to think that if those care workers had done what they did to NT kids rather than learning disabled adults the sentences would have been more severe?

[Greensleeves]

I watched the documentary about Winterbourne View and it was one of the saddest things I have ever seen. I think the sentences are a joke. Wayne Rogers in particular delighted in torturing powerless people who couldn't defend themselves.

I can't help wondering whether the sense of public outrage, and the severity of the sentences, would have been greater if the victims had not been SN adults?

and

Some of the arguments though are based on the assumption that parents to be would not want a "differently abled" child because they don't like them. I would have thought the most common reason would be the difficulties the child could face, including after the parents' deaths. I accept that often these difficulties are as a result of prejudice, but it's naive to think that's true of every difficulty that could be experienced. Isn't it?

I had my daughter at 37 so I was considered a 'geriatric primigravida'

My husband and I were very clear that we didn't want screening of any type. It would make no difference to our decisions and we needed no 'time to prepare'.

After telling the midwife of our firm, informed decision she wrote "undecided" in my green notes. I pointed out that we weren't undecided we were very clear. Her reply was that 'they' won't take no for an answer and that she had to write undecided. At each appointment; GP, consultant, scans and subsequent (different) midwives we were asked if we had made our minds up. Each time we explained our firm position. Each time it was not written in our notes.

I'm now 38 and we will be trying soon for another. We expect the same experience.

Cailindana, I think your point about the availability of abortion for these reasons affecting societies views on the status of people with disabilities are valid.

I don't agree that if someone has or would abort a child with disabilities then that excludes them from caring what happens to living vulnerable people.

MrsDevere I applaud you as always. Hope you feel rested.

You can abort a foetus at full term if they have a disability. If you did that with a child that didn't have a detectable disability, you would be up on a murder/manslaughter charge.

Why the difference? Societal attitudes and discrimination towards those with disabilities, showing that those with disabilities are worth less than those without.

Which leads on to HOW these people felt they could behave like this towards vulnerable people with disabilities.

While it is acceptable and legal to discriminate against a person with disabilities from just 24 weeks after their conception, you will never eradicate discrimination against disabled children or adults.

No, Brycie. Every child faces difficulties and if we were all to judge whether to have a child based on that I doubt anyone would end up being born. Yes it's pretty much inevitable that child with disabilities will face a more difficult life than a child without, but that's not generally due to the disabilities themselves but due to the society we live in. There is no reason that the parents of a child with disabilities should worry about that child's future any more than the parents of a child without disabilities, but they do, because society is unwilling to look after the child and step up to protect the most vulnerable in society. So a parent has to face the possibility that once they die their child will end up in deep shit, something that society should not allow to happen.

You cannot predict the difficulties a child with disabilities will face. For example with DS a child can be non-verbal with multiple problems, or quite able and capable of living an almost independent life. I don't think for one second that parents abort disabled children "because they don't like them." Even I doubt that anyone is that silly. They abort them for a range of reasons, but I think a common feeling is that they won't cope. And I believe that the feeling they won't cope is reinforced by the NHS giving the very distinct impression that carrying on with a pregnancy when the child has a disability is not a sensible decision. Why would they give that impression if having a child with a disability weren't fraught with difficulty?

I believe screening should be available but I disagree with the type of termination you describe. I don't know how anyone could do that. Are doctors allowed to refuse?

Doctors are always allowed to refuse to abort, but they are required to refer on to a doctor who will abort. An abortion won't be refused outright because you are entitled to abort a full developed baby who is capable of living independently, simply because it looks different and will have a lower level of intelligence than other children. In my book that's murder, but the NHS is fine with it.

I get your point, Cailin. I especially think the NHS resistance that has been described here is appalling.

But..but..but.. I still think the feelings that lead parents to make a decision like that are very different to the callousness displayed towards for example the victims of these care workers. I don't think a pregnant woman's decision is callous in that way.

I think you express things very well. The thing is, if you say "if you deplore this you must also deplore screening" then you will exclude a lot of people from your "side" when it comes to the protection of living children and adults.

By "like that" I don't mean the decision to terminate an almost full term pregnancy. I think the same rules should apply ie 24 weeks.

Mind you I increasingly think that's a bit late on. But that's a whole other thing.

I have a problem with the 24 week cut off too, but as you say, that's another issue.

I don't think the attitudes that inform a parent's decision to abort a foetus with disabilities is anywhere near the level of callousness of those fuckwits. But it is on the same continuum. It is the thin end of the wedge so to speak.

My words last night were informed by anger but I do stand by them, if not by the tone of what I said. To draw an analogy - if someone said "Oh wasn't the Holocaust terrible...but I still wouldn't be friends with a Jew," you would be forgiven for thinking "what the feck do you care about the Holocaust you racist pig!" Lamenting abuse like this is just empty words if you accept one, albeit lesser, form of discrimination IMO. Does that make sense?

It't not on the continuum. I don't think your analogy applies. It might be triggered by the callousness we can see around us but it's not a part of it, I'm sure. (how can I be sure?) But I trust that it isn't. These are the child's would be parents.

