# Should Trig Palin have never been born? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 22, 2008, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-trig-palin-have-never-been-born/464737 "2008-09-22T20:27:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![you\_with\_the\_face](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ecccb3/32.png) [@you\_with\_the\_face](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/you_with_the_face)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-trig-palin-have-never-been-born/464737/61 "2008-09-23T00:35:31Z")
As others have said, I see no reason why being pro-choice means you can’t have an opinion about other people’s choices. Just because I think that everyone should be able to cross the street if they want to doesn’t mean I don’t think it’s stupid to do so without looking both ways. Should Trig have been born? Sure. That said, I think there are valid arguments for terminating his mother’s pregnancy that are close to equal in number to those on the other side. DS is a significant handicap, but from what I know about it, I believe one can have a decent quality of life with the disease. There are other factors to consider, though. I think it is ethically responsible for a mother to consider more that just what she wants when considering her pregnancy. That includes the quality of life that her child is expected to have if born. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-trig-palin-have-never-been-born/464737/62 "2008-09-23T00:40:07Z")
> [@brickbacon](#): > > Particularly when the person has little ability to contribute anything of value to society. In the case of Down, I think many sufferers do contribute something of value to the world. As a minor example, my mom showed me a painting she’s giving me for Christmas (despite my protestations that I don’t want anything for Christmas!) that was painted by a Down adult. I love it. It’s joyous and whimsical. I can’t share a photo of it because I don’t have a photo of it, but the painting gives me pleasure. The reason Down is such an iffy subject for any such discussion is that the sufferers _can_ lead happy lives under many circumstances. It needn’t cause horrifying suffering. It is, though, extremely resource draining. Parents who aren’t prepared to sacrifice shouldn’t take on the responsibility of a Down child. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 12:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-trig-palin-have-never-been-born/464737/63 "2008-09-23T00:46:27Z")
> [@Sarahfeena](#): > > So, what does everyone think? Is going through with such a pregnancy a moral problem (or even “stupid,” as I read from one poster here)? Or is it a moral imperative to have the child and raise it to have as good a life as one can expect under the circumstances? Or, does it completely depend on the individual situation? This question came up for us since we’re trying to have kids… I like the way my wife put it when she said “I could never knowingly have a child that will depend on me all its life, knowing that I’ll die someday.” I think I’d have a hard time living with myself in sentencing a human being to a life of certain hardship and uncertain fate just because I was too squeamish to do the right thing while there was still time. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-trig-palin-have-never-been-born/464737/64 "2008-09-23T00:51:56Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > I feel safe in saying that a life of constant agonizing pain ending in an early death is bad. And if someone says they wish they’d never been born, I’ll take their word for it. That’s probably not going to apply to Trig Palin. He’s not likely to be in constant agonizing pain, certainly not as a result of Down Syndrome, and although he may die younger than average, most Downs people live well into adulthood. I can’t think of any other reason he might wish he’d never been born. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 12:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-trig-palin-have-never-been-born/464737/65 "2008-09-23T00:54:35Z")
> [@sqweels](#): > > I would like to ask **Sarahfeena** and everyone else what their reaction would have been if it became known that Sarah Palin had indeed gotten an abortion upon learning that her fetus was diagnosed with DS. I have a pro-life outlook, with an understanding that some people do not feel up to taking on the task of raising a special-needs child. I would probably be somewhat disappointed, considering the support she would have as someone high up in government, but I can’t say I would consider her an evil person or anything like that. I have had close friends tell me they had their amnios with the full intention of aborting if there was a problem…I wasn’t thrilled about the choice, but I understand it enough not to condemn them for it. ---
**Author:** ![brickbacon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/898d66/32.png) [@brickbacon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brickbacon)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-trig-palin-have-never-been-born/464737/66 "2008-09-23T00:58:51Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > In the case of Down, I think many sufferers do contribute something of value to the world. As a minor example, my mom showed me a painting she’s giving me for Christmas (despite my protestations that I don’t want anything for Christmas!) that was painted by a Down adult. I love it. It’s joyous and whimsical. I can’t share a photo of it because I don’t have a photo of it, but the painting gives me pleasure. > > The reason Down is such an iffy subject for any such discussion is that the sufferers _can_ lead happy lives under many circumstances. It needn’t cause horrifying suffering. It is, though, extremely resource draining. Parents who aren’t prepared to sacrifice shouldn’t take on the responsibility of a Down child. You make a good point. People with Down’s vary in their abilities, but a painting is of little value on a societal level if that person can’t actually support themselves doing that. The point I was making is that knowingly having a kid that burdens society is irresponsible. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-trig-palin-have-never-been-born/464737/67 "2008-09-23T02:19:31Z")
This is the decision of the Palins alone, which is only right, and I don’t think it was either virtuous or misguided. It’s bullshit if she’s trying to get good mommy credit or votes with it, and I don’t think it’s right for people to deride her for it. I can buy into the argument that aborting a child you can’t care for is the wise thing to do, which isn’t the same as the right thing, but I don’t think that applies to this family in any case. And Trig’s potential future value to society, or lack thereof, is totally irrelevant. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-trig-palin-have-never-been-born/464737/68 "2008-09-23T02:43:06Z")
