argue that children with Down's syndrome are "special gifts" or that raising them is a "rewarding experience" for parents, you areappropriating their difficulties and fetishizing their deviation. That is the opposite of respecting a disabled person. I become that who we are is shaped by experience and that many disabled people consider disability to be integral to their personalities – just as I come across poverty every bit a formative feel for me – merely I uncertainty they would have chosen to be disabled in the start identify. Would they take voluntarily given up able bodies for the wisdom earned from being disabled? Would they decline handling, if information technology were available? Would they choose to suffer disabilities only and so that their parents could have the "reward" and "special gift" of raising them?

Amy Julia Becker of Sparse Places writes:

I detest the idea that at that place will exist fewer people with Down's syndrome in the world as a result of advances in prenatal testing. As I've written before, it impoverishes us all when nosotros selectively arrest babies based upon particular characteristics (gender, for instance, in People's republic of china and Bharat… disabilities here in America).

I understand this argument. I do. I get how parents of Downs children larn from their experiences and love their children fiercely and imagine how empty and cold the globe would be without children like theirs. Simply this line of reasoning makes me profoundly uncomfortable. Past all means, love your child! Past all means, share your hard-earned wisdom! Simply to wish for Down's syndrome tonever get away? to never be cured?Why would you wish that?

I can't help but think that it'southward non well-nigh the children'southward quality of life (wouldn't you lot cull a life for your child thatdidn't include Downs, if you could?) just about the parents' inability to distinguish between their love for their kids and the status from which their kids suffer. By all means, celebrate your kid and his or her wonderful uniqueness! (I say this without irony.) But don't reduce your child to the mere fact of having Downs, as though having Downs makes them a kind of endangered species and that Down's syndromemust continueforever because kids like yours would never be again without it. Your child would be special, you would have that bond, with or without Downs.

Wanting to eradicate a condition that causes suffering or dependence in a population isnot the aforementioned  as wanting that population to die.  Imagine for a moment that we're not talking about ballgame. If information technology were possible to "cure" Downwards syndrome prenatally, preserving the same fetus, would you deny your child the handling considering you'd hate to run across fewer Down's syndrome children in the world?

Which brings me to #2.

2. Dehumanizing children

Focusing on the "rewards" to parents of raising a special needs child means privileging parents' personal growth over the all-time interests of their potential child.  If parents cull to bring into this world a child that cannot be reasonably expected to intendance for himself as an adult, they are gambling with their child'due south future. Who will intendance for him or her when the parents are gone? Exercise they accept the resources to provide for their child's medical needs? Exercise they have other children who would be neglected because of their parents' intense focus on caring for the special needs child?

Now, I understand that many, many Downs people are able to function in the world without immediate care, but others can't. I think it'south awfully brazen and selfish not to consider one's potential kid's quality of lifefor the unabridged duration of that kid's life earlier deciding what to do. I think it's necessary to ask tough questions of yourself, to honestly answer the question of whether or not you lot can provide that kid with everything he or she volition needfor life.

Special needs children aren't loftier-maintenance pets that exist to teach you lessons about fortitude and compassion.They are people. And it'sconsidering a special needs fetus will become a person at nascence that abortion should be on the tabular array. Responsible,moralreproductive choices involve doing the hard math and yes, making decisions to either requite your kid the best possible long, independent life or to terminate the pregnancy early on if you know you tin't.

Clinging to a soundbyte belief system that makes your decisions for you ("Abortion is murder!") or abdicating responsibility ("God volition provide every bit long equally I don't get an ballgame!") means shirking your cardinal duty as a parent: to make decisions with your child's best interests at center until your child can practise so herself. That responsibility may lead you to requite birth to and raise a disabled child – and more power to you! – as long as you're doing it with your optics open and taking every possible precaution to make sure you tin evangelize on the promise of care you are making your newborn kid. But it may too mean having an abortion.

Information technology intrigues me that religious people, the ones who are the first to betoken out the flaws and fallen nature of the world, are the last to acknowledge the result: that horrible things happen, and those situations require hard decisions. Birth defects and excruciating diseases happen. To refuse to human action to minimize suffering (indeed, toforbidit) is at all-time selfish and at worst calumniating. To pretend that in that location is always a perfect answer to a problem in this imperfect world is to effectively close your optics and live in your own imagination.

iii. Classism

Not every family can afford the medical care of a special needs kid. Non every family tin beget thetime spent caring for a special needs child, specially if they already have multiple children. To demand that families thatknow they lack these resources withal give up everything to bring a child into a world where it will be neglected, inadequately treated by doctors, and in all likelihood terminate up in foster care or, as an developed, homeless, is cruelly insane. To focus on mere "life" to the exclusion of the quality thereof is not but stupid, it's evil. It is deliberately inflicting suffering on others to soothe your own censor.

And in case you're wondering, the cost of a lifetime of care for a Down syndrome child has been recently estimated at ii.9 million dollars.

