Abortion - The Choice . Tuesday 13th May, BBC 2, 9pm

[Milliways]

Tuesday 13th May, BBC 2, 9pm: Abortion - The Choice.
"Five women face up to their decision to have an abortion, describing their thought processes as they made one of the most difficult choices anybody can make, and on which there can be no hard and fast agreement. Beyond the chatter, 200,000 pregnancies are terminated in the UK each year and none is anything less than tortuous and painful - as demonstrated by this poignant film."

No I'm not surprised people are upset.

i am surprised however that people don't want to raise it with me but would rather start an entirely seperate outraged thread that calls for my removal!

Sounds a bit ott.

And i'll shut up when its clear that no one is responding to me! so if you want to hasten that process, better quieten down yourself...

Spero knows what it is like to live with a disability, caring for someone with a disability is not the same as this.

Combustiblelemon, dont worry I may have cried because I am pregnant. I am sorry to hear about your cousin I hope her baby is getting all the love and care he/she needs.

I don't want to bang on about the disability, I just wanted to make it clear that I am NOT some Nazi eugenicist saying we must rid the world of all undesirables.

I just really really really think we need a more mature debate about QUALITY of life; what does this mean, how do we preserve it, guarrantee it?

the abortion debate is central to this because we are allowed, if not encouraged! to abort for Downs Syndrome etc, etc.

I'll say it again. to anyone struggling with the difficulty and the heartache of caring for a disabled child, i am truly sorry if I have added to your upset today.

but I am not sorry for having my views and for expressing them.

and frankly it is pretty low to go behind someone's back, almost wilfully misinterpret what they have said and make them (me) out to be devil incarnate. Not really going to change my mind that way.

Thanks Ronshar, he's a fighter. Congrats on your pregnancy

?He was kept alive. For what? For whom??. So was he on life support? This child of whom you speak? Or was he on drugs without which he would die? Because there is a difference between keeping a child alive by forcing that child to keep undergoing treatment, and just allowing him to live in a way which might not mean he has a good quality of life. That is not keeping a child alive; it?s allowing a child to live. And there is a difference.

It was me who said that as a disabled person you should know better. Not to hold the views you do, (people will have their opinions of situations regardless IMO) but to express them quite so publically. Presumably you will have encountered prejudice against your disability? I know I have, and not even on a mass scale, but more on the basis that ?oh you wouldn?t be able to do this job because you cannot see/oh I don?t know how you cope with a child/oh however do you manage to cook, does the dog help with that at all?? and it drives me insane. So if people were touting such views as ?oh your quality of life is so poor, if there were a dignified death for you I would help you find it? I don?t think I would be responsible for my response tbh. So given we know that people are prejudiced against more minor disabilities (and I consider my disability to be a minor disability) and we have the capacity to educate/inform/stand up for ourselves and prove to the world that it?s not all that bad, how much more heartbreaking is it for the parent of a child with a severe disability, when even someone who has a disability and who might have experienced a fraction of what they are going through in terms of prejudice, turns around and talks about euthanasia for the severely disabled?

Please do think about that when you are talking of quality of life issues, and a dignified death.

And I am not speaking as someone who is caring for a severely disabled child, so cannot be accused of talking from an emotional position, but it really isn't rocket science is it?

spero "bulling" get a grip.
I started a thread in sn. it was not just about this thread.
I did not start the other one.
you say you have not judged yet you stated
22shoes, i don't criticise you for being emotive but I don't think it helps the debate. My mum used to work with very severely disabled children; one child was all day in a kind of skateboarders outfit; helmet, knee pads etc because all the time he was awke, all he did when not restrained was beat his head against any available hard surface. He'd been abandoned by his parents, the prognosis apparently was that he would never get 'better'. So had I been allowed, I would definitely have helped to give him aa peaceful and dignified death as was possible.2

your words. you have stated you would murder this child. so I think you well deserve ant thing that comes your way.

'That is not keeping a child alive: it is allowing a child to live'

But he didn't have a 'life'. He understood nothing, interacted with no one. his brain was very severely damaged. he was 'alive' in that his heart was beating and pumping blood around but that's about it I think.

I really don't understand how/why this has become interpreted as an attack on all disabled children.

Any child with a mother to love him/her is a lucky child. I don't want to make choices for anyone else's child. But this particular child was so far as i could see completely alone. The only difference between him and tony bland was that he was moving.

and yet it was tony bland's parents i think who begged for their son to be allowed to die. It took them about five years? sorry i may not have all the facts right. Why the hell did they have to go through that??

Because there seems to be a view that some things are so shocking they cannot be discussed. Well i disagree. That's all.

I'm not apologising again for upsetting anyone because I am beginning to understand that the reaction is almost entirely emotional and its getting a bit pointless.

2 Shoes. did tony Bland's parents murder their son?

should Diane Pretty's husband have been prosecuted for wanting to help her die?

sorry missed the y out

ffs I was repeating what you said you would do.

So when tony bland's parents fought for their son's death, do you consider this murder?

WHERE??

found it thanks. what alovely end to the day. dd has come home in her lovely pink chair and now a music section

2shoes
yep
DS2 just came home and imediately needed snuggles. So he, DD and I have just had half an hour in my big bed watching tv and having huge hugs.
Some days are just so arn't they?
Better start some dinner....

aww. I had to lol. we got a new video player but it doesn't have a clock. so dd has been looking at clocks in the argos catalogue for me

If people are going to be thrown off MN for expressing opinions not shared by the minority then it's going to get pretty fucking quiet around here. Spero has made no personal attacks on anyone nor any threats or impolite reference to anyone's children, she's just airing opinions and pointing out that issues around euthanasia are worth discussing which means that people have differing opinions on them.

KM you are so right

FWIW I don't think people should be banned for expressing opinions of any kind, including racist ones. Challenged, disagreed with, corrected on their facts, sure, that's how healthy debate happens and people who might be thinking similar thoughts learn more about the subject and get educated.
But contentious subjects (abortion, euthanasia, immigration) are always going to bring out strongly-opposing views: if you can't cope with someone not sharing your opinions, stay off contentious threads.

considering this thread is about abortion, then deciding quality of life is an opinion... Once a child is born then as parents you do what you can and don't do what you can't.
it's not even a eugenics argument it is humanity and it is individual and personal.

I say this because had I been told when I was expecting DD that she would be born with a rare genetic disorder that in 5% of cases was life limiting and possibly could have learning difficulties and many other complications, I think DP and I may have considered our options.
thank fuck we never knew.
she is the most perfect child ever...we are fortunate that she has quite possibly one of the mildest variations of the syndrome known.
but how would someone establish that prenatally and how many would take the chance that you'd be lucky.

Madamez. Thankyou.

I'm on a different time zone; didn't want you to think I was hiding or out murdering children.

If this issue is dead in the water, then hey - don't reply to me.

Kerrymum, I was not, never had been, never will advocate the 'murder of disabled children'.

I believe that it is worth discussing whether a life with no discernable quality is a life worth 'living' or being kept alive for.

If you don't think Tony bland's parents murdered him then you must agree that they did the right thing for their son because his life had absolutely no quality and was a painful undignified thing for them to witness and for him to endure. But instead of allowing him a quick painless death the poor bugger had to starve to death.

and why? Because some things we are not allowed to discuss because they are 'so wrong'.

And I'm certainly not saying that if you don't agree with me, then bugger off. But if you don't agree with me, why not try shining the light of truth on my contemptible opinions??

Instead of characterising me as a 'child murderer' which is gibbering nonsense.