I think that if I were a 44 year old woman with four children already and a high-pressure job that required me to travel a lot, I would have done my best to avoid getting pregnant again. If I were Sarah Palin, Trig would never have been _conceived_. > [@Sarahfeena](#): > > Part of what disturbed me about it, though, was that one of the reasons given was that keeping the child was sending the wrong message to the world on this issue…that because she kept the baby, she was being applauded, and that no one should be applauded for such an action. I’d agree with them that no one should be applauded just for carrying a baby to term. It’s not an unusual accomplishment, and I think it’s inappropriate to shower public acclaim on a woman for making what should be a private, personal decision. I don’t think women should be applauded for having abortions, and I don’t think they should be applauded for _not_ having abortions. In Palin’s particular case I don’t see that she should even be given credit for making a difficult choice, as Palin has made it clear that she doesn’t believe women should be allowed any choice in the matter. If Palin sincerely believes that abortion is equivalent to murder and should be outlawed just like murder, then applauding her for not having an abortion would be like throwing me a ticker-tape parade because I got through another day without killing anyone. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-trig-palin-have-never-been-born/464737/69 "2008-09-23T02:48:06Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > If Palin sincerely believes that abortion is equivalent to murder and should be outlawed just like murder, then applauding her for not having an abortion would be like throwing me a ticker-tape parade because I got through another day without killing anyone. I want me one of those. ---
**Author:** ![gravitycrash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@gravitycrash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gravitycrash)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-trig-palin-have-never-been-born/464737/70 "2008-09-23T02:51:00Z")
My niece has a mild case of DS. She actually goes to a public middle school and does ok. She probably will never have more than a mundane job and will probably never be able to have her own apartment but she is fun to be with and that is enough. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-trig-palin-have-never-been-born/464737/71 "2008-09-23T02:55:03Z")
This is a Palin family private decision and not open to public discussion. If you want to have a discussion about a hypothetical family, that might be another matter. Just my opinion. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-trig-palin-have-never-been-born/464737/72 "2008-09-23T03:34:45Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > This is a Palin family private decision and not open to public discussion. If you want to have a discussion about a hypothetical family, that might be another matter. Just my opinion. Considering everything that has been said about the Palin family on this board, including opinions offered on this specific matter, I don’t see how this thread is particularly out of line. ---
**Author:** ![Oy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bc8723/32.png) [@Oy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oy)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-trig-palin-have-never-been-born/464737/73 "2008-09-23T04:27:02Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > What about a more severe case, like a Tay-Sachs child who is destined to die before age 5 and suffer excruciating pain during his or her brief existence? Is it ever okay to bring scorn upon someone for not having an abortion? I would say yes. While it may be ethically wrong to force a woman to have/not have a child, it’s not ethically wrong to criticize their decision. This was the kind of thing I discussed in post 5. While I can’t say that it should be mandatory, I think it is unfair to all to bear the child to term - the child, the family, and society, who will pay large economic costs for the treatment for the duration of the child’s brief and miserable life, whether through taxes, or by increased medical insurance, or by increased medical costs. I read about multi-million dollar surgeries performed on fetuses and very young infants that still don’t give these kids _any_ hope of even approaching a normal life due to birth defects (fortunately these are very rare), and can’t help but think that this same money could have provided clean water to save thousands of people dying from dysentary in some parts of the world. People lose children. It’s a horrible tragedy. But I’m not convinced that heroic surgery at enormous cost is necessarily the automatically right thing to do, especially when the outcome is never going to be better than pretty poor. This [child](http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/local/news-article.aspx?storyid=28372) is the one who I’m thinking of off the top of my head. She’s only a toddler and has already had something like $3 million worth of surgery, paid for by the Army, the dad’s employer. Nothing they do will ever restore he to being anything like normal. It’s unclear whether she has normal intelligence, but she will forever be something of a social pariah, and I would imagine she will always suffer a great deal physically. She has had to be assisted in breathing from birth. They knew about her condition long before she was born. I understand the parents’ decision to keep her; it would be extremely difficult to choose to abort a wanted child. But I would have aborted her, for her own sake and society’s. I would have assumed that my husband and I could have another child - it wouldn’t be this child, but at least the new child would have a reasonable shot at having a decent life. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-trig-palin-have-never-been-born/464737/74 "2008-09-23T04:35:52Z")
> [@Sarahfeena](#): > > Considering everything that has been said about the Palin family on this board, including opinions offered on this specific matter, I don’t see how this thread is particularly out of line. But any mention of the Palin or her family in anything other than glowing and heroic term is sexist and/or unfair/off-limits, even if only by way of opening up a more abstract discussion by way of the particular that their family illustrates. Haven’t you got that yet? ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 9:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-trig-palin-have-never-been-born/464737/75 "2008-09-23T09:41:03Z")
