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?

arses NO NO NO!!! The signified/signifier issue is huge, and fascinating - it charts the history of society, really. I mean, a word starts with a significance, and the whole societal backdrop of the subject determines its future.

Look at 'gay' or 'black' - words that were so derisory, and now reclaimed by the sectors of society they relate to, to empower them.

That's why words are so powerful.

ItsGhoulAgain thanks for sharing. I am sure that it being 'a tad emotional' is a slight understatement. Without persuing details, which you are free to share or withhold, if your foetus had taken one solitary breath, or even a few breaths, would you have seen a foetus or a baby? Is that really the dividing line for you?

Lougle, I don't disagree with your argument - just thought Saussure viewed the relationship between signifier and signified as arbitrary? eg. www.psy.dmu.ac.uk/drhiles/DivSigns.htm?

i'd just like to point out that i am irish and i had bloods taken and a nuchal fold scan at twelve weeks, and would have gone on to have cvs/amnio if the numbers had indicated an elevated risk level for disability: i think this is fairly standard - though only privately available - here. Just so you know, WOD.

Thank you for raising that again, wmmc. Having been over-exposed to midwives' chat during the 1950s - 60s, I'm painfully aware of how often this happened. Each midwife burdened with the power of life and death; tormented by their choices regarding conditions like DS and by their obligation to bullshit women recently delivered of seriously malformed babies ... telling them the baby was sick and they had to "wait for the doctor", when they were in fact waiting for the baby to die or suffocate. The whole business was a nightmarish web of lies, deceit & suffering.

This is what drives the science of IU diagnosis, and the current state of abortion laws. I am disgusted by those who're happy to pretend this wouldn't happen again. What alternatives do they offer?

During the same time young women were being ripped off, blackmailed, mutilated, disabled and killed by non-medical abortion procedures. One girl in my street was brain-damaged and scarred by two bottles of gin in a scalding bath. Many, many women suffered uterine & cervical mutilations from knitting needles or coat-hangers. Many men pushed their pregnant partners downstairs - hoping for a mc, but usually ending up with smashed ribs, broken noses & emotional damage. This is what drives pro-choice laws.

Is it not horrifying to prefer that - the 'real alternative' - to what we have??

You did well to highlight WoD's misuse of the word 'eugenics', too - though we've got to admit the title did the trick!

ItsGhoulAgain - sorry if I'm repeating I really haven't read all this. It will just make me very angry and upset. :(

Lougle: yes, my goodness, I'd have been screeching for an ambulance and remembering what I'd learned about CPR on newborns! It would have been, at that point, hovering between 'foetus' and 'baby' - death and life. I share the general human instinct to promote life where life exists. The difference, I suppose, is in the definition of life. That almost-baby could not live outside my body. Tragic as it was for me, it was NOT "a life".
Did that explain?

Didn't mean to put you down, wmmc, I meant: well said.

Ah, didn't take it that way, I didn't want to offend those who had poured time and effort into the thread by not reading their posts and repeating something said twenty times already. :) Thanks!

arses www.aber.ac.uk/media/Documents/S4B/sem02.html I see what you are saying now. Yes, Saussure viewed the relationship between the signifier and the signified as arbitrary, in that the word 'car' could just as easily be 'tree' and have the same meaning, except that we hear 'tree' and think of a wood trunk, with branches, leaves, etc. We hear 'car' and think of a metal container with wheels, windows and an engine.

But once signifiers and signs are matched, the 'signified' evolves, as society changes its view of the subject.

Totally agree with whomovedmychocolate. It's a personal choice based on circumstances and personal beliefs and attitudes. I considered abortion as I was concerned my second child would also have same disability as first ds, but chose not to go through with it. I don't regret my decision, but am grateful the choice exists for me and for others. I think there is a misunderstanding that abortion is the easier option, I found it just too hard to go through with. I have huge respect for those who take the decision and then come to terms with it.

stripeywoollenspook, what would have happened if your tests proved positive? I'm not goading, still quite mystified by the Irish position. In Brazil, the mother would be offered a safe, blind-eye termination if she could afford it. But the Pope disapproves of Brazilan catholicism, doesn't he?

ItsGhoulAgain graphically, and tragically thank you. It always amazes me that on MN, we are all able to read the same set of sentences written by a poster, and we probably all read with a different emphasis, a different interpretation.

What I read earlier about your stillbirth, I read thinking that you were slightly...I don't know, ambivalent? Reading your follow-up post, I see that you are just marking a clear distinction in your mind between a life that was never going to continue, and a life that could be saved.

I suppose that is the clincher. I view the 'foetus' as a baby from conception until such time as it stops being able to possibly live outside your body. You see the 'baby' as a foetus until such times as it can live outside your body.

