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?

posie did you see my apology
I said sorry as I didn't realise you had a child with a disability.

Nancydrewrocked, I understand that.. and again, a grey area here, because I understand why someone would choose to terminate a baby with limited or no chance of survival later on and obviously would support a late termination to save the life of the mother.

I did know someone once who carried a baby with anencephaly to full-term and I could 100% have understood why she might, say, have changed her mind about doing so at 28 or 33 weeks and taken this option instead of choosing to go ahead as she had decided to after the 20 week scan. There is no way I would judge a woman for this. As I said before, I hope I wouldn't judge anyway.. but the late termination of healthy but disabled babies seems different to me on a personal level.

I am glad they are buried/cremated .

In many eastern countries girls are rejected or aborted due to economic circumstances. Does that make it ok Posie?

ItsGoulAgain I apologise if it seems that I don't understand those dilemmas - I do truly, and I wrestle with myself. Between what I feel is 'easier' and 'kinder' in some circumstances, and what I feel is 'right'.

Don't anyone misunderstand me. I don't mean 'easier' as in the easy way out. I read the heartache that the decision causes. But 'easier' as in an end to heartache, an opportunity to move on sooner and grieve and heal.

I suppose the real distinction is that actually, for me the decision isn't mine to make. Which is not the case for many, many people.

I am not saying the law should be different, although I had hoped that the gestation would be lowered a little. I am not naive - all that would happen is a boom to the back-street trade.

No, no, I didn't mean to suggest a lack of understanding - I thought you summarised the dilemmas really well! Like you, I wouldn't want to 'make' any woman either terminate or continue any pregnancy. Pro Lifers Anti-abortionists, however, do assume the right to control the bodies of other women.
Your correct assertion, that stricter laws would resurrect backstreet abortions, should be testament enough to the need for ready access and safe choices.

Incidentally, when I worked in a neonatal unit, msny nurses expressed explicitly that if they were to go in to active labour at 26 weeks, they would not attend hospital, because they would rather 'let the baby go' due to the challenges the babies of that gestation and their parents faced I always found that hard to hear, but they were adamant, especially the ones who were actually pregnant at the time. Years of working on the unit had exposed them to too many poorly babies.

Sorry Ghoul, I don't mean to be pushy but I'm interested to know why you gave the information about the republic of Ireland?

There had been a couple of preceding posts with conflicting information. I didn't know about Irish abortion laws, so I looked it up.

There two entirely different issues on the thread. When does life begin (and if the baby's rights prevail over the mother's will) and secondly should rules be different if children are disabled.

why is one a baby and one a child
I thought we were talking about unborn babies

I meant them to mean the same. Whether disabled or otherwise they are unborn babies or bundle of cells or whatever your view point is.

WOD prothelises "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."

I thought you said that you knew nobody in RL who'd had an abortion and that you were shocked by casual references to abortion in the UK. So that would seem to suggest that in your own world your views are the norm.

Those two accounts seem somewhat in conflict with each other.

Ghoul, totally agree with your point about back street abortions. And if people like WOD think nobody they know would ever die in a botched abortion on the grounds that she knows nobody in RL who's had an abortion then she is mistaken.

Information about the republic of Ireland is hardly classified WOD.

Fair enough Ghoul, was just curious.

I don't think those two issues are entirely different.

If you think that life only begins at successful, sustainable breathing of a baby outside the womb, then until that point, the 'baby' is only a 'potential baby' hosted by the woman (or child in some cases).

It follows that the 'host' is able to decide how long she 'hosts' for and therefore can choose to stop hosting the potential baby and prevent it from becoming a 'baby'.

How far along toward the point at which 'life' would be expected to come from the birth process, as opposed to breathing dependant on machinery, is a matter for contention and debate.

Obviously, if you think that life begins at conception, then there are different considerations.

