Poll: Would you abort a pregnancy if the child would have Down Syndrome?

[Juk3n]

There are different levels of downs', and i d have to take my entire family into consideration. Im a sole earner, how will this effect my wife, interms of picking my first child up from school, and taking careof this disabled child aswell? What if it's a SERIOUS debilitating case of downs, wheelchair bound downs? What then? Neither me or my wife drive. What kind of quality of life will my son have when all the attention and everything the family does is going to be planned a nd schedualed around the disabled child?

My son goes to stay with my mother formost weekends, he and his grandma have a great time, outings, sports, playing downstairs with all his friends. How will this downs baby effect there time together?

If you're a young couple and can try again anytime you like, id recommened to abort. Gotta be cruel to be kind..I HAVE no doubt you will love the disabled child for ever, but people need to get off there high horse and realize that it's NOT SELFISH to want to keep a certain quality of life.

And bfore ther flames, me and my partner were in this position. We're both 27 and we got a priliminary test result of 1/38 chance of downs. This is extreme, we decided that if the final result came back positive, we would abort, why? Becuase we wanted to be happy. And having a happy healthy baby woud make us a hell of alot happier than having a disabled one.

The test was negative, our girl is healthy and perfect. Our whole family was behind us to abort if otherwise. I'll repeat my previous statement, it is NOT SELFISH to want to keep a certain quality of life, i dont care what anyone else says, having a disabled child (even though you love it) impedes your quality of life, especially if your poor inner city sole earner in a family that has a child already.

sorry for the long post.

 

[fgdfgdgd]

Yes, and I wouldn't look back. I want my child to have a proper life and future. Can you possibly look at a Down-Syndrome and be proud of both yourself and him?

i know what you mean, even if that makes me a horrible person, but as they say, a woman becomes a mother when she first feels her child inside of her, but a man becomes a father when he first sees his child cradled in his arms. i know it's cheesy and a little lame, but it's much easier for me as a man to answer this rather heartlessly.

 

[ninjajoeman]

no because this would lead people to believe then that any mental sickenss would be a good reason for abortion in my opinion. If that happens then its possible that they would also abort if the childs not "perfect" after a certain point.

But how would that effect you in anyway? I've heard this before but I don't see what the issue is, people have the babys they want to have, it doesn't mean they aren't going to raise them with love and care. If someone wants to abort a perfectly fine baby because they don't like what color it's eyes are going to be then it's their loss.

well its not just their loss its the child's loss just saying.

 

[Thunderhorse31]

I'd like you to read this post please.

I voted yes, why? Because my family owns a group home where we care for mentally disabled adults. I've seen Downs people come and out of our care. But I always wondered why we could only care for them for so long before we weren't able to.

The truth of it is --- fifty years they're still very mobile and high functioning. But the truth is once they get older it's a sad sight. Without giving to much out about clients, when i started working for my family we had someone who was the highest function Downs Syndrome patient anyone had ever seen, she could do 90% of her tasks by herself. Which was amazing, but about two years ago she has begun to decline. She doesn't recognize her family members [who are big parts of her life still!] She can no longer get up from a chair or into bed without assistance. She can no longer wipe her bottom or bathe herself. But because of the dementia she is scared and fights with staff, injuring us. Myself included. She also has forgotten how to take medications as well. My mother tells me this is only the tip of the iceberg, soon she will forget how to walk, talk or drink. When that time comes, when we are no longer able to care for her, she will go to a nursing home --- where she'll spend the rest of her days. Normally that's about three months. She is only in her late sixties.

I think I'd be a bad parent if I allowed my child to be born. And I'll look at it this way as well, pregnancy is a risk to myself. And maybe I have another children too, since it does tend to effect older mothers. I can not to that to my other children.

I've seen how their lives end, and I would not want my child to live that way.

Wow, so people with DS are healthy and happy, but then their health becomes a larger issue and they may start to decline after they turn 50? And as such, it's preferable to abort them in utero?

How is that different from every other person on the damn planet?

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

Yes, I wouldn't want them to suffer the pains and burdens of Down Syndrome, it may seem evil, but look at it like a mercy killing.

this. the struggles for everyone throughout the kids lifetime would make it so much harder, it would be a liability to have that child for themselves and everyone else. if i knew for 100% fact that they would have down syndrome i would abort, well..it'd be up to my wife but i'd state how i feel about it.

i know i should feel like an evil dickhead, but in the longrun i just dont think all the stress and liabilities to everyone and the child themselves is worth it.

