Thanks for the anecdote. Personally: I’d be happy if HS football were eliminated; I wonder if a speech therapist would cost as much as a football program; and would wonder if there were less expensive ways to obtain speech therapy services. But isn’t it pretty much obvious that money spent on one thing cannot be spent on another?
Sure, we can talk about whether funds for one program or another are coming from different budgets, by they are all money, correct? I would suspect that rational people might differ in their views as to what they consider the functions of public education. Just because person A wants tons of money spent on athletics, person B would prefer more money spent of special education, and person C wants more spent on gifted services, does not necessarily make any of them “wrong” from an ethical or moral standpoint. If I disagree with any or all of them, that does not necessarily make me or them a bad person.
I was on my local school board in the 1980s, and in NJ the state requires that *every *student with *any *special need, be it speech therapy or help with a major problem like blindness or severe mental or physical problems *must *receive any necessary therapy at public expense. It was, and probably still is, a significant part of the public school budget. In one case we paid for a child with tons of problems to attend a special school out of state because it was the only one the team could find to meet his/her needs. The option of not providing speech therapy or any other service is simply does not exist here.
And my position is simply that I may not feel that is the best use of public funds. I’m sure many advocates for disabled children disagree. If I had a disabled child, I suspect I would likely feel and act differently, tho I’m not sure. I’m very glad I was never in a position where I had to find out.
I have similar feelings regarding some expenditures on medical treatment. Some truly unfortunate situations (IMO) simply do not warrant the expenditure of vast sums.
I readily acknowledge that drawing lines is always problematic. In a perfect world of unlimited resources, we would not worry about allocating funds.
And we had a thread last year, about the benefits of not having kids, in which a lot of people basically came out, admitting that they don’t love every single moment of parenting. At least one post touched on this subject. It’s not always an angel in the house.
I’m married to a disabled man who benefited from public funds both for his medical needs and his education.
In his case it was probably money well spent, because for 40 years he was an independent, self-supporting adult. I think when you can take a disabled child and enable them to be independent it can be the wisest long-term course. We’ve found that that is possible a lot more often than we thought it would be a couple generations ago.
But there are some kids who are seriously messed up. They need a life-time baby-sitting service more than an army of therapists that will make little or no difference. Of course, you can’t always determined which kid is which sort at, say, the age of six. You may have to spend some time and money, first. But I wish we as a society were capable of saying “well, this kid isn’t ever going to be an independent adult, but we can give them a comfortable, basic life” instead of making it a crapshoot whether or not the kid or the last parent will die first.
Ok, how many abortions are there in the world simply because its a girl and girls are not valued as much as boys. In that society there is also a cost/benefit things they do.
Well the parents could still have sued and got that speech therapist and to hell with the HS football team. According to law they MUST provide it. I personally know 2 kids who are getting services at special schools - one costing $50,000 a year and the other over $100,000 a year and that district IS paying for them (they won a lawsuit for it).
If that school district needs a bigger budget, they need to ask for one. If they need to ask for football parents to pony up more money - they should do it.
Has the district looked at applying for a grant? Have they applied for medicaid?
I tend to agree - the least able of us should be given “a comfortable basic life.”
. In my opinion, $50 or 100k ought to buy a hell of a lot more than “a comfortable basic life.”
Our local paper often prints what I imagine is supposed to be “feel good” pieces about some profoundly impaired infant or child born to impoverished parents, who is receiving extreme health care - multiple transplants, etc., with an extremely short expected lifespan. Really unfortunate situations, but not every unfortunate situation deserves monumental amounts of resources directed to them.
Meanwhile, how many reasonably physically and mentally sound kids are wasting away in impoverished areas. My personal preference - which many would disagree with - would be for more societal resources to be directed towards THEM, with the severely impaired essentially “warehoused” in as pleasant and supportive manner reasonable. Of course, I feel the same about our growing population of aged and mentally impaired seniors. Yes, I’m a monster. But someone has to pay the bills, and we cannot pay for EVERYTHING.
I’m glad you love your kid. Which is as it should be. But I don’t. And I don’t expect you to love my kid. But I’m not asking society as a whole to pony up a greater than proportionate share of the expenses associated with my kid, as the result of my choice.
Yeah, and those countries are paying for it big time: hundreds of thousands of men are finding themselves single and without families. Which means social instability on a colossal scale.
I’m not seeing comparable costs resulting from abortions due to serious genetic disorders. Perhaps you can enlighten us?
You didn’t answer her question. So why should she answer yours?*
If aborting a fetus with DS is morally objectionable, shouldn’t aborting any fetus for any reason be objectionable?
Seems to me if you’re “pro-choice”, you’ accept the idea that people should be able to terminate their pregnancies for any reason they see fit, without having to justify it to anyone but themselves. Or are you one of these folks who think people should not be able to terminate their pregnancies because of a Down Syndrome diagnosis, while all other reasons are fine and dandy? Because I don’t consider those folks “pro-choice”. They are just manipulative SOBs.
*A society that values boys over girls so much that parents are willing to terminate their female fetuses simply for being female has structural problems. Banning gender-screening/selection doesn’t fix these problems. The solution is removing the institutional and cultural barriers that perpetuate the notion of female inferiority. Trying to fix the problem at the “abortion” end only results in more members of the oppressed.
