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?

I'm sorry you were upset Deadlylampshade. Thanks for your contributions.

Smallwhitecat until it was mentioned here I didn't realise a special exception was made for disabled children. I really can't believe it. So if a mother doesn't want a baby but it's healthy it can live, however if a mother doesn't want a disabled baby it's ok to kill it?

The attitude that disabled children are somehow expendable, in fact that their very disability makes it easier to kill them surely lowers the status of disabled people in a subtle but insidious way?

Also Irish. Agree the attitudes here are very different to Ireland. Am pro-choice but it does disturb me deep down if I am honest.

But also I can really see the other side of the coin and if the shoe was on my foot then who knows. I really try not to judge. It really does depend on the anomoly.

I suppose what I take issue with is not that people have the choice to test and to abort so much but that it seems to be the received wisdom, with active encouragement from the NHS, that you test and abort if positive. I was amazed to listen to a radio programme interviewing people whose babies tested positive for Downs and they decided to go ahead with the pregnancy. These people were said to be the exception to the rule and were treated as being a little bit weird tbh. I'm all for choice but not for active encouragement iykwim.

It just disturbs me that maybe people are put under subtle pressure or feel that they should abort rather than be a burden to state services or something. Or know that they won't have any support. Much cheaper for govt to encourage abortion than give people real help with SN kids.

Ireland is crap for helping people too, not saying it's unique to this country.

no girl, or woman, should be forced to go ahaead with a pregnancy that she genuinely feels is quite beyond her.

OP could you really stand in front of a woman at the end of her tether and pg, and tell her that, no, you are going to force her to go through with it? Or are you relying on bullies in irish parliament to do that for you.

i think what you are expecting of women is quite heartless.

I don't think it's crap, and I don't think it's wrong.

Why is it a good idea to allow a crack addict to churn out crack addicted baby after crack addicted baby because she's too off her face to use contraception and get prenatal care? Is it psychologically marvellous for the addicted woman to have baby after baby removed from her (because believe me, I don't believe for a second that an addict loves her baby any less than anyone else) because she's simply incapable of looking after it? You can't miss what you've not had, but you can definitly miss something you fell in love with that was taken away.

I'm not advocating that they are aborted, I am advocating that they are never conceived in the first place. I'm not advocating that anyone is forcibly sterilised, just that they are offered a choice. If a crack addict chooses £200 over a baby - what does that say about the choices she's likely to make about the baby's care?

"It may amaze some people to believe that we actually get a great deal of joy out of our children, and we don't spend our lives wishing them different" I am not amazed. I think it's great that people make the choices they do. I would never ever try to influence another person; I can only do for myself what I know is best for myself.

It does amaze me that other people feel the need to impose their experience onto another person in an attempt to make them do something they do not want to do. I certainly would never do that to someone.

stubbornhubby this is where the fundamental difference between a very early and a very late termination come into play IMO

if the girl/woman was very close to term, I would have no problem in saying that termination was not an option

if the viable baby were born and then disposed of, would that be OK because the mother didn't want it? There is only a thin layer of flesh and skin between abortion and infanticide at this stage, IMO

I think that until you have tried living as a disabled child's carer, you are not entitled to an opinion

colditz problem with that argument is generally the people who have had the aboriton are unlikely to become parent's of children with special needs... due to having aborted the child. but obviously they have an opinion.

I knew that I would abort a child if it would be so diabled as to have an unhappy life or be in pain. I knew that downs while worrisome would not make me abort as there is no reason for someone with downs to not have a happy life.

well colditz, to me it says that she is in a desparate state and is easily exploited into making a stupid, damaging decision by a person with a God complex and no ethics offering her £200

you don't know what is round the corner in that person's life any more than she does

to pay someone to permanently maim herself is worse - marginally worse - than dictating who should and should not have been born, IMO

I didn't have any of the abnormality tests in pg because I wouldn't have had an abortion either way.

But, there is no way I could care for a (severely) disabled child. (I have disabilities myself) I dont know what would happen in that situation.

i have a disabled child myself - it doesn't mean I agree with everything that other parents of disabled children think, so sticking to the SN board won't guarantee that you'll always be agreed with. (It might help to guarantee that any opinion comes from a place of understanding rather than ignorance)

stubbornhubby it was actually the Irish people who decided not to have abortion, not "the bullies in the Irish parliament" There were two abortion referenda at which abortion was a rejected both times.
Link:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion_in_the_Republic_of_Ireland

Surely most late stage abortions of disabled foetuses occur because the condition is incompatable with life? Or because the mothers life is in danger? I doubt many terminations occur long after the twenty week scan just because the mother changes her mind about having a disabled child.

Why is being sterilised a stupid, damaging decision?

Why is it stupid and damaging to guarantee that you won't be giving birth to crack addicted babies that will be removed from you before you give them their first feed? How is that stupid and damaging?

OP wants some kind of medal because if she had a disabled baby she'd keep it, but it's not just a five minute decision that is the right one or the wrong one, it's the REST of the child's life, and impacts upon siblings too.

Agree with stubborn, no woman should have to go through a pregnancy she feels she can't cope with.

These black and white views are what I expect from somebody very young, inexperienced, with a low EQ. Most normal intelligent compassionate people who've lived through the unexpected and recovered from it know that there's no moral highground and no black and no white. There ARE shades of grey.

Just marking my place because I am at work but think this could be really interesting (have only read the first few posts so maybe it has descended into anarchy already)

Zombie, yes, that's what I understand. Sometimes a termination is performed to spare the parents the agony of giving birth to a live baby who then dies before their eyes.

I agree with Babyheave. The majority of abortions is performed on women who can't/don't want to keep their babies, regardless of the baby's health.

It also depends on ^where you are going to have a child with a disability. I now live in Italy and I'm sure that here it'll be harder than in the UK.

Donttry I felt the same way. I was shocked that those who took the "strange" decision to continue with a pregancy involving a disabled child were somehow looked upon with pity and incomprehension. I do feel that the attitude towards disabilities in Ireland is much more positive, possibly because there is no relative value placed on children's lives by the medical system based on whether they are disabled or not.

Oh and I would guess the OP is talking about Watson. I don't think anyone takes his opinions terribly seriously, he went a bit weird. Having a Nobel Prize means you are good at figuring things out, not that your opinions on more philosophical/moral areas are any better than anyone else's.

It doesn't seem sensible to argue whether a baby who won't survive should be aborted or not, that's why I put non-lifethreatening in my original post. I don't think there's anything wrong with allowing a mother not to have to go through a pregnancy that will in all certainty only end in the death of her child.

Nothing is black and white. And people will always come at this subject with their own personal experience shaping their viewpoint because it is so emotive.

Sometimes, scans and diagnostic tests reveal conditions that are completely incompatible with life so it's a decision between termination or waiting to miscarry at some unknown point later in the pregnancy.

This is not eugenics, it is informed choice.

Sometimes, tests reveal a condition and it enables a family to prepare however they can for the arrival of a potentially very sick child into their lives.

Sometimes, parents feel that bringing a child into the world with a particular disability is more than they can cope with, or that they wish to put their existing family through.

Sometimes, women are unexpectedly pregnant, scared and don't know what else to do.

IMO, termination of pregnancy is an awful, awful thing and anyone who has been through it would probably agree with that statement. I doubt there are many who go into it lightly.

But how many late stage terminations occur post 24 weeks of foetuses which aren't suffering from life threatening conditions? Are there any figures?