But the question of whether the rules should be different for mothers found to be carrying a disabled child are necessarily a follow-on from the first issue. If someone ascribes to the first view of 'life' then they are going to have a similar view regarding disability, surely? I mean, until the point of birth, there is simply a 'potential baby' and therefore, disabled or not, the choice remains to terminate.

The real grey area begins when people hold a view that it is unreasonable to abort past a certain gestation except for disability, and that is what we were looking at originally.

Then you have to look at whether the difference is an ideological one, or one driven by practicalities. Perhaps if all disabilities could be detected earlier, there would be no distinction between the two. But the case is that we can't detect all serious disabilities earlier.

That aside, it is interesting how we all know that many children who are disabled are healthy, yet we manage to confuse the two when we talk about the rationale for abortion, even if we have acknowledged the distinction earlier in discussions.

well said Lougle

WriterofDreams, you are not Pro-life though. you hjave already made that clear with your views on Abortion after rape.

2shoeprintsintheblood Fri 29-Oct-10 15:57:24
PosieComeHereMyPreciousParker Fri 29-Oct-10 14:50:20
This is also the society that gives 'motherhood' medals for women with children with disabilities, we tilt our heads and think we could never do that, we think parents of SN children are more deserving of 'great parent' awards and see disability as adverse.

what an odd post.

I was saying that to illustrate the fact that it is different and harder to be a parent of a child with SN. People do pity the parents and more often than not the child is reduced to it's condition/label and the parents are heroes "how they cope" "I couldn't do it". (I am not saying that that is what I think but think that's the general view of people not involved with children with SN).

Writer, no. But some children born with disabilities will never be independent and those with significant challenges we have no way of telling whether their lives are painfree or painful.

True DF. I am aware of the lack of logic with this position and I've tried to explain it as best I can.

Ok Posie so now you're back to the quality of life argument. What about the economic argument? Should we decide whether someone lives or dies based on how much they'll cost to look after?

I'm sure many people who have painful conditions such as fibromyalgia would say that in spite of their pain and difficulties they still want to live. It's not for us to judge whether someone else's life is worth living or not.

The economics argument wasn't brought up by me, I just think Xenia has a point about value is reduced to how much people can contribute.

I just find it hard to understand why Abortion becomes less distateful/horrible in the circumstances you give as exceptions in your earlier post, like Rape for example.

After all - the process and the outcome are the same for teh unborn child and it appears you are giving a disabled foetus more right to exist than a child conceived through which, let's face it, is only in existance through no fault of its own.

Why is it fairer/more reasonable to make a woman give birth to disabled foetus than it is to make a woman give birth to a child born from rape? Why is it less horrible for those unborn babies?

Ok but do you agree or disagree with that position. You were saying disability is about economics but I'm not sure what point you were trying to make exactly.

It's not DF and I am unable to defend my position at all. I agree my logic is flawed but I can't change my mind I'm afraid. Because I was raped myself I am not objective on this point.

The only explanation I can offer is that the mother of a child conceived through rape did not in any way choose to have that child. The mother of a child conceived through consensual sex chose to have sex and knew the possible outcome. I don't think it's accpetable for her to then reject the child because it isn't perfect and to say that it is acceptable is to devalue life I feel.

DF, I do suspect this logic is peculiarly Irish, as so much of the debate surrounding the issue in recent years centred on the X case in which a 14 year old girl was prevented from travelling to abort after being impregnated through rape.

I think there was a general belief among some that it meant she was an "innocent" too (e.g. because she didn't have sex of her own volition) so shouldn't be made to carry the foetus/baby whatever and "suffer more".

It is illogical, utterly, because as you say, the foetus didn't choose its conception any more than the girl did. I seem to have a vague memory that there was a lot of bleating on about how it would share the DNA of the rapist and how could she be expected to love it etc etc. All very reductive stuff.. but there was a lot of emotion about it at the time.

I'm sure there's something in there somewhere about Catholic perceptions of guilt and innocence.