Similarly, if we want to stop people from terminating their disabled fetuses, we need to make it easier for families to care for their disabled children and siblings. Guilting/shaming people for terminating a pregnancy isn’t going to do anything but bring more improperly cared for vulnerable children into the world, and create more unhappy, overburdened parents.
Where did you read this study? Almost every reputable study I have seen is that the vast majority do not report any significant regret. See here, here, and here. To quote one article:
I am sure someone has reached the opposite conclusion, but wouldn’t you think fewer than 1/3 of women would get them if there was widespread regret, suicide, and depression among those who did?
Are you being deliberately obtuse?
Very well said (as usual). Unfortunately, I am sure someone will be by soon to imply you you support eugenics and infanticide.
Well maybe I should explain. To me when I say “pro-choice” I’m saying women should have the right to choose what they do with their bodies.
That doesnt mean I’m condoning abortion. Having sex is an enormous responsibility which many people do not take seriously.
Do you know Madonna has had 11 abortions!
It is terminating a life and I hope it is done as rarely as possible. I work more on getting rid of the need for abortion which is better contraception, people taking better responsibility with sex, people valuing the life that is created.
This sounds weasely to me. It’s like saying I think people have the right to bear arms, but I don’t condone owning a gun. Or people have the right to free speech, but I don’t condone public petitions. If we’re given the right to something, there should be no guilting or shaming involved in exercising that right. Because otherwise, it’s not really a right.
One can make the argument that by allowing people to terminate fetuses (whether disabled or not), more resources can be devoted to children and adults who do require special services. I wonder if the better diagnosis and intervention programs for autism and learning disabilities nowadays is in any way correlated to the decreasing trend in the number of profoundly and severely disabled children in the school system. Perhaps the reason people don’t think DS is that much of a hardship or stigma nowadays is because the DS kids we see are the ones who were wanted and well-cared for. Perhaps the stress of parenting disabled children would be even more stressful if every family faced a similar burden, rather than just some.
Although I agree with you that there can be dire societal implications if everyone aborted their pregnancies, I believe the same can be said when abortion is restricted too much–whether through legislation or through societal shaming. When people are compelled to carry unwanted pregnancies, we end up with orphanages and nasty warehouses for the disabled. We end up with dried-out coffers because of the demand placed on special education and specialized foster care. Which means not just no football teams. But also no science labs, no arts programs, no anything that is for the common good. I don’t think Dinsdale is a monster for placing value on the common good.
I am not in any position to question someone’s decision to terminate a pregnancy. It’s not only their body, it’s their fetus. Since I’m not in the position to raise someone else’s children, then who I am to judge someone for saying “I cannot handle this”? There may be a time when I find myself saying the same thing.
I actually think it’s reasonable to personally disapprove of, and even morally condemn, abortion, as long as one advocates that it remain legal. That’s consistent with someone who has strong faith and religious beliefs but doesn’t wish to inflict their religious views on others by force of law. That’s what’s important, in my mind, and I think a lot of pro-choice people have this view.
“It’s a choice I wouldn’t make and a choice that I believe is morally wrong, but it still is a choice and must remain a choice for women to make on their own” is an acceptable viewpoint for pro-choice people to have, I think. It’s not my viewpoint, but in my experience it is a pretty common one. My viewpoint is not to judge women in any way for the choices they make about their own bodies.
Yes. My mother has this view, and perhaps at one time I did as well. But as I said, what’s the point of saying people have a “right” to something, when they are going to *tsk tsk tsk *at the people who exercise that right? Can something be a right if it’s morally wrong?
I’m not a fan of the 2nd amendment, but I do believe people have the right to defend themselves. It is never morally wrong to defend oneself. I’d use a word other than “right” if I believed otherwise.
I think the use of certain language can be morally wrong while still believing that free speech is a right. But on the whole, I don’t have a problem with people saying what they want to say, as long they reciprocate. This seems different from a stance that says “I believe you have the right to do X. But I think all of X is morally wrong.” I dunno, maybe I’m just splitting hairs.
If Urbanredneck doesn’t think all of abortion is wrong, I’d like to know where he draws the line. I can certainly understand having a problem with terminating fetuses who have mild abnormalities. But if one believes all life is precious, then would this not mean that no abortion is a justifiable one, in their eye’s? Why should this be a right, then? That’s why it seems like a weasely position to me.
Well, sure, it seems to me. Cheating on one’s spouse or significant other out of spite and maliciousness is absolutely wrong, in my mind, but it absolutely should not be affected or sanctioned by the law in any way. I think there are lots of examples like that.
They may well believe that no abortion is morally justifiable, but some are worse, even while supporting that they remain legal because these are religious and not secular philosophical beliefs, and they don’t want to push their religion on others through law.
Would you describe a fertility clinic getting rid of fertilized eggs at the behest of the owners as “terminating a life”? I guess my question is why a mother getting an abortion is terminating life, is subject to all sorts of people wishing to restrict her ability to do so due to laws and/or picketing or killing the providers of that service, but no one goes after fertility clinics when they dispose of fertilized eggs on a regular basis. Why do you think that is? Why can a women getting IVF decide what to do with an embryo without being judged, but one getting an abortion generally cannot?