This was kinda brought on by that whole Down syndrome cosmetic surgery thread–it got me thinking. If I found out, while pregnant and still in the first trimester, that my child were going to have Down syndrome (or any other such disability, i.e. cystic fibrosis), I have no idea what I would do. I am generally pro-life, but in this scenario, I can see where an argument of the beard comes into play. If it were your child, what would you do and how would you justify your decision either way?
I would be scared to death to have a Downs Syndrome baby, and if I knew that there was one on the way I would want to proceed with an abortion. However, my wife is never going to have an abortion, no matter what. She very well might do so if she knew it was what I wanted, but it would haunt her forever if she did. For that very reason, I would never, ever even think about broaching the subject of abortion with her. I would have the child and try my hardest to cope with his/her condition.
I would only end the pregnancy in the most severe circumstances. If the child was acephalic (born lacking a brain), the pregnancy is over. The child could not even be said to be human without a brain. Down’s Syndrome I would also have to end. After all, if I didn’t what would I be saving? The child would end up a drag on society that could do nothing useful. After its parents died, the child would end up on welfare doing essentially nothing. If the child was to have Huntington’s Disease or Tay-Sachs Syndrome the pregnancy would be ended because the child would die a painful death at a young age. If the child was to be moderately to mildly retarded or simply physically handicapped there is little reason to terminate the pregnancy.
Exactly! Which is what disturbed me very deeply when I read an article in a biology class describing a woman whose baby was born anencephalic (which i believe is the correct term,
“acephalic” literally means lacking a head) but had enough of a brainstem to sustain vital life processes. AND SHE KEPT IT! Her reason was “Well, I’ma just keep prayin’, and the Lord’s gonna make her right.” The child was a vegetable. A breathing, shitting cabbage patch. Never to have a thought in its entire life, and here the woman was celebrating its 1st birthday. Can you imagine THAT birthday party? eek.
Unbelievable. The value of life must be set at something higher than economic worth. This sounds like one of Hitler’s euthenasia propaganda pieces. Those that contribute nothing to the society will not be supported by the society. And the unconditional love that the mentally handicapped can give us and the things about life and responsibility that we can learn by taking care of them do not count as contributions to society- gee, not in the way that making money does.
Yeah, we all know the world would be a better place had Woody Guthrie never been born.:rolleyes:
I am not sure if any existing medical techniques can tell you if the child is going to be a perpetual infant or Chris Burke; Rainman or Temple Grandin. And if there was, what would your cut-off point for ‘moderately to mildly’ be?
I would not abort a child I had chosen to conceive.
I would not abort an brainless child unless it could be demonstrated to me beyond a shadow of a doubt in the first trimester that it was sompletly devoid of brain. It would be a mournful, painful time, but I don’t think I could abort it. I would hope, probably in vain that it could be used to prolong another child’s life.
As for aborting a Down’s syndrome child, that I could not do. I see Down’s syndrome people that talk and feel and hold jobs and are far more worthy to hold life than some relitively intelligent wastes of skin I have known. To this end I will not have amniocentesis.
I repeat, I am extremely pro-choice. Her body her right. There are circumstances that I would have had an abortion. Because my child is not normal is not
Sorry for my thoughtless hijack. In case of an acephalic child, probably. In case of a Down Syndrome child, absolutely not. This is a subject I am rather touchy on, as there is a history of seriously ill, short-lived babies in my family. Their fatal deformities cannot be compared to something like Down Syndrome.
Actually, that hope probably would not be in vain. Generally those who do choose not to abort anencephalic babies do so for this reason. I admire this position, and I believe if this were my situation, I would probably carry the brainless child to term as well, so that any functional organs could be donated to a needy infant.
quick aside-
My sister has three beautiful, healthy children. Her first two showed positive signs for Downs syndrome. She had an amnio which “confirmed” it, according to her Dr. They were just fine- false alarm. That brings an interesting twist- how do you know for absolute sure that there is something wrong? Her blood tests showed an extremely high chance. She was devastated, yet they were just fine.