> [@Acid\_Lamp](#): > > I don’t consider a fetus to be a person so I have no ethical issue with terminating the pregnancy. If there were tests that could determine that status of other debilitating conditions I would be in favor of terminating those as well. > > The ethical line is easy: physically healthy. We need not consider “designer babies” and the like here. But what is physically healthy, we ask again? Is deaf physically healthy? Is someone whose hemoglobin is normal but her red cells are one-third the usual size physically healthy? Is any of our hydrocephalic posters physically healthy? I’m pro-choice, pro-life, believe that it’s not a real choice unless it includes things like access to pregnancy-prevention methods (the only choice shouldn’t be “abort or not,” it should start a lot earlier) and think that this is something the family need to decide themselves. Someone considers they don’t have the resources (economical, physical, emotional, mental) to deal with a kid, they should have access to abortion and adoption resources (more choices); someone who reckons they have the resources should be able to go ahead and have the kid. And we need better sex-ed, dangit. > [@lamia](#): > > I think that if I were a 44 year old woman with four children already and a high-pressure job that required me to travel a lot, I would have done my best to avoid getting pregnant again. If I were Sarah Palin, Trig would never have been conceived. Yeah, that too… but same as I think she should be able to decide whether to have the kid or not, she should be able to decide whether to use pregnancy prevention or not. Plus there’s accidents, we have people here who got pregnant while combining several antipregnancy methods. ---
**Author:** ![even\_sven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/dfb087/32.png) [@even\_sven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/even_sven)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 11:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-trig-palin-have-never-been-born/464737/76 "2008-09-23T11:07:31Z")
I read a book once by a woman who had a baby with Downs Syndrome. It was a little bit touchy feely for my tastes, but she made some good points. Mostly that we judge people by their intelligence, when we really should be judging people by their kindness. Intelligence is not the end all and be all of human attributes. ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-trig-palin-have-never-been-born/464737/77 "2008-09-23T11:42:10Z")
I did a few years of psych nursing. For a day out at the beach give me, as company, 100 DS kids to mind rather than 1 personality disorder “normal” adult. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-trig-palin-have-never-been-born/464737/78 "2008-09-23T11:45:15Z")
> [@Oy](#): > > I read about multi-million dollar surgeries performed on fetuses and very young infants that still don’t give these kids _any_ hope of even approaching a normal life due to birth defects (fortunately these are very rare), and can’t help but think that this same money could have provided clean water to save thousands of people dying from dysentary in some parts of the world. That’s an empty comparison, though. Families (or health plans) don’t sit around wondering “shall we spend this money raising a child, or donate it to fight dysentary?” I recall at least one Doper compared this logic to your grandmother saying “Finish your vegetables- don’t you know there are children in Africa who have nothing to eat?” > [@even sven](#): > > Mostly that we judge people by their intelligence, when we really should be judging people by their kindness. Intelligence is not the end all and be all of human attributes. Intelligence is definitely not the only worthwhile characteristic a person can have. But if an asshole scientist cures cancer, nobody’s going to care he’s an asshole. ---
**Author:** ![Sarahfeena](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sarahfeena/32/519_2.png) [@Sarahfeena](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sarahfeena)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-trig-palin-have-never-been-born/464737/79 "2008-09-23T12:05:42Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > Intelligence is definitely not the only worthwhile characteristic a person can have. But if an asshole scientist cures cancer, nobody’s going to care he’s an asshole. Well, sure, but we can’t all cure cancer. Most of us have accomplishments that are much, _much_ less significant than that. For a normally bright person, I think that our other attributes can have effects on the world that are just as important, if not more so, than our intelligence does. ---
**Author:** ![Dangerosa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Dangerosa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dangerosa)\ **Post date:** [September 23, 2008, 12:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-trig-palin-have-never-been-born/464737/80 "2008-09-23T12:05:59Z")
> [@Cosmic Relief](#): > > This question came up for us since we’re trying to have kids… I like the way my wife put it when she said “I could never knowingly have a child that will depend on me all its life, knowing that I’ll die someday.” > > I think I’d have a hard time living with myself in sentencing a human being to a life of certain hardship and uncertain fate just because I was too squeamish to do the right thing while there was still time. There was a moment about a year and a half ago. I have two little nephews - at the time they were under a year and not yet three. My brother in law is an older dad (this side of 50), and not the healthiest person in the world. He has been morbidly obese as long as I’ve known him - and heart disease runs in his family. We’ve never expected him to live to see his kids graduate from high school - to have those kids with him would not have been the decision I would have made, but its the one my sister chose. Then my sister was diagnosed with breast cancer. The early days of wondering, the fear and we weighed her odds. She beat it, although even now her reoccurance chances and the strain of chemo on her body scare us. It was at that point I realized that by having kids I made a commitment I don’t have control over - I promised that I would be here for them for as long as they needed me. That’s a scary thing. I have a distant cousin who was disabled in his teen years and is in a home. His parents are now elderly, but they also were fairly well off. When their son had his accident, the family became very spare in their spending - including what they did for the other children - and everything they could spare went into trust. They hope it will be enough so he never has to move - though realistically, his siblings even now supplement the trust for his care so the trust doesn’t run out. Big sacrifices are made - and not just by the parents but by the other children in the family. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-trig-palin-have-never-been-born/464737.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/should-trig-palin-have-never-been-born/464737.md?page=5)