Prenatal tests and abortion

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There has been a post yesterday about this but I cannot trace it. It was about
“the danger that a prenatal test (detecting autism in the foetus) would create a situation in which the value of an individual's life will be determined based on assumptions about his or her cognitive functions.”
Selective abortion is unfortunately already largely practiced especially in advanced societies. I am not entering in discussion pro choice or “pro life” (I am pro choice), but I am saddened, if not disgusted, by the diffusion of a breeding mentality in giving birth.

Gotta agree with you there, Paulo.

It is disgusting. When I was growing up, there were these people who had Down's Syndrome. In my school, everyone was mixed together. Some were verbal, some weren't. We didn't know there was any real difference, but what did we know, we were all kids. We played, we went to class, and we were friends.

Now eighty percent of fetuses with trisomy 21 are aborted. Don't quote me. I read that somewhere, yet I tend to believe.

Where are these people? These wonderful, funny people?

And now the possibility of it happening to fetuses that may have an ASD? I hope the genes responsible are so varied and randon, the test won't mean anything. I hope it's some kind of unpredictable chimera of genes that has to be triggered by the prenatal environment, or some oddball thing no-one can discover.

What's going to happen to the human race without diversity? Humans need their better natures challenged. All this technology does is objectify people as acquisitions of perfect things.

Idiots.

Metta, R.

DNA testing for autism opens doors to selective abortions
http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt53719.html

I will just regurgitate what I posted in the other thread. It concerns me to see abortion called "disgusting" under an circumstances, because the fact is, that if abortion is legal, women will have abortions for reasons that you or I might deem unethical-- or even disgusting. But the nature of legal abortion is that each woman maintains stewardship over her own body, regardless of what the person next to her might think. To start banning abortion in particular circumstances would be a slippery slope and a drastic blow to women's rights.

If a definitive test for Asperger's is ever developed (and this begs another question-- will the test be able to distinguish between "high functioning" and "low functioning" autism, will genetics even show that the two are related? Because it could be that high functioning autism is a different disorder altogether from profound autism), there needs to be an advocacy effort to make sure that genetics counselors are giving unbiased information to the patients. Right now, this isn't even the case for Down Syndrome.

It would be quite possible to present Asperger's in a positive light-- likelihood of high IQ, innovative thinking, etc.. The challenge would be to funnel this into the genetics counseling.

Apatura,

I called abortion under these circumstances disgusting because the reasons that could be used are the wrong reasons. I would not interfere with a person's control over her own body, but I would question the reasoning for certain things--though I would also add: opinions are like anuses, and everyone has one (re: mine).

The discussion needs to happen regarding those reasons. We don't know how severe an infant showing trisomy 21 may turn out, yet the abortion rates are extraordinarily high. The person could be extraordinarily high functioning, verbal, capable of college, yet are those things so important that if a person born who couldn't do some of those things not worthy of life and a family?

I am PRO abortion. There are certain situations I think it should be strongly considered, but again, like an anus, it's my opinion...and people must come to their own conclusions.

An act can be considered disgusting based on intent or reason. If people don't want to risk having a child with disabilities or unacceptable qualities, get a dog. Again, my opinion. Kids are already born with a disability--by being condoundingly human. Well, usually.

Metta, Rjaye

Rjaye, our thinking is actually the same on this. I am pro-choice but it grieves me that people would abort autistic fetuses. Yet I also recognize that if you start limiting access to abortion, it becomes dangerous territory, because once abortion is prohibited for one reason, another reason will be introduced, and so on.

I probably come at this from an entirely different perspective based on my own mother. Frankly, she didn't want any of us and if she'd have had the option of abortion, she would have taken it. She should have. There's not one doubt in my mind that she should have had the choice and gone that route. In no way shape or form should that woman have been a mother and she knew it. It was all the well meaning people around her who thought that her mothering instincts would kick in (and somehow magically fix her brain <rolls eyes>) who forced her into it at a time when people could do that. We, the kids, paid the price. No one else paid for that except her and us. The rest of them went on their merry way and could have cared less about us or what it cost us.

So to me, if those women want the test and would abort because they'd rather do that than have an autistic kid, my feeling is they need to do it and they should do it. I don't want some autistic child (AU or AS) stuck with a mother who doesn't want them. Been there, done that and paid the price. I would never wish that on any kid for any reason. To me, the kid is better off.

I frankly don't care why they want to have an abortion. If they don't want the kid, they need to abort it. It's the alternative that is completely unacceptable to me. It makes me picture that mother on Autism Speaks saying she wanted to kill her own child right in front of the child. That child would have been better off aborted long before that woman had her hooks into her. I don't feel a thing for that woman except contempt, but that little girl weighs on me all the time.

