Completely agree with this. Not too sure what SCOTUS would do.
Absolutely yes. First of all, I believe a woman should be able to abort with the parameters of Roe for any or no reason. I think aborting for Down’s is perfectly fine. Some people may be able to handle it, I personally could not. I would consider it a life sentence.
A lot of backers of this bill are, in fact, parents of children with Down Syndrome themselves.
What makes Downs the one condition that the government can use to deny a woman an abortion? The answer is … nothing. This will just be one step in the process of adding one condition after another into the law to prevent women from getting any abortion.
That’s probably the idea.
Downs babies require enormous amounts of extra care and medical procedures. Many cannot nurse and require special feeding equipment. Due to low muscle tone combined with enlarged tongue size most Downs babies have sleep apnea and require constant monitoring at night. For these reasons most daycare providers won’t take them, and families with two working parents will require a nanny with special medical certifications.
It is an enormous, overwhelming burden that most families will struggle with throughout the life of the Downs member.
The Downs people I have known have all been kind, cheerful, loving people whose parents will tell you it was worth the effort. But the folks I’ve known have been from upper middle class families, who had massive support from local communities to help with the challenge.
I’m betting the people rooting for this law are the same ones rooting for their congress-critters to withhold funding from schools, CHIP, MEDICAID, and all the other programs which support families through these challenges.
Shame on them.
Bully for them. That still does not give them the right to dictate to other people.
I married someone who was disabled. That does not give me the right to insist someone else make the same choice(s) I did.
Because people with Down’s Syndrome are portrayed to be universally happy and outgoing and cuddly. They make a much more useful anti-abortion propaganda mascot than children with microcephaly or cyclopea.
Heck, I don’t think that point is reached until a number of months after birth. Not that I believe in infanticide, but I don’t think that the brain has developed a level of consciousness and self-awareness that really should be counted as being “a person” until at least after the beginning of word use in proper context.
While I’m 100% pro-choice, I’m wondering about the practical aspects of this law.
A woman has testing that shows the fetus she’s carrying has trisomy 21. Her doctor cannot abort that fetus without potential legal complications.
So, the woman goes to Planned Parenthood or another private practitioner. She says she wants her fetus aborted. The fetus is aborted, no law is broken. Is this basically correct?
It may be correct for this particular law, but the goal would be to have this woman charged with murder. And of course they’ll try to make a requirement that a doctor can’t perform an abortion with first testing the woman for Downs, followed by all other detectable conditions, before finally banning abortion altogether. Every law limiting abortion is intended as a step towards making all abortions illegal.
I’m pro-choice in that I oppose increasing restrictions on abortion and this is no exception, and for the same reason. If you’re going to allow abortion in the first month then it shouldn’t matter what genes the embryo has. If you’re going to disallow abortion in the last month it shouldn’t matter what genes the baby/foetus has.
It could be that the folks promoting this bill know it will never make it, and want to be able to say “State Legislator Jones is in favor of aborting Down Syndrome babies”, if Jones votes against the bill.
I don’t get why aborting a Downs fetus is somehow more morally repugnant than aborting a normal one. What’s the logic?
Abortion is one of those things that society is OK with as long as you don’t give a reason.
“I’m aborting because I don’t want a boy/girl” = you’re sexist.
“I’m aborting because the child will be biracial” = you’re racist.
“I’m aborting because the child will be gay (assuming such a test were possible)” = you’re homophobic.
“I’m aborting because the child will be disabled” = you’re ableist.
“I’m aborting because…it’s my choice and I do what I want with my body” = “Yippee, good for you!”
It smells of eugenics. It’s not a matter of just “We don’t want a child”. It’s “This child will be defective and shouldn’t be born.”
Back in the 90s, when it looked like they might have found genetic roots for homosexuality (the so called “gay gene”), there was a lot of speculation and fear, especially among the gay community, that that could lead to selective abortions of gays and lesbians.
Still doesn’t make sense. “I can’t have this child now! I want to work another year and put away some money” is perfectly acceptable. “I’d prefer not to give myself a life sentence of caring for someone who may never live on his own and when I die will be a ward of the state” is unacceptable.
I get the eugenics fears but really, do we think it’s a good idea to commit the parents to this burden?
Since the bill has passed the legislature and gone to the governor for his signature, it has a very real chance of becoming law.
Gov. Kasich (a very political animal) now has to choose between pissing off a sizable portion of the electorate who would otherwise consider supporting him for President in a future race (and who already doubt him because he’s otherwise not extreme enough for them), or torching his limited chances of appearing as a reasonable moderate to independents and center-right Democrats. I’d expect him to sign it.
Damned if I know what courts would decide, but such a limited ban seems shaky to me.
It’s also a vicious strike against parental rights and likely to be quite unpopular with most people. The latest Pew survey shows a stable 57% supporting abortion rights in most cases, and that number has been markedly higher in the event of serious fetal defects.
In the vast majority of cases my point is irrelevant. I’m sort of hypothesizing a future in which fetuses can be safely removed and gestated in artificial wombs at any point during pregnancy – in such a case, my argument for abortion rights (which is entirely based on bodily autonomy rights) would not require the death of a fetus (i.e. my argument would not quibble with a law that allowed “abortion” at any time, but required that the fetus be kept alive). In the present it might apply to some cases (I’m not sure on the medical details) in which someone can choose to end their pregnancy a day early, and the law must not deny that right, but the law might be able to require that the pregnancy be ended by inducing delivery without violating my bodily autonomy argument. Unless such a requirement would increase the risk of harm or death to the mother, in which case my bodily autonomy argument would still apply.
“State Legislator Smith wants more babies to be born with Downs Syndrome.”
I don’t understand your confusion. “Abort” just means “end the pregnancy”. It only implies “kill the fetus” because using current medical technology, ending the pregnancy kills the fetus. But it probably won’t always be that way. By analogy, I am not mandated by law to feed and house the homeless. But while I can certainly kick them off of my property, I don’t get to kill them. I can see the same standard being applied to fetuses that are viable outside the womb.
Of course, that requires the fetus to be kept alive using medical technology (and possibly an orphanage) until such time as adoptive parents are found, which is a significant cost.