Abortion Of Disabled Fetuses Is Compassion!

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I had a conversation like that once. It was one of those conversations that made me really understand just how personal abortion is.

We can't go down that road, because where does "disability" not worth living with end, and "disability" that is worth living with start? None of us can even begin to know, and using the "compassion" argument presumes that there is a clear answer on where to draw the line. What the friend in the conversation didn't see was all the gray between the blogger, their friend (a life worth living) and a person living practically in a vegetative state (the life they are seeing in their mind when they suggest it would be compassionate to abort), plus the real fact that science may never be able to predict which it is going to be.

I've come to realize, over time, however, that the "compassionate" argument often is more like a safe haven for the person giving it. They don't likely realize they are using it to hide a personal weakness until you gently lead them there. When I had the "compassionate" conversation with a friend, years ago, I did, eventually, get the person to admit that the flaw was in their perception of their ability to provide quality of life to someone severely disabled, and not whether or not that child would have found their own life worth living. The conclusion presumes that quality life cannot exist because that person cannot see how they could possibly give it.

When discussing a physical condition with known and real physical pain, I can see why someone would say it isn't compassionate to force the person to live. I may not feel we have the right to say that, but I can't argue that we don't all know constant and severe physical pain is something inordinately difficult to live with, and that many who face it willingly choose to die.

But, again, you get stuck asking, "where does too much pain end, and bearable pain that will be offset in other ways" begin.

The lines don't exist.

Better just not to go down that road.

IMHO.

If psychopathy can be detected during pregnancy, I'm all for the abortion, right away! This is being compassionate towards everybody else.

That's the easy part.

What about Asthma, Autism, Asperger's, Antidisestablishmentarianism, ADD, Homosexuality, Lower than 100 IQ, etc? Who decides what's disabled and what's not?

Aye. There is the Question. I can imagine that a child who is not athletic would eventually be dispatched.

I think one should be very cautious in condemning less than perfect people to doom and destruction. Most of us are defective in some way.

ruveyn

Last edited by ruveyn on 26 Aug 2010, 3:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I suspect that there would be some who would argue for the abortion of mentally "different" people, as well as those who are physically disabled. What about me? Autistic, bipolar, OCD. I'm glad they couldn't test for those in the womb.

Only to people who view abortion as killing a person.

I definitely understand, and especially if/when being pregnant at all might be risky. So, let each woman decide for herself whenever an abortion might actually be "medically necessary" -- insurance companies could provide their own benchmarks or "deciding factors" there -- but not just because she might find pregnancy a bit inconvenient this year. And of course, there is no perfect solution here among people who cannot agree there would be no significant differences between the cullings of cabbages and "babies".

When it comes to abortion, it shouldn't matter, it must be acceptable and encouragable for ANY reason.

I have two children and thank God they were both normal and healthy. I don't think I am strong enough to handle a big problem.

As a child I remember the couple across the road. They had a "baby" that was older than I was.

It was the size of a baby but it had a head as big as a basketball, and that was when it was ten years old.
It lived to be 17 years old before it died.

They must have gone through a thousand hells. It is a wonder that they didn't divorce. As it was they never had any other children.

So tell me, how "noble" was it that those poor people kept a mindless "thing" alive for 17 years?

We would screw up the gene pool quite badly if that were the case. Routine aborting for (subjectively) undesirable traits would be disastrous for human biological diversity, which is already plenty low enough.

My biological mother only got pregnant with me bia a rape. She could talk about couldn't really have a true conversation with a person. She was labled mentaly ret*d but I wonder if she was just severely AS? She was negelected as a child too whereas I was nutured. Anyway, before I was born, some wanted her to have an abortion becuase they did not think she was fit to be a mother. Sometimes I wish they would have went ahead and made her. But after I see my dificulties were because of the ignorance and cruelty of other human beings, not because of bad DNA. My eyes, ears, mucles and even brain work just fine and possibly even better than those of the normals. If I was aborted, I would have never discovered the sheer joy and bliss my special intrests bring me. Who has the right to murder an innocent child because of thier ignorance and preconceived notions? Blind, deaf, mentaly challanged and even autistic people have made wonderful controbutions to society. No one has the right to murder someone because their idea of a "quality of life".

NT's who think they know it all and are big, high and mighty. Yeah, in their heads and in their dreams!

Don't forget all the non-NT's with their crazy "NT's are so depraved and illogical" attitudes. Yeah, like we're any better!

That's nice and all but you're here and alive. Obviously didn't go for the abortion. People always end up taking it to the level of "well, I don't want to die so I'll project that onto fetuses".

People have an odd way of not coping with mortality by taking it out on the abortion issue.

Not be fully human? That's BS. There have been people since the beginning of time who have had parts of their brains missing or diminished, and no way do they diminish in humanity because of it. You're on a forum for people with autism spectrum disorders, which is widely considered to be a significant brain disorder (my belief that it isn't a disease aside). Are any of us inferior because of the way we were wired? Hell no.

Amen!