 

[Tibike77]

I'm mildly disgusted at the number of people who are saying yes. My uncle has down syndrome and while he may not perceive things like we do he still has thoughts and emotions.

Any kind of obvious crippling condition -> ABORTION ! No question about it.
You can always (try to) make another (better // less faulty) child later, which otherwise you probably wouldn't have bothered having at all in the first place.

Now ask yourself this : would you rather have your uncle as is, with Downs, or would rather have an ever so slightly younger uncle (or aunt) WITHOUT Downs ?
And no, you can't have both, you have to pick one or the other option.
It is I who would be disgusted if you picked the former instead of the latter.

I don't know where this sentiment is coming from is but my uncle is not some THING that should just be thrown away. HE IS A HUMAN BEING, he deserves to live now just like he deserved to live when he was conceived. My grandparents LOVE him they don't treat him like some defective product that they should have gotten rid of. He's no more inferior to me or you than a homeless person or a crppled person is. The day I say anyone who isn't capable of providing for themselves doesn't have the right to live is the day I stop being a human being.

So, what, now all of a sudden all human beings are at the same time the most precious thing in the whole wide world ? All 7 billion of them, equally ? Heck no ! Some people just ARE more valuable than others, even in the same family.

I'm in no way saying your uncle is not human, I am not saying your uncle doesn't deserve to live, I'm not even saying disabled people don't have a right to live.
What I _am_ saying however is that GIVEN THE CHOICE of picking one out of two people that will live while the other doesn't get to even be born, I will always, INVARIABLY, pick the one without any noticeable handicaps over the one with noticeable handicaps.

The mere act of letting a disabled person be born will ALMOST CERTAINLY result in one healthy person not getting to be born (if not SEVERAL healthy people that don't get to be born), because that disabled person will take more time, effort and resources to take care of than a normal person, and in taking over those extra resources, the parents WILL NOT be able to afford to raise the same total number of children.

It's a reverse broken window fallacy.
Just because you don't get to see the potential people that could have been born and raised INSTEAD of the disabled person, that DOESN'T mean the world is somehow richer by having one disabled person in it (as opposed to the lack of that particular disabled person). It's the other way around, by having that disabled person around, you make it far more likely other healthy persons never get a chance to live.

If there's any selfishness in the abort vs carry-to-term argument, the selfishness is on the "let the disabled be born" side.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

I think the OP should really change the thread title to "Poll: Would you abort a pregnancy if the child would have severe enough Down Syndrome?"

Problem with that is the the tests performed to determine if a foetus has Trisomy-21 (the genetic condition that results in Down's Syndrome) can't predict if any associated intellectual or developmental deficiency (retardation) will occur.

Huh. I didn't know that.

It's pretty much a given that there will be some form of intellectual and/or developmental deficiency because someone with Trisomy-21 not having at least one or two mild deficiencies is exceedingly rare but the actual range range of potential deficiencies is quite wide and the severity can range from mild to profound. I'd have to tap the brains of some people to get a definitive answer but if I remember correctly the types of tests that can detect obivous intellectual and developmental deficiencies aren't very reliable until the foetus has developed far enough that abortion is a much more difficult (legally and morally if not exactly medically) proposition.

What a lot of people don't seem to understand is that Down's Syndrome/Trisomy-21 isn't a form of intellectual or developmental deficiency (or disability or handicap or retardation or whatever term people want to use). It's a chromosonal disorder that in almost every case causes such deficiencies but it isn't in itself one. It's possible but extremely rare (I can't stress just how rare it is, not even with itallics) for someone to be born with Trisomy-21 and have all the physical traits but have no discernable intellectual or developmental deficiencies. They are still almost certain to have the associated health problems.

Or, to put it into the bluntest of blunt terms, the tests for Trisomy-21 can tell you that you're gonna have a mong-child but you need other tests (at a later date) to find out just how fucked up the kid is going to be. In fact, the full scope of it all won't be knowable until the kid around 18 months old on average.

I gotta ask: what field do you practice?

I'm on a disability pension for being a mad bastard.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

Wow, so people with DS are healthy and happy, but then their health becomes a larger issue and they may start to decline after they turn 50? And as such, it's preferable to abort them in utero?

How is that different from every other person on the damn planet?

