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?

Sorry, that is appallingly badly written. I had very little sleep last night!

Ghoul, how is that relevant to the debate?

Yes i know northern ireland is in the uk but abortion is illegal here and women have to travel to england if they want an abortion just like those in the south of ireland. But I was just pointing out that woman have had an amnio which shows up down syndrome and have had terminations carried out in hospitals here. The doctors write this off as a d&c on the medical reports. Most midwives can tell you it does happen and that it just isnt publicised.

ItsGhoulAgain I think your post is why this debate could go on forever. When you hold your viewpoint, your argument for the right of selective termination, in the sense of diagnositc odds rather than multiples, is perfectly logical. I can't disagree with it. If the development of that life is a haphazard, random, cellular multiplication within a host, then the discovery of that process being disrupted and 'faulty goods' resulting should logically bring about a discarding of the 'faulty goods' and restarting of the process.

However if, as I do, you believe that each egg and sperm is part of a potential person, and that when they meet in the womb, a life has been created, albeit in no way ready to live independently in the world, and that life is a unique, unrepeatable being, then the conclusion is different. What results then, is that when deciding that a disability is an unacceptable outcome, you are killing that life.

Obviously, if that is regarded, as it is for some, to be an acceptable course of action, because the difficulties associated with caring for a disabled child and the difficulties the child themselves may suffer, then that decision will be taken. That decision is for the parents.

However, even at 24 weeks, most pre-term infants will die if not given artificial ventilation. Do we say they are simply 'hosted' at that point? Even many 28 week infants will have serious adverse outcomes without at least a little additional oxygen - what about then?

At 33 weeks, a baby is rarely able to breastfeed, and will require at least some tube feeds. Are they, too 'hosted'? And would it therfore be reasonable to abort a baby at 33 weeks?

At term, a baby will die if not fed and kept warm. Totally dependent.

Even at a year, a baby would not be able to find food for themselves to eat. What about them?

So if non-disabled babies are still totally dependent on their 'hosts' for such a long time, why is it reasonable to abort a disabled child for being dependant?

Xenia's post is of no surprise to me. I do not consider disabled people less valued, and the law says that they shouldn't be. But Xenia obviously feels that the disability discrimination laws are not worthy of even lipservice.

To clarify I'm asking how the information about the Republic of Ireland is relevant.

Why would it not be relevant?? The entire premise of your OP was how it is difficult for you as an Irish person to accept the way things are done differently in the UK. Are you ashamed to be caught out not knowing? Or do you want to control the direction of the discussion?

arses Fri 29-Oct-10 16:55:48
Which is why this isn't a straightforward pro-life/pro-choice debate.

I support all women's right to choose but am frankly horrified that termination is offered up to birth for babies with disabilities. I don't think the fact that a small number of families choose this option makes it okay that we consider this legally acceptable.

thank you

To be honest nancydrewrocked, I suppose the idea of terminating post-24 weeks is new to me and, yes, horrifying. If the foetus can take a breath in the real world, is it not a baby, then? If it gets to this stage, I can see no justification for calling it a "termination of pregnancy". I don't understand how, legally, you are entitled to maternity at this point yet the pregnancy is in itself viewed the same as at 6, 8, 12, 16 weeks (etc.)? How does it happen? What do they do with the remains etc?

In the north and south of ireland abortion is legal if the pregnancy presents a risk to the life of the mother. However doctors do get around this in certain curcumstances. I could be totally wrong but theres no reason why doctors in the south are not doing the same as those in the north.

Expat I can't support Tess practically in that sense, true. However, that doesn't invalidate my view that it is wrong to expect a mother to abort her child to prevent someone else's difficulties, and regardless of whether she should be a mother at 14, my view is that she is a mother, right now.

I have offered any support regarding information or other help to Tess off-board already. She has made it clear that she is not expecting her DSD to terminate at 16 weeks. Others have continued to push termination as a solution despite this.

I think your suggestion regarding mother and baby units is a sad but useful one. If Tess truly can't cope with the thought of a baby in the house, with the very real possibility that she will be turned to for assistance, then a M&B unit could be a real benefit. However, I don't want to turn this into a thread about a thread, which is not good form. I only brought it up as an example of the fact that people do readily suggest abortion on MN, even when it is clear that the pregnant female (I won't say woman, because let's face it, regardless, a 14 year-old is a child) is against it.

