And that gets into extensentialism. For had I never been born, I wouldn’t exactly be around to care that I’d never been born.
There are disabled people who post blogs saying they wish their mother’s had chosen to abort them. There are adults who sue their mother’s OBs telling them they should have told their mothers to abort them. Personally, I think these people are screwy, but you won’t even find consensus from the disabled on whether its better to be born at all.
Cite?
Cite for what, that you need a good sized, functioning brain to have a mind ? How about you provide a cite for it even being possible for a few thousand cells to have a mind ? You are the one making the irrational, baseless claims, not I.
Not in terms of them being potential people, no. Neither is a person yet.
No, you are doing so to me. I was making the point that you SHOULD oppose killing sperm if you oppose killing zygotes because they are potentially people. I certainly didn’t expect you to be logically consistent and actually do so, since that would amount to admitting the absurdity of your position.
So, I’m disabled. I’m actually classified as being “severely” disabled, I believe; I have the most severe form of Spina Bifida. I use a wheelchair & am an incomplete paraplegic.
My parents didn’t know, when I was born in early 1979, that I would have a disability. When I showed up, they were told that I would be severely retarded/developmentally disabled/whatever term you’d like to use. In fact, I might end up in a PVS & die in a few years.
This (obviously) didn’t come to pass. My parents raised me to be a self-sufficient person, to the degree I can be - which is a pretty high degree, luckily. I’ve had my problems, of course. I’ve had several surgeries & my choice of careers was/is limited by my disability. Travel is more difficult. It’s unpleasant to be limited by my disability - of course it is.
On the other hand, I’m pretty sure that my parents never regretted having me - neither for financial nor emotional reasons. I’ve never been on the dole (nor have my parents, nor have any disabled friends of mine); I hold two degrees & two jobs (I teach at the middle school & college levels.). I’m in a relationship that’s hurtling toward marriage. I pay rent, pay for my wants & needs. I’d like to believe that I contribute to the society in which I live.
I’ve certainly had bitter moments & have gone through adjustment issues, but I’m pretty happy. Many able-bodied people can’t understand that - I get a lot of, “I couldn’t do what you do,” - but there it is.
As for the yardstick of whether a child is “physically healthy”: By some definitions, I’ve always been as healthy as the proverbial horse. I was hardly in the doctor’s office when I was a kid - except for check-ups & surgeries.
It’s a tricky question being asked - whether fetuses the potential parents know to be disabled should be aborted. It’s tricky because the level of disability can’t always be reliably determined. That is, just because a fetus has a disability doesn’t mean that, if brought to term, that fetus will grow into an adult who will be in constant pain of any kind and/or be “a drain on society”- however that’s measured.
Here’s a question: If we don’t want disabled adults draining society’s coffers, what shall we do with adults who become disabled? Or are their numbers so low as to be inconsequential?I’m not being sarcastic; I’m asking a question.
As for the big, looming question: Would I choose to abort a child who had my disability? Probably not, but I’m not completely sure. It’s a tough row to hoe, but one can live a happy, productive life.
For me, I think society’s coffers can be plenty big enough to care for the disabled among us. My husband is disabled. I went into it with my eyes wide open about what I was doing–and that’s what I want from parents. And yes, that goes for parents who have no idea that their child is disabled, too. A lot of people just never bother to think it through, what happens if X? What happens if Y? That sort of unthinking, shrugging disinterest drives me crazy.
I wanted to make sure that my position is very clear. I want my taxpayer money to help the disabled. That’s an awesome use of money–improving lives and creating a better world. We could do a lot more in this country.
My google-fu isn’t digging up any of these people. But there are people who believe all sorts of nutty things - including “I’d have been better off if I’d never been born”
(Searching “wrongful birth” will bring up the cases of a ton of parents who have sued that their child should have never been born - I can’t search out the case of the now adult child who filed suit.)
I realize this is only tangentially related to this thread, but a few posters have mentioned the risks involved in amniocentesis. There may be a noninvasive Downs test on the market soon that, so far, looks more effective. How that effects birth rates or abortion rates for Downs pregnancies is anybody’s guess, of course.
How is that “nutty” ? If your life is awful enough it’s a perfectly rational position to take.
Perhaps it is. And that would be their point.
Should anyone need to defend their right to live with a list of the ways they contribute to society? Should parents need to defend their decision to bear a child who might not be physically perfect?
I think a good measure of our society is how we care for the weaker members- weaker mentally or physically. Does anyone else know about, for instance, L’Arche communities? Places where the mentally disabled live in communities with people who care for them? Their founder, Jean Vanier, believes that the mentally handicapped are the most stigmatized and unvalued group in our society.