Actually, people with Trisomy-21 tend to have a lot of health difficulties over their entire lives. I can't recall the common ones off the top of my head but I'm sure wikipedia knows.

 

[RhombusHatesYou]

As for the people saying they'd never have a Trisomy-21 child... how the hell else are you supposed to control Bartertown?

 

[SenseOfTumour]

I think we need to emphasise that we're not condoning killing anyone with a disability, or wiping out entire races of Down's Syndrome affected people, we're just suggesting that if a woman is capable of giving birth, then while it's distasteful and of course difficult for the mother to go thru an abortion, that maybe trying again for a baby that isn't going to grow up having to deal with huge difficulties his or her entire life and have to deal with hate they won't understand.

From my POV, as someone without personal links to Down's and without children of my own, I'm seeing it from a very cold clinical perspective, as I imagine many of the 'yes' votes are.

The way I see it, and I know it's not this simple, is that why would you choose to have a baby with Down's when you can try again for one without? to me that's not too far from actively choosing to inflict Down's upon your own child. Of course I'm putting aside the morality of abortion to one side for a moment in favour of ensuring my own child would have a better chance of a full and happy life without so much dependence upon other people.

Also of course we probably wouldn't say it direct to someone's face who had a Down's child, but to me that's simple politeness, not cowardice, I don't go out of my way to deliberately offend people I don't have to. I fully understand the 'no' viewpoint from people involved emotionally with the subject and they're not wrong, it's just opinions on a very difficult subject.

 

[wellhereiam]

I'm mildly disgusted at the number of people who are saying yes. My uncle has down syndrome and while he may not perceive things like we do he still has thoughts and emotions.

Any kind of obvious crippling condition -> ABORTION ! No question about it.
You can always (try to) make another (better // less faulty) child later, which otherwise you probably wouldn't have bothered having at all in the first place.

Now ask yourself this : would you rather have your uncle as is, with Downs, or would rather have an ever so slightly younger uncle (or aunt) WITHOUT Downs ?
And no, you can't have both, you have to pick one or the other option.
It is I who would be disgusted if you picked the former instead of the latter.

I don't know where this sentiment is coming from is but my uncle is not some THING that should just be thrown away. HE IS A HUMAN BEING, he deserves to live now just like he deserved to live when he was conceived. My grandparents LOVE him they don't treat him like some defective product that they should have gotten rid of. He's no more inferior to me or you than a homeless person or a crppled person is. The day I say anyone who isn't capable of providing for themselves doesn't have the right to live is the day I stop being a human being.

So, what, now all of a sudden all human beings are at the same time the most precious thing in the whole wide world ? All 7 billion of them, equally ? Heck no ! Some people just ARE more valuable than others, even in the same family.

I'm in no way saying your uncle is not human, I am not saying your uncle doesn't deserve to live, I'm not even saying disabled people don't have a right to live.
What I _am_ saying however is that GIVEN THE CHOICE of picking one out of two people that will live while the other doesn't get to even be born, I will always, INVARIABLY, pick the one without any noticeable handicaps over the one with noticeable handicaps.

The mere act of letting a disabled person be born will ALMOST CERTAINLY result in one healthy person not getting to be born (if not SEVERAL healthy people that don't get to be born), because that disabled person will take more time, effort and resources to take care of than a normal person, and in taking over those extra resources, the parents WILL NOT be able to afford to raise the same total number of children.

It's a reverse broken window fallacy.
Just because you don't get to see the potential people that could have been born and raised INSTEAD of the disabled person, that DOESN'T mean the world is somehow richer by having one disabled person in it (as opposed to the lack of that particular disabled person). It's the other way around, by having that disabled person around, you make it far more likely other healthy persons never get a chance to live.

If there's any selfishness in the abort vs carry-to-term argument, the selfishness is on the "let the disabled be born" side.

The world doesn't need to be richer. There isn't some massive quota of healthy people that absolutely must be born. You make it sound as if the disabled are an unendurable drain on our economy, and that by existing they prevent people without disabilities from living the life that they deserve more than everyone else. But those non-handicapped children don't exist at all, they're just ideas. They're not even complete genetic code yet. The fact is that the child with the disability does exist, and right now they're growing and the parent can either choose to let them live or prevent them from living because they're just not useful enough.

