I understand over $200,000 has been raised here for donations to the child’s upbringing. A lot of Australian couples with disadvantaged children would appreciate that. Though how much of that will actually be spent on the child is anyone’s guess.
I’m afraid I don’t get the outrage. There are many children born with disadvantages that will never receive the benefits this child will.
I’m confused by your confusion, honestly, because it seems like you were okay with their plans for selective reduction. You seem to be saying it’s just fine and peachy to kill him because they don’t want to raise a disabled child, but morally indefensible to leave him in the care of someone who actually wants him because biology. He was no less their biological offspring when they wanted to abort him, ya know?*
I don’t know enough about these people to say anything about them feeling entitled to Perfect Kids. I don’t have any sort of input from them to make any sort of judgment about their character or motivations. But most of the people I know who would abort a known trisomic fetus are not entitled jackholes who only want perfect kids. They’d take a baby with a mitral valve prolapse, or a cleft palate, or any number of issues that are minor and/or fixable. They’re just not up for the never-ending challenges of having a baby, then a child, then an adult child with Down Syndrome…and I can’t fault them for that.
*I freely admit that I just fundamentally Do Not Get the whole “because biology” thing when people talk about familial relationships. It’s probably related to not having any blood link at all to a significant swathe of my birth family.
If someone gives birth to a baby she does not want or is ill-equipped to keep and someone else does want the baby, the biological mother would be encouraged to put the baby up for adoption. Are ALL birth parents assholes for not keeping babies they can’t or don’t want to take care of?
Politically I don’t often agree with the conservative columnist George Will.
But over the years he has written, in his column, about the life of his son Jonathan, now 42, who is a person with Down’s Syndrome.
I also remember his scathing remarks(although I can’t find a copy of the particular column) when he spoke of the parents of a Down’s Syndrome boy who had institutionalized their child at birth. A social worker had befriended the boy, and had even been allowed to take him to his own home for visits with the workers kids and family Got him in a cub scout troop even. But the boy needed heart surgery and his bio parents wouldn’t allow it, saying that if something happened to them they didn’t want his brother to have the burden of caring for him.
Hell, they’d never cared for, or about, him.
Mr. Will didn’t leave any doubt how he felt about the bio parents, and, along with the social worker, was sued for defamation of character. I don’t know how it came out.
With this story from Thailand, I’m looking forward to another column from Will that addresses the issue. It’s been too soon, but I bet one will be forthcoming.
Actually, karma would be if the girl the parents took home ended up being autistic, or having Dravet syndrome, or something…
The Australian parents have not been publicly named. But how hard could it be, with some detective work, for that information to be found?
Then karma really would be a bitch. I’m not going to wish anything bad on the little girl, she can’t help it that her parents are assholes.
I wasn’t wishing anything bad on the little girl, just stating the fact that Down Syndrome may be easily detectable before birth, but most problems aren’t, and the parents are still not guaranteed of having the perfect child.
Sorry for my misunderstanding, it was my fault.
How is that not going to be bad for the girl?
I’d be surprised if some reporters weren’t working on that now as we type.
It will be bad for her. I wasn’t wishing it, though, just pointing out that it could happen.
Sure, but how would it be “karma” (in the popular sense of a mysterious force that evens out injustices) when the girl has done nothing to deserve it?
She already has internationally condemned assholes for parents and has been separated from her twin, so wouldn’t karma reward her?
It would be karma, because the parents would ultimately end up with what they went to such lengths to avoid.
Technically, I can’t “wish” anything on this girl, because if she has any problem like this, she already does or does not have it, and only time will tell.
Ironic maybe, but not karmic. The girl is a person, not a potentially defective piece of property.
Not, apparently, to the parents’ way of thinking.
But I thought we knew better?
If I was pregnant with twins as a result of in vitro and decided to selectively abort one with Down syndrome and a heart defect and a friend asks if she can adopt the child instead, am I a jerk for going along with this?
What if I say no, and go ahead with the abortion? More of a jerk, or less?
What if I don’t want the child, but keep it anyway, so people don’t think I’m a jerk?
Or maybe I’m a jerk for having IVF instead of adopting a child with medical issues?
IMHO, no.
IMHO, still not a jerk, and you are also not a jerk if you decide not to abort the DS child, but then to give it up in a closed adoption, because you don’t want to see it frequently, with someone else, as you would if a friend adopted it. Also, you are in a position to assess whether your friend actually has the patience and resources to cope with a special-needs child, or has made the offer in the heat of the moment, maybe because she is simply opposed to abortion, and has not thought it through, and will come to regret it. That really isn’t something you want to watch from the sidelines. An adoption agency is in a better position to vet potential parents for their ability to cope with a DS child.
This is wrong-headed, and IMHO, a bad reason for this decision, but does not make you a jerk. Coping with a normal newborn is very difficult. You would be coping with a normal newborn, and one with special needs at the same time. That is a huge task.
I’m not touching this one, except to say that the waiting list for a healthy baby is very long, and you have not defined “medical issues.” Cleft palate? Intersexed? Cystic Fibrosis? Phocomelia? HIV? The answer is different depending in the medical issue, for me at any rate.
Don’t take a look at lists of children up for adoption, then, or at stats of variation in DS births in locations where aborting a fetus with DS has become legal recently enough to have said stats.
People abandon, give up or abort children who are viable but defective all the time.
What is the legal status of abortion in Australia? If the surrogate had agreed to the abortion, could the bio parents have brought her to Australia for the procedure?