(Though, given that the gauge was fabricated in the context of a lawsuit, it's probably a little on the loftier side.)

four. Minimizing the Needs of Others

Parents and caregivers are people, too. They exercise not forfeit their own needs when they take children; indeed, doing and so is reallyharmful to children. Call back the many times I've said that having a stay-calm female parent made me experience hopeless and guilty nearly becoming a woman. I was put in the impossible position of either following in her footsteps, thereby ensuring that every female in our line would do naught simply sacrifice for her children and never get to have her own dreams, ornot post-obit in her footsteps and feeling guilty that I was (a) rejecting her by rejecting her lifestyle and (b) doing my own potential children some kind of injustice, even though I didn't want my children facing the quandary I was! I wished my mother had more of a life outside of raising me, because then I would be freer to take a life, besides.

If parents choose to welcome a special needs child into their family unit, theymust consider how information technology volition bear upon not only that child, simply also themselves and their other children.They must make room for breaks and cocky-care to preserve their own health, mental and physical. In my own church, there was a woman with two children who got pregnant and found out her child had a fatal defect. She decided against having an ballgame, assertive that God would honor her and heal her kid (or at least provide for it). The child lived 13 years in unspeakable pain, without cognition, undergoing surgery after surgery until she died – and by this fourth dimension the family had wearied its resources, the other 2 children had been practically abandoned. The mother had worked herself to the bone, endured a failed promise from God, and had to mourn the child all over again at the end of it all. That child was non a "approving." Information technology was not a "rewarding" experience – though the female parent might tell you and then out of sheer beloved and the demand to justify her situation. The kid'south birthdestroyed her family, and she was never fifty-fifty enlightened enough of her own existence to realize she was loved. How isthat the mitt of God?

5. Logical Inconsistency

Commencement, we become the argument that raising a special needs kid is a blessing:

[Says Rudd:] "If we look at the statistics or surveys that come from families that have raised a Downs individual, 97 percent said it was rewarding."

That is abhorrent abuse of statistics. Outset, your entire sample (people who have chosennot to arrest) is already biased toward the belief that what they're doing is rewarding. Where are the surveys for women who chose to abort Downs fetuses? You're comparing this 97 percent to an empty page. They might say that their abortion was a blessing, but you can't print that, can you? Not on a Christian web log.

2nd, the parenting discourse in Western civilisation is then punitive that parents of "typical" children aren't even gratis to express that they dislike the drudgery of parenting without beingness accused of beingness sociopaths and hating their kids. That's why such statements every bit "I hate being a mom" show up anonymously on Secret Confessions and have been called the Greatest American Taboo. How muchmore pressure is there on parents of special needs kids never to admit that they wish they weren't?

So, we get this:

"Who are we to say that cystic fibrosis is such an overwhelmingly terrible disease that they shouldn't be allowed to live?" Rudd said."Do we say that about a ane-yr-old who is diagnosed? What's different nigh a younger kid?"

Petty is unlike about a younger kid. Everything is different nigh a fetus.A fetus does not have cognition. A fetus lives inside a adult female's torso. A fetus has never drawn a breath. A fetus has not lived a life to miss.Those are significant differences.

Too, when did nosotros go from talking about the relative independence of some Downs individuals to the horrible suffering inflicted pastcystic fibrosis? Read this clarification and see if you think information technology'south an apt comparing:

Cystic fibrosis is a illness passed down through families that causes thick, viscous mucus to build up in the lungs, digestive tract, and other areas of the body. It is ane of the almost common chronic lung diseases in children and young adults. Information technology is a life-threatening disorder. Lung disease eventually worsens to the point where the person is disabled. Today, the average life bridge for people with CF who live to adulthood is approximately 37 years, a dramatic increase over the final iii decades. Death is normally acquired by lung complications.

Would you utter a sentence like this?:I hate the thought that at that place will be fewer people with cystic fibrosis in the globe equally a result of advances in prenatal testing.Would you tell parents how "rewarding" it is to raise a child with cystic fibrosis? Who are nosotros to say that the disease is overwhelmingly terrible? Rudd asks. Well, here's who we are: Caring parents. Compassionate, educated doctors. People who don't want to inflict unnecessary suffering by bringing a not-yet-conscious fetus into the world to experience a waking nightmare and die, choking or suffocating, at half the normal life expectancy. That's who.

In that location's also the picayune problem that the commodity jumps dorsum and along between arguing nearly the intrinsic worth of life and the rewards of being a caregiver. These two competing perspectives make the statement hard to follow.

6 + 7. Erasing Maternity

Information technology's a common trope of the pro-life motion that "a moment earlier birth" a fetus is a infant, and therefore abortion is the same as infanticide. This is not only scientifically inaccurate, it's misogynistic. It erases the woman, her wellbeing, and her labor from the entire equation.Childbirth is momentous. It matters. It is not merely a legal flagpole where personhood is arbitrarily assigned.It is the moment at which a child begins to occupy the world equally an independent being.