Is vulnerability necessarily bad? It’s required for both love and trust.
Ever hear of eugenics?
Yes, it’s bad, always. Just because it’s required for something you consider good, doesn’t make IT good.
And as an aside, I wouldn’t call it “required” for love; I’d call it an unfortunate side effect of love.
I meant in the context of the current discussion. I haven’t heard of anyone seriously advocating eugenics in this country (US) since well before I was born (1956). I personally am ambivalent about limiting the fertility of those who are sufficiently disabled as to be unable to support themselves independently, so I suppose you could call that a slippery slope argument. But as far as demanding that someone like Palin get an abortion? Until the OP asked the question, I had not heard of anyone disparaging her for not aborting her fetus; the most I had heard were questions as to the wisdom of her running for office with a disabled child to care for - not legit, IMO, since she obviously can afford people, and since she visibly has taken a “hands-off” style of governing in any case.
Well, now, that is an interesting question, isn’t it?
I have a sister who is a recovering alcoholic with a ton of issues. She is currently living with my other sister. She trashed her liver - fortunately, not to the point of cirrohisis and it’s healing - but there are other health problems. She’s been unemployed for a couple years now, she has no health insurance - and her medication alone runs $500 a month - which her family (including myself) is paying for. If my sister stops letting her live there, if we stop paying for her meds - she’ll be dead in a year - maybe a few more - depends on how quickly she starts drinking again (which, if my sister kicks her out, she will).
She recently got a job with health insurance (yeah! That is going to save my sister $20k a year) and hates it. So she wants to quit.
Now, what obligations does her family have to continue to support her - cause we are reaching the end of our rope - and if she quits this job, I think that’s the end. My brother in law is working an extra job to pay for her medication and doctors - my other sister - still recovering from breast cancer with two little kids at home, is exhausted.
What obligations does society have to support her? Because they aren’t. There is no health insurance available for a 35 year old unemployed alcoholic. If my sister kicks her out, she is on the street.
Now, we can say “but she made her choices, a person with DS didn’t” - and she did. At the same time, alcoholism is a disease. And she was in a horridly abusive relationship for nearly ten years during which she became an alcoholic. So it isn’t all “her fault” (though plenty of it is). And her other health issues have nothing to do with alcoholism - they have to do with nerve damage and other neurological issues from having the shit beat out of her for ten years.
We don’t know that - she hasn’t released any tax returns or financial information yet. Governors don’t make a lot of money, small town mayors don’t make a lot of money. Her husband works as an oil man - but a blue collar job, and makes around $100k a year. Granted, income tax in Alaska is nothing, but unless the Palins have additional sources of wealth (always possible), they aren’t wealthy.
(some stuff deleted by me)
I had a sister in law who was a 1/2 gal./day alcoholic. She was on medicaid and disability (and I don’t think she worked more than two years her entire life). She got around $1000/mo, I believe.
Society does have an obligation to her; it sounds like the family has done all they can…times 100…to help her. Maybe someone can look into that and point her in the direction of services. I wish you the best. Damn…that’s a hard road.
Thus far, Palin and especially Todd have struck me as the kind of people who always get enough money. Didn’t the previous governor appoint her to some kind of commision when he bypassed her for the senate? I’ll bet that had some kind of healthy pay. I suspect the reason they are not releasing their financial statements is not because they are too poor, but rather because they’ve done a bit too well for the blue collar folks to identify quite so well with them any more. If I had money to bet, I’d bet they’re worth well over a million right now.
That is a tough case, but I do think we all have obligations to her. Is she eligible for disability?
No, because she can work, she just chooses not to…(well, right now she is choosing to, and I hope my sister makes it crystal clear to her that she IS REQUIRED to hold this job in order to remain in her house.)
Maybe, but maybe not. And affording “people” is a very expensive proposition, when you are taking about a special needs nanny - out of reach of someone that - according to current estimates, makes $125,000 in salary, $60k in reimbursable expenses (which covers travel for her family - not childcare for her kids) and Todd makes $92k a year.
Right now, I’m sure the GOP is picking up a lot of her expenses, including childcare. It is possible that wealthy Republicans would pick up her childcare bill if she got elected - and almost certainly pick it up currently. But that isn’t her affording “people” - that’s the GOP or individual contributors affording “people.”
I think the reason she hasn’t released her tax returns and net worth is that there will be questions on where money came from. Her income has been public record for years, her husband’s is structured and known - so if there is a lot of money there, she’ll have to explain where it came from. Given the nature of Alaska politics, the answers may not mesh with the reformer image.