Yes. I suppose it's the 'viability' issue although I have the luxury of age & distance. As I posted earlier, I recently saw a "baby" of the same gestation being brought to full health in an ICU on the telly. It caused me some heartache: what if ...? That was in no way an option for me, though. It still isn't in the majority of cases - and, from there, you can go to extremely fine questions that are more suited to a philosophy master's dissertation than a forum thread.

I've lived through incredible times; we all have. I am very grateful for the advances we've made in science, medicine, communication and society. My only worry is that today's people (I sound like I'm 110! I'm half that) take so much of it for granted, they forget the underlying realities of life as nature dictates ... without intervention.

Even with the advances, some of those babies do everything they can to defeat medicine! I looked after a number of babies that would wriggle around so much at 24 weeks that they would regularly lose their vent. Amazingly strong, yet so frail.

On a totally different subject, I can totally relate to your last paragraph. Television programmes like Holby City and Casualty have a lot to answer for. The number of times a patient gets shocked back to life miraculously. Doesn't compare to the particularly memorable resus I attended as a care assistant before I was a nurse. An elderly cancer patient, riddled. Cardiac arrest with a very messy resus. I spent half an hour sitting with him as he died for a second time, because after resuscitating him, the doctors decided he would be DNR. Some dignity that was

Late abortions are carried out for very serious reasons. Where, for instance, the pregnancy is the result of abuse and the pregnant woman is a very young girl who has not realised or admitted or revealed that she is pregnant. Or an older woman who thought she was menopausal.

Or where the foetus has very serious disabilities that are incompatible with life and that will cause very severe suffering before the poor child dies.

The idea that anyone could impose their ideas about pregnancy onto a woman who is, for example carrying a baby with severe hydrocephalus is horrific. It's entirely for that woman to decide which of the equally terrible options she faces she should take.

PosieComeHereMyPreciousParker I applaud your honesty(and I mean that)

Oh, god, lougle, how awful :(

Edam, I couldn't agree more with you that it's just wrong to impose choice constraints on a distressed & pregnant woman. We're lucky there are any choices! As you say, none of them are going to be cheerful for the woman making them. Better to have some options than none, surely?

'It's entirely for that woman to decide which of the equally terrible options she faces she should take.'

That is so true.

Incompatable with life - I wonder how many of you have actually had to make that choice. Boy, do I feel judged at this moment - judged by you, judged by the medical profession - not what I need at the moment.

I am 31 wks pregnant. My son has abnormalities that mean he will either have long-term disabilities, or may well die within minutes/hours of birth. I have had to fight for the choice to see him and say goodbye and have had to fight for the choice for him to receive treatment if he is well enough. The paed's agree with this course of action, and that it will not cause unnecessary suffering. Many of you will be speaking from no experience of this, or from an 'idea' of what it might mean to have a disabled child. I live very much in the reality.

I can appreciate that some of you might not feel able to cope with a disability in the family and that is your choice. However, I expect you to respect my choice to bring my son into this world.

KarenHL I am so sorry you are going through this. If it isn't too insensitive to say, do feel free to join us on the www.mumsnet.com/Talk/special_needs board, to talk about your DS. We haven't all had to make the active choice you are making, but we all very much live the reality of disability in our families.

If you'd like to tell us about your DS, well, I for one would gladly hear about him

karenhl please do come on the sn board

"However, I expect you to respect my choice to bring my son into this world."

honestly truly I don't think there's anyone posting here who wouldn't respect that right.

So sorry to hear your story and I hope that you do get the support you need. So sorry that you have had such a fight for what you want :(

Karen, I respect and (though you may not want to hear it) admire your choice. I hope you receive all the 'good listening' and practical support you need, now and in future. I wish you and DS a simple birth and happy life.

I argue, strongly, for your right to make the choice, and to get whatever support is available. It's sad to hear you felt pressured towards another choice - however, you were not pressured to the extent of having no choice. And that is what I support: real choice.

You have the support of your paediatrician, that's important. S/he supports your choice and will facilitate it, supporting you also through the results of your choice. That's what legally- and culturally-supported choice really means :)

Good luck with everything.

Karen, I'm so sorry things are looking so bleak, and I hope very much your ds is well enough to receive treatment.

The point about choice is that this is your pregnancy and your baby and no-one else has any right to tell you what to do.

Glad the paeds are able to reassure you that your baby won't suffer. Not sure who you've had to fight - perhaps the obstetricians?

Thanks for sharing your story Karen, sorry you're going through something so horrible, I can't imagine what you're feeling.

I hope you don't mind me using your story as an example, but I feel it highlights a lot of my concerns. The fact that you had to fight to allow your son to live shocks me but doesn't surprise me unfortuntely. It only demonstrates the fear that I have - that a disabled child will be seen as somehow not having the right to live at all. I would imagine you came up against an attitude of incomprehension when you said you wanted to keep him a sort of "but why?" response? Am I right?