I am pretty certain that almost every person who has a very late termination is terminating a child which was a wanted child but that they have had to make a heartbreaking decision late in their pregnancy about based upon their own circumstances. people are not blithely terminating and binning the products. They will actually go through a birth experience and will no doubt be grieving and offered some kind of Burial.

Abortion for anomalies is not offered in the republic. A woman I know who was carrying an anencephalic child (which would not survived after birth) had to carry it to term as abortion is not legal.

Thanks for your reply, Lougle. You have, I think, succinctly outlined the main thrust of this thread. Of course my viewpoint is irreconcilable with the one that considers a foetus a person. I'm sure most people find themselves in a very difficult middle, which you've expressed. I find myself frustrated, here, by the usual problem: the most didactic views are the least flexible.

"She has made it clear that she is not expecting her DSD to terminate at 16 weeks. Others have continued to push termination as a solution despite this"

yet, if I remember correctly she started a thread stating that she wanted her Step-daughter to have a termination?

What made her change her mind if not people on the thread?

Arses, after 22 weeks, the medical guidance is to use feticide prior to abortion. So the heart of the baby is stopped in a separate procedure prior to delivery or evacuation of the baby afterwards. Sometimes the two procedures are combined, and in a few cases feticide is not performed prior, and a midwife will sit with the baby until they expire.

DuelingFanjo - she didn't realise or anticipate that her DSD was so far along in her pregnancy. Once she had the scan, in her own words, she realised that this was more 'real', and she views 16 weeks as too progressed.

arses, usually feticide by injection to stop the fetal heart then induction of labour. There are other extremely rarely used methods which mean the woman does not have to labour (e.g, where the mother is extremely unstable medically and her chances of survival are reduced by inducing labour - the cases I've known of include where the mother was eclamptic/had HELLP syndrome), where the fetus is not delivered intact so the cervix doesn't have to fully dilate.

The remains are buried or cremated as per the family's wishes - my local hospital offers that service to all babies/fetuses delivered after 16 weeks.

ItsGhoulAgain, I think that "very un-implanted sperm, every shed egg, is a baby that didn't happen - a potential human life. Once the blastocyst is formed, we feel differently about it only because a sperm and egg have joined up with the intention of making a baby. This is a totally haphazard event. There is NOTHING special or extraordinary about it, except in the broadest, woolliest, philosophical sense.

The ensuing bunch of cells and chemical reactions are, likewise, evolutionary developments that happen through no effort of choice or will. Until that bunch of cells emerges as a separate being, taking up a separate space in the physical world, it is a cellular growth in its host mother's body. And the host has the right, in my view, to decide what to do about it." is a pretty inflexible viewpoint also - doesn't leave much ambiguity, does it?

arses thanks. Obviously this thread has developed and so I was curious whether it was the distinction that bothered you or the idea itself.

It is a very grey area for me - I absolutely support the right for a 24 week baby to be ventilated and to have it's life saved. But equally I absolutely support the right of a mother to terminate a 24 week foetus for the reasons the law currently permits.

I accept this is logical and I would hope morality (at least my version of it!) would prevail and that is the mothers rights take precedence.

Presuming your last questions were not rhetorical a termination carried out post 24 weeks will be carried out by way of induction i.e. labour will be brought on after the mother has been given tablets to stop the placenta working. Sometimes the foetus's heart will be stopped by way of an injection. However this does not always happen where a foetus has a condition incompatible with life. In those circumstances the baby may be delivered alive and allowed to take its first and last breaths in it's parents arms.

Afterwards there would be a funeral and the baby cremayed/burried.

I think it is important to reiterate that we are not talking about people casually discarding unwanted babies. These are much loved, desperately wanted babies who have very little hope. I think most people who terminate for abnormalities consider themselves to have lost a child and not had a termination.

X posts with lots. Sorry.

Oh and obviously I meant I accept this is illogical

never be sorry, nancydrewrocked It is heart-breaking stuff.

No, Lougle, but I do understand the dilemmas. I battled through a great many doubts and debates before arriving a firm opinion :) I sure as hell don't expect everyone to agree with me!

To pretend our society doesn't depend on economics is ridiculous,. Whether or not we have shelter, food, everything. So why is it hard to believe that disability, like gender used to be, isn't about economics?

Any baby can be aborted late not just those with SN. I would imagine the impact on the mother's mental health is always of the utmost concern and should be.

I find it really hard to read about the process of abortion. I imagine I'm not alone there. Of course I have often felt I'm not allowed to comment how horrible it is (as being pro-life is considered somehow distasteful) but that's how I feel regardless.