When my mother knew that she would have had me, she was taken aback. In a poem she wrote at that time she said frankly "what can I give you child, I am dry, arid, worn out by life?". She never considered abortion for three different reasons. She considered it repulsive, even if she was not a catholic nor religious in any way (only in a vague sense she might be said pro-life). She could not in any way tolerate a physician to put his hands on her and never submitted herself to a medical examination (though she suffered of various ailments- but died at 94). And, last, abortion was at the time of her pregnancy illegal. So she would have to do it in clandestinity (though this was possible and frequently done). I think the last reason should never, never count in this kind of decisions, so here I am strongly pro-choice. It's irrelevant at this point that I ask myself: is it worthwhile that I live? Here I would answer NO. And: should I desire to have never lived? Here I am a little uncertain in the answer so strong is the attachment to life of every living creature.

My mother was never worried what she could give us. She only saw us in terms of what we took away from her and how we trapped her. We use to tell her to leave and we'd stay with dad. We'd have all been better off, including her.

I wouldn't chose to live if I had to live with her for 18 years again. I'd take the alternative. If you were never alive, you wouldn't care.

Ah, but I think we are all talking about the bigger issue.

I don't want people having kids who don't want them--I agree with you all on that. It's a deeper issue of what is valuable. Is it the biologic imperative--to bear a life to continue and bear more, and as such must be of a certain biologic capability? How important is that? To someone of a more materialistic bent, that may be the main reason for whether to have a child or not.

I especially don't want to see people having kids and then keeping them even when they don't really want them. My sister did this, and this kills me. She did tell her kids she should never have had kids, and I was not in a state to take them, because I adore those kids.

But I wonder what kind of society we'll end up with with the attitude that a person is only worthwhile if they have certain attributes. Of course, that has happened forever, but now people are following through, and trying to have that "perfect" child. The only thing that's messing with those goals is the ambiguity of life itself.

Not that I can do much but raise the question. Old people get ignored and maltreated. Fat people get made fun of, and blamed. People who don't fit an imaginary norm end up with struggles they wouldn't have otherwise. Now parents are forcing treatments that have no proven record on autistic kids, and blaming themselves for having their kids vaccinated, or by feeding them the wrong food, or something. There's a thread somewhere else here on WP that basically blamed everything on the mother's diet, genes, breastfeeding, lack of breastfeeding, vaccination record...blah blah.

Of course, it's all moot to a certain point, as people will do what they feel they need to do, and that's all any of us can do. The only thing I'm sure of is that abortion remain safe, available, and legal.

Another point is the alternative of adoption - of course no kid should be raised by people that don't want him or her, that's just criminal, but there is an alternative; if there was none, then I would wholeheartedly agree that it' better to abort them than to have them unwanted. I mean, if the child has something like Huntington's disease or even worse things, yes by all means have an abortion, I have no problem with that.
Of course, people would have to have a more rational attitude towards reproduction; I'm thinking of The Case of Mary Bell. Mary/Mae Bell had a dangerously deranged mother that abused her severly and tried to kill her several times. Her relatives knew, and did nothing. At one point she tried to give her up for adoption - and her family actually stopped her. Mary Bell became a child killer. So given these sort of attitudes, unrestricted abortion is preferrable.

I don't know how I feel. It seems wrong to abort based on the child having a disability in most cases, but is not life better than a life that's harder than most but not necessarily bad? If there was a test for autism, a child I am very close to would not be here. How far would it go? My mom told me she would not have a Down Syndrome child - and my mom is as dedicated and selfless towards her kids as you can be. However, if my mom did have an Down Syndrome child, before the age of testing, she would do everything in her power to help it succeed and love it and whatever - she would not wish she didn't have it or put it in an institution. I believe I'm on the autism spectrum - if there was some test that I'd come up positive for, and my mom chose to abort me, I hate to imagine that. My mom says she wouldn't have a severely special needs kid because of the hardships for the kid, not her, and I believe her - she would always love and help whatever kid she had. But then I heard her saying she might not have a kid with a cleft palate because "it's so severe that it's hard for them to eat" - I think this is going too far. I think I'd only have an abortion of my child was going to die young of a painful disease, or have no brain function - the only reason I'd abort a Down Syndrome child is if I had no support system and was unexpectedly pregnant, because it would be hard for me to handle and for a child like that to be adopted. But overall I believe in doing everything in my power to help any child I have, as long as I have the resources. People who spend their entire lives being angry at an unwanted child drive me crazy - once a child is born, it should be loved, even if you didn't think it would be possible. So many of the people who abort special needs children would have loved them and wanted them had they actually been born - they just don't do it out of fear.

Maybe part of my discomfort with th abortion thing is that I feel a son or a daughter would be the only one I could truly love, apart from my parents, and I would love to raise a child (on the other hand, I may not be suitable) - this would be possble only via adoption.

What about in the incidence of horrible genetic diseases like Tay-Sachs?

Definition for those who dont' know or aren't Jewish:
http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/tays ... ysachs.htm

to quote: Even with the best of care, children with Tay-Sachs disease usually die by age 4, from recurring infection

Basically, they're born, they suffer their whole lives, and they die.

Waiting on those prenatal tests is wicked. My sister in law had them done on the twins and for a short period, people didn't want to get too excited about the pregnancy. Thankfully they were negative, and they're beautiful and happy and healthy.

Edit - It's most common among Ashkenazi jews, which is why I made the above reference.

Yeah, for something like that I would be totally in favour of abortion.