Information technology is also a momentmade possible past the bodily work (pain, sweat, claret and tears) of a adult female. If we grew children in plastic incubators with green fluid and Classical music playing gently in the background, then the "moment before birth" comparison might exist apt. Just it isn't, because children live in their own bodies, and fetuses alive in their mothers'. While that fetus is in its mother's body, she does take sovereignty over the conclusion whether or not to bring the child into the world. That is her sacred right equally a mother. It is her sacred right every bit a woman not to accept her body violated against her will – be it past another adult, a child or a fetus. Alone, a fetus cannot be brought into the world to become a baby. Therefore,yous can't talk almost a fetus as though it exists without regard for the adult female upon whom its being depends. To amerce the pregnant woman from a give-and-take near pregnancy is like having a conversation near the weather on an asteroid.

Zylstra concludes her article:

It'due south not that the test is bad. To be able to map a child's Deoxyribonucleic acid while they're however in the womb is fascinating. But and so is the fact that many mothers believe that information technology would exist worse to live in animperfect body than not to live at all.

In that location's a huge problem hither. Cystic fibrosis is a serious disease. Downs syndromecan be serious. Genetic diseases can leave children'due south independence stalled, their mobility hampered, their bodies agonized, their minds wracked with torturous bouts of low and acrimony, their futures uncertain and their families stressed to the breaking point.This isn't about perfect and imperfect bodies. This isnon the difference betwixt passing on genes correlated with overweight and comparing your potential child to fitness models. The perfect/imperfect trunk dichotomy is a red herring. No body is perfect. It's disingenuous and manipulative to assert that having a serious genetic disorder is equivalent to having a few pimples and a crooked olfactory organ.

If I somehow (metaphysics be damned!) had a choice to exist born in a torso that would slowly disintegrate on me, like that of Stephen Hawking, or non to exist built-in at all, I'd choice the latter. This doesnot mean that I think Stephen Hawking shouldn't exist live. He is a great scientist. He has washed marvelous things with his life. Merely that does not make the hurting and horror of his state of affairs whatever less. If I could forbid my ain child from being born into a life like that, I would. I consider it mymoral imperative. And if Stephen Hawking and I were hanging out in the metaphysical waiting room earlier descending to globe, and he told me he didn't want to be born into all that suffering, information technology would existunfathomably selfish of me to demand that he endure what he has endured just so that I (and other healthful people) could benefit from his mind.

My Points:

If you fabricated it this far, congratulations. Here's the rundown:

1. Respect disabled people for their personhood, just don'tpromote the continued beingness of disabilities. That doesn't practice anyone whatsoever favors.
2. Don't treat disabled children equally special projects to improve their parents' graphic symbol.
3. Don't human action similar everybody tin afford to live by your conscience.
4. Don't prioritize the wellbeing of a fetus over the unabridged family.
5. Don't force special needs children into families that don't want them, and will abuse, neglect or abandon them. They take information technology hard enough in families that desire them and accept the resources to care for them.
6. Don't conflate serious disorders with modest imperfections to guilt parents into a selection to enhance a kid they don't desire to accept.
7. Don't abuse statistics to lie almost the satisfaction rate of parents with special needs children.
8. Don't minimize the labor of mothers or pretend that you can talk about fetuses without women.

Information technology is possible to cull abortion based on a positive screening for genetic disordersbecause you are morally opposed to inflicting suffering on others . It is possible that women who abort fetuses with Downwards syndrome or more series disorders do itnot because they hate Downs people or like genocide or are Selfish Career Bitches(TM), but because they honestly believe it'due south what'due south best for their families. The anti-abortion crowd is non the but one with a flagpole stuck in the moral high ground.

Now, finally, a thought experiment.

Why is it a "approving" and a "rewarding" experience to heighten a kid with Down syndrome, merely non one with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome? If there's something inherently valuable near disabilities themselves that improves the lives of people who have them and whose loved ones have them, why does the origin of the disability make such a difference? Why is taking every precaution to avoid FAS, to the point of making pregnant women neurotic, a worthwhile societal goal?Why does no one hate to imagine a world in which there are no children with FAS?

I doubtable the reply has something to do with command. Because if you lot can command an outcome (or at least recall you can), people will be justified in blaming yous for an adverse event. But if you can't preclude suffering (or think you can't), your reputation remains untarnished. If yous come across suffering in your future and evade it, those who are suffering will assail you for your selfishness and arrogance. ("How dare yous accept it so easy?") But is that feeling of moral superiority actually moral superiority? I don't think so. It sounds more like a cry of pain at the unfairness of the world – which is something nosotros should be trying to prepare, not perpetuate.

Sierra is a PhD student living in the Midwest. She was raised in a "Message of the Hour" congregation that followed the ministry of William Branham. She left the Message in 2006 and is the author of the web log The Phoenix and the Olive Branch.

An Abortion to Avoid Having a Baby With Minor Disabilities Is Morally Permissible

Source: https://rewirenewsgroup.com/article/2012/08/16/disability-prenatal-testing-and-case-moral-compassionate-abortion/

Share this post