To believe that Britain promotes eugenics.

[WriterofDreams]

I am aware this is going to be highly controversial and could upset some people but it's an issue that genuinely concerns me and I'm not just shit-stirring. I do expect to get flamed, but any reasonable argument or debate is very welcome.

I come from Ireland where abortion is illegal. I am fully aware that many Irish women go abroad for abortions so I'm not saying look how great we are we don't abort. However, until I moved to the UK I never heard of the practice of people testing their baby for anomalies and then aborting them if there was something wrong. It genuinely shocked me that a couple who tried to have a baby, went through the sometimes stressful process of ttc, got the longed-for bfp and then lived with the expectation of a baby for many weeks could then go and kill that baby because it had Down Syndrome or some other (non-lifethreatening) genetic condition. I have looked it up on a number of sites and extreme though it may appear I can't get past the feeling that this basically hidden eugenics.

What do you think?

the true definition of genocide for anyone who may be confusing legal abortion with Genocide.

so posie what do they do if like me it happens at birth, or like my friend through a terrible accident, ?? drown them.
surely you make the choice once you decide to have a baby,

I'm not sure the 92% figure (which I'm taking on your statement) signifies concerted pressure to abort, WoD. It may quite simply indicate that only 8% of parents feel able & willing to nurture a child who will require care into adulthood, be prone to other problems and die young.

FWIW, I had decided I would have any DS babies (the likelihood was quite strong, but they chose not to be born anyway). The only drum I'm banging here is for women's choice. it's fragile enough as it is.

"Also, many people with autism, particularly people with Asperger's syndrome do go on to have children" where's this plucked from? Show me where you got the idea that people with AS are more like to go on and have children than people with HFA. ASpergers is not autism light. People with Aspergers can do really well at school but have more obsessions and less need to be around people. People with autism can have more learning difficulties (as the education structure not set up for people on the spectrum) but they are not LESS likely to go on and have children...

Your use of the words murder and kill is juvenile and deliberately provocative.

Well said, DF! Can we include 'eugenics', too, please?

Kungfu. I've just checked again the main Italian newspapers (Corriere della sera and Repubblica) and they don't mention cleft palate as the reason for the abortion. Cleft palate is only mentioned in the newspaper "Il foglio", which is directed by Giuliano Ferrara, who participated to the Italian elections in 2008 as the leader of an anti abortionist party (allied to Berlusconi, who leads a right wing coalition) and who has a clear agenda.

No I would make the choice before hand, much easier on the mother that way. Disabilities at birth are quite different.

Also, as for "choosing designer babies", what a nonsense term. what this means in effect is choosing GOOD health, strength and survival rather than poor health and serious illness. Yeah, really 'designer'. Such Black and white thinking..... grr

"surely you make the choice once you decide to have a baby"

yes. Deciding if you want to terminate or not is when you decide to have the baby.

Of course things can happen at birth or much later in life which cause hardship and can turn parents into carers. The thing about testing like the Nuchal Fold test is that it gives parents the choice, if they want it, to make a decision based upon the information avaialble at the time.

It's just very different.

what is it with turning parents into carers?
sorry don't get that line

" those things you mentioned are creating and supporting life rather than destroying it "
No, they are ALL part of fertility and birth control. Nature is a vicious killer. I sometimes get quite annoyed with the utopian fantasy that everything natural is good and should be helped - completely denying the fact that medicine exists to beat Nature's murdering path!

Utopia would be good Posie but in the meantime I'll settle for a society that helps people who need it (perhaps that is unrealistic and utopian).

Caring for a child with disabilities is tough going but I think many people, especially those who have had little contact with disabled people, forget that having a child with a disability isn't simply a chore, that children with disabilities do give love and laughter and fulfillment to those around them. As another poster who has a disabled child stated earlier in the thread, there are very few parents of disabled children who would turn back the clock and abort them. When a child is in the womb it is very hard to envision what it will be like to meet them. If people are given support and encouragement rather than subtle pressure to abort then perhaps more people would choose to go ahead with the pregnancy.

DF why don't you support abortion on the basis of sex? Surely that's the same as abortion on the basis of disability?

Women have terminations for many different reasons. They are all good reasons because they are their reasons.

One woman may discover she is pregnant and simply not want to go ahead.
Another may want the child, but then discover she is very ill and won't be bale to cope.
Another may discover the child is likely to be disabled and knows her own mental health won't stand up.

We have to respect each and every woman's choice and not impose our own moral compas or take it as a statement about anyone else.

I'm sure this must already have been discussed - how do you compare a couple who, knowing they both carry a disabling gene, choose not to TTC, with a couple who abort on seeing the results of an in-utero test?

They're both making the decision not to have a baby, which will certainly be disabled, on the basis of medical prognosis.

Writer, where did you get that idea that people with AS more like to go on to have children than people with Autism? Did you make that up?

Well at 7 months my children could feed themselves, by 18 months they walked, they could all communicate their needs by age two, off to mainstream school at four, able to get themselves dressed at three, able to cook a meal by the time they're teens and fully fledged independents by 18, with any luck. I will not be caring, ie feeding or changing the nappies of an eleven year old (unless something truly awful happens).

Part of helping people in need is allowing distressed women facing terrible decisions to terminate without throwing words like murder and kill around. Your utopia is black and white. Really Utopia is not.

"Every child a wanted child". What's so hard to grasp about that?

i know this will be shocking but having a disabled child is not all bad, this constant talk of struggles gets on my nerves, there is another side as well, living in the SN world has opened my eyes to the fun and laughter as well, but of course that has no place on this thread.

Ghoul I don't understand your post at all sorry. Surely fertility treatment, vitamins and incubators all support life? I'm aware that nature is a cruel killer, that's why I advocate using these things to stop it in its tracks. Surely abortion is helping nature in its killing ways?

Sex is not a life threatening/altering/effecting disability. A person who makes a decision to abort based upon sex alone is making a very different choice to someone who has made a decison based upon their ability or desire to care for a child (and then adult) with a chromosonal disability or the likely lifespan/life quality of a child Iand then adult) with a particular disability.

second applaud for litchick's post. if only everybody saw things so humanely.

2shoes - it's not about you or your child.

If a single woman decides to terminate she isn't making a statement or judgement about single mothers.

If a poor woman decided to terminate twins because she can't afford another two mouths she isn't making a statement about multiples.

If a woman decides to terminate a disabled child she makes no statement about disabled people or their intrinsic value.

She is simply saying I CAN'T COPE

Of course it has a place 2shoeprints. The positive aspects of having a child with a disability need to be highlighted as I feel in this country in particular a diagnosis of Down Syndrome or other disability is considered the end of the world. The automatic assumption is that disabled people are a drain on their parents and on society, that because they might not get a job or get married they are somehow not legitimate members of society.

Writer, third time

Where did you get that idea that people with AS more like to go on to have children than people with Autism? Did you make that up?