Saying that some people are more valuable than others makes it sound as if there's a price tag on everybody and if they can't work off the money that was spent on them they don't deserve to live. If you were a mother and you knew that the child you had in you right now would become a carpenter, and you knew that if you got rid of it the next child would be the President or Prime Minister or whatever would you decide that the first child doesn't deserve to live? Even if the second child would become President or whatever the world wouldn't become a brighter, richer, and more wonderful place the difference would be infinitesimally small. The impact a handicapped person would make on society would be almost imperceptible.

You're no better than they are and they are no better than you, no matter what someones perceived value is they are equal to everyone else. If you want to kill them because they're not valuable enough to you then so be it, but there is no way I will ever kill a human being because they can't feed themselves and get a job. The idea that someone doesn't get to live because of something so petty is disgusting to me.

 

[Peter91]

ITT: People pulling the guilt-card, the nazi-card and the you-make-me-sick-superguilt-card when they can't accept other people's opinions. Seriously, when I read most of the against-comments it just makes me laugh. Best one so far was "It's your fault - deal with it". If it's someone elses fault, who are you to tell them they can't abort? It's ridiculous. I'm not looking to start a flamewar here, but it sure seems like the against-side are doing their best to guilt people after they give an honest comment.

On to my opinion: It's obviously up to the woman in the long run, but considering I don't want children to begin with I'd hope for an abortion regardless of birth defects. Finnish law makes it impossible for a father to cut himself off from a child, so either abortion or I'd have to move abroad... But I'm sidetracking here.

I think most of those moral outrage comments were targeted at some comments which I think many find morally repugnant. The ones calling people with Down Syndrome barely animals, or handling what is a rather sensitive topic in a distinctly insensitive way.

Personally I really don't know what I would do; in a way I want to say no, but in all honesty I don't know if I'm mentally equipped to handle any child, let alone a child with a disability. From what I've read here, and from my close friend whose youngest sister has quite severe Down Syndrome, most people who decide to have the child don't regret it, but on the other hand I know a girl whose brother has Cerebral Palsy, and she resents him.

Certainly I believe them to be human, and in many ways I think they are better than some humans (read many); at least they are innocent and happy, and as someone else said, don't start wars. Is it right to say no, I won't have you, because you're less intelligent than I am, less good looking than I am, than most people are?

I personally am quite academically talented, yet I don't look down on my friends who aren't so, don't think they would be better off aborted (not being a big one for eugenics), just as I expect the people in the world cleverer than me not to consider me subhuman. Of course this analogy is slightly flawed, but it illustrates a point.

So I'm going to sit on the fence. Oh, and some of the comments on here really shocked me actually; it was quite depressing, quite...well...no worse than reading the newspapers I guess.

 

[dududf]

No, I did not vote entirely because if the womans life is in legitimate danger then you can abort. Other then that abortion after the life-blood starts to flow is murder.

Just as a general FYI, typically abortions are done before the nervous system/brain (can't remember) is even formed. Which ever one it is, it isn't even alive. I don't mean born, but I mean it's very much just a oile of cells. it doesn't have thoughts what so ever, it's essentially just cells.

So it isn't murder, although you did end the POTENTIAL for life. That's the thing the parents would have done.

Now aborting after the point of the babies brain/nervous system forming imo is a different thing entirely. Abortions are also rarely done after that point, they are generally done before.

Just so you know

 

[Cakes]

All I know is that I wouldn't be able to raise the kid properly.

So all you anti-abortion people can fight over who gets him. What's that? No takers? Aw hell, I thought you were trying to be good people.

It's called adoption.

Yeah sure. Let OTHER people take on the burden. You'll just sit in the back, call people murderers, and look down on them.
Call them sinners, call them whores, but by no means attempt to HELP.

Maybe this is just my poor memory kicking in, but I don't remember calling anyone any of those things...and I've volunteered helping the handicapped.

Yeah, you just hit a nerve.
This is one of those topics where I tend to get riled up.

I felt a smugness from your post, which reminded me of all the hypocrisy I hear from the anti-abortion idiots who picket in front of clinics and kill doctors.
So it isn't exactly you, it's that what you said reminded me of those people and I raged a bit.

No problem.

 

[Gilhelmi]

No, I did not vote entirely because if the womans life is in legitimate danger then you can abort. Other then that abortion after the life-blood starts to flow is murder.

Just as a general FYI, typically abortions are done before the nervous system/brain (can't remember) is even formed. Which ever one it is, it isn't even alive. I don't mean born, but I mean it's very much just a oile of cells. it doesn't have thoughts what so ever, it's essentially just cells