But I would say again - if you insist that this issue is centrally about abortion, "you" will lose a lot of support from people who would otherwise most vocally agree with you. It's quite alienating.

It only makes sense when you draw a societal picture Cailin. When you talk about it in the individual sense it is judging - you feel it's wrong for someone to abort a child with a disability. I do not. But I do agree that the difference in abortion time limits is a clear-cut case of discrimination. And your comment that there's no more reason for the parents of a disabled child to worry about that child's future than a non-disabled child - well, thats back to the chicken and egg thing isn't it? Because you know that's not the case, now, today, in our society.

Its not at all the same thing. I would have an abortion for Downs, I will admit that. Of course it doesn't mean I don't care at all for people with disabilities. It also doesn't mean I don't know anything about disabilities. The reverse, in fact is true.
I agree about the alienating point. You're coming across quite unhingededly pro-life.

Why say unhinged. Why. Isn't it apparent that there are sorrows and difficulties here that lead people down different paths. Unhinged is just not nice.

This is a really interesting discussion and although I don't think it's been derailed by the abortion discussion I do think a few people have taken a few anecdotes and decided people are forced to have tests or seen as strange if they're not. For what it's worth I'm 21 weeks pregnant with my first. The midwife asked me once if I wanted the prenatal screening and when I said no she said do you mind if I ask why. When I explained that I didn't want to have to make a decision based on the results (and there would have been a decision between my heart and head no matter what people say) and that the test wouldn't actually tell me if there was anything other than ds wrong with my baby so it didn't seem worth the worry she said okay and actually the majority of people she speaks to say the same thing and don't have the tests either.
Even though I have chosen not to have to make the decision I do think that the 24 week limit should apply to all fetuses though, surely if it is not right to abort a child after this point then any disability should not change the law. Although I suppose disabilities where the child would suffer for the entirety of a very short life may confuse this issue a little; perhaps in this situation it would be kinder to allow later abortions.

I don't mind being called unhinged. People generally insult you if you challenge their views, it's normal.

The way I see it is, if you say "I wouldn't want a child with disabilities, even if he/she were my own flesh and blood," then how can you care about other people with disabilities who are not related to you? If you would look at your own baby on a sonogram and decide, no I don't want you, simply because that child is disabled, why then do you accept and worry about other people who are not your children? It doesn't make sense. People care for and worry about their own children far more than they care for and worry about other people's children. If they can't muster up the ability to care for their own child, and indeed would abort that child, then saying they care about other children just doesn't ring true to me.

By deciding you would not accept your own flesh and blood if it were disabled, you are rejecting people with disabilities IMO. If that's the way you feel, ok, but don't be dishonest about it.

I am a liberal but the sentences seemed light.

Because Cailin, it's not about "not wanting" it's about fearing for the child's future. They are different things.

Abortion performed after 24 weeks is only done in very extreme cases. It is not legal to routinely terminate a pregnancy after 24 weeks if the baby has Down's Syndrome unless the abnormalities are extreme.

It's not dishonest. It's a different opinion to yours.

It does make sense. The reasons I would terminate are not because I think there is anything wrong with the disabled, but because I know how difficult it can be to live that life, for the whole family. And I don't want that for my family.

That has nothing to do with how I feel about other disabled people already born.

You might as well say that anyone who has an abortion at all has no feelings for people of any kind. It would be the same thing as asserting that a women who has NT children who has an abortion can't possibly care about her own living children, let alone anyone elses, or else she couldn't have an abortion.

Thats why I say unhinged. You make no sense, you are insulting, and you are WRONG.

Also Cailin, without wanting to reduce this to the utterly logical, this

"By deciding you would not accept your own flesh and blood if it were disabled, you are rejecting people with disabilities"

doesn't really obtain. Because of this

"By deciding you would not accept your own flesh and blood if it were not disabled, you are rejecting people without disabilities"

That is, the equivalent of saying, anybody who has a termination at all dislikes and rejects children, which is wrong.

Every parent fears for their child's future, no matter what way they're born. And no child's future is guaranteed. A large proportion of people with DS lead happy and fulfilled lives - where the problem lies is in finding someone to care for them once their parents are dead. That's not a problem inherent to the disability, that's a problem with society, and it's all mixed up in the same issue.

If parents could test and find out if the child could in future have depression, or bipolar disorder, or schizophrenia, would it be acceptable to abort those children? Why is disability special?

And again, a question I asked earlier, why are Asian families discouraged from finding out the sex of their baby in case they abort for that, but are encouraged to test for Down syndrome so that they can if they want abort for that? Why is one form of selection acceptable while the other is not?

Cailin you know it is not the same kind of fear, and you can't pretend it is. I think you do the cause of people with disabilities a disservice by insisting on it.

Oh Virginia. You said exactly that, and all I saw was the word unhinged. You expressed it before me and better than me.

I think you'll find that mental illnesses are also a disability.

By saying a ""large proportion of people with DS lead happy and fulfilled lives" you are using your own opinion of what constitutes a happy and fulfilled life. Also, you are ignoring the fact that people with disabilities are discriminated against and in the world. Yes, this is an issue with society and it does need to change but it's a valid concern to some people.