Zette
Several years ago there was a anacephalitic baby born someplace in Florida. The parents wanted to donate the child for organ donation. According to the news reports at the time, infant organs deteriorate so rapidly that they would be useless if the baby died before they were harvested, so the parents fought the legal system to donate parts of organs (i.e., one kidney, one lung) so as to make their infant useful. The hospital did not want to do this, and the baby died before the case was settled.
As for the OP…I’ve never been pregnant, have no kids, am not particularly fond of kids in the first place. I can’t answer a question I haven’t experienced.
No way. I figure, if God thinks I can handle a child with problems, I’ll give it a try. And even if the baby was clearly not going to survive, I’m not sure what I would do. My first pregnancy turned out to have serious genetic problems, and the baby died a couple weeks after we found out what was happening (at 14 weeks). We had to consider abortion as an option, but I’m not sure I would have done it. The baby died before we made a decision.
After the baby died, the perinatologist offered to enroll us in a support group for people who had aborted babies thought to have problems. I was in no mood to talk to anyone who had done that, given that I was thinking that I would have accepted a baby, any baby, if it had just lived. I can understand why someone would do it if the child was going to die at birth anyhow, but anything else is just beyond me.
I did have an amnio with my second pregnancy (we have a healthy 5-week old girl now)–mainly, I suppose, to put my mind at rest. The worry that it would happen again was very scary, and I thought I would rather know about any problems. I would have kept a Down’s baby, though–it was more a case of ‘forewarned is forearmed.’
And a big agreement with Sugaree on everything said. All this just smacks too much of eugenics, and we know now where that leads to.
And I would greatly admire the courage of anyone who could carry an ancephalic baby to term to donate the organs. I’d like to think I would do it too.
Added because I couldn’t edit my post.
genie said:
I see where you’re coming from, but I was thinking more along the lines of preventing the suffering of the child, as in the case of a retarded baby, if one were to be aborted. I could care less about “filtering out bad genes” and whatnot. However, I’m not sure that aborting a severely retarded child could be justified by this, being that by killing them before they’ve had a chance to live, you’ve not only prevented them from the pain of living a disabled life, you’ve also effectively precluded any joy they might have experienced.
On a slightly different note–what about a cystic fibrosis baby? Most of them die before they’re 20, but they aren’t retarded or disabled usually in any other way. Would you keep that child, knowing the pain you’d have to go through when it died?
I think I would. Their life might not be as long, but it can be almost as normal as any other child’s.
I’ve been pregnant three times, twice I delivered boys, and once I ‘miscarried’ (I’ve always hated that term, I do know I MISSed holding that baby) and my ‘thoughtful’ in laws kept reassuring me that I ‘ought to be glad since it couldn’t have been normal.’ They shut up once I told them quite emphatically that I didn’t care.
I’ve known couples who have had a Down’s syndrome child, and I’m no martyr or saint that it still would scare me to be told that I was having a baby that probably could never support itself. But, you know, life is SUCH a crapshoot! I have had two healthy kids, but even today, with one at twenty years old, and the other at sixteen, who knows how long THEY could live? Or the kinds of lives they’ll lead, who they could hurt?
I don’t think it’s up to me to make that judgment call as to quality of life. A retarded child * doesn’t seem * to have much to look forward to, but is that the truth? I wouldn’t abort, no matter what the doctors told me.
- They could be wrong.
- That child is still * life * and of value to God, whether I understand its future or not.
which by the way is a very interesting one. With Down syndrome they use AFP testing, which is not really an exact science (if the AFP concentration is in such-and-such a range, it’s this, if it’s in this range, it’s that, etc.) but I can’t believe an amnio was wrong! I take your word for it, but it’s just very rare. Well, in the light of this knowledge, I guess I would have to keep a Down syndrome baby because I couldn’t live with myself knowing I might have killed a perfectly healthy child. Although I probably would go through with the pregnancy anyway, because killing a child, Down syndrome or not, before it has a chance to live is unconscionable in my mind. The only way I think I could do it is if the child were going to die within the first few years anyway, or if it were going to be retarded to the point of not knowing what was going on around him. And even in the latter case, I don’t know.
My personal difficulty with terminating a Down Syndrome baby is that the amnio returns no info about the degree of disability. Many many Down Syndrome kids are achieving really well with early intervention.
Anencephaly - I would carry an anencephalic baby to term. They very rarely survive and having had a baby stillborn at term I know how much it would mean to me personally to hold my baby before they died.
For me personally it comes down to the amount of suffering a baby is going to endure. I don’t believe in life at all costs, especially if I am not going to be the one doing the physical suffering.
Sugaree cited Temple Grandin - Grandin is not retarded and her IQ score is in the 140’s. She has High Functioning Autism which is not detectable by genetic testing. My 2 yo was diagnosed as HFA last week - he is also gifted. We have some challenges ahead of us but I don’t think I would have chosen to end that pregnancy if I had known that we were going to have a second child on the autistic spectrum. My older son is also on the spectrum but much less so than his younger brother.
This subject is very close to my heart right now as I am going to try to conceive soon.
A woman in my office a few years ago had conceived against great odds afer years of trying and had an amniocentisis and not long thereafter miscarried.
I talked with her before hand and she mentioned it was mainly to test for Down’s Syndrome. I did not say anything further to her about it, but looked up the risks. The risk of a miscarriage from that test is not neligible. I kept quiet because it was none of my business, but made a vow never to do that myself.
lee, I worried a lot about that risk of miscarriage myself. At first, I decided not to do it and to just deal with the worry. But after a couple months, I decided that the fear and stress I was having was probably harder on the baby than an amnio would be. (It’s easy to say that I’ll accept whatever comes, but it’s a lot harder to live through it!) The perinatologist I went to had never had a miscarriage result from an amnio, and I prayed a lot about it beforehand and felt that it would be OK. They have an ultrasound going the whole time and keep the needle well away from the baby and placenta.
So I had a good result. But I had a history of genetic problems, so this made sense for me. I don’t think the same would be true of someone without a similar history. I certainly wouldn’t recommend it for every pregnancy.
As for the cystic fibrosis question, no, I don’t think there’s a good reason to abort there. Plenty of people with CF live longer now (I had a friend in grad school who was doing very well), and who can tell how long any of your children are going to live? Kids get hit by cars, or get cancer, or anything. There’s no guarantee.
I don’t think we have the right to decide that baby X may (or may not) suffer and should therefore not live. Baby X may also have plenty of joy and love.
I had no idea ANY risk was involved in having an amniocentesis. However now that I do I feel stupid for not being able to deduce that myself; there’s a frickin needle going into your uterus, for cryin in the mud…
genie said:
and Primaflora said:
Both excellent points, the likes of which I was looking for in starting the thread. It’s so hard to find a happy medium between wanting the baby to be able to experience life and its wonderfulness, and wanting to prevent as much as possible any unnecessary suffering.
Well, it’s been a while since I last had a checkup, but I don’t recall having ovaries, so I don’t really feel that it’s my call to make.
Backstory: My wife is what I refer to as a “Cradle Catholic”, and would never have had an abortion, no matter what. Whereas I’m staunchly pro-choice. She and I talked about amnio, and she decided that she didn’t want to go through with it, particularly since she would never have aborted. And since she was the one who had a fetus sitting on her bladder and peeing in her bloodstream, I decided that the decision was probably better left to her. Just like Ptahlis, I lived in fear of my child being born with Down Syndrome. And that’s specifically DS, not any other malady. And our daughter was born almost nine years ago with DS. She’s a pretty good kid, and I would cheerfully kill anyone who wanted to harm her. So, I guess that I’m learning this fatherhood thing one step at a time. Although, I’m in no hurry to discuss her menses.
Okay, I’m sorry, I went light years OT. I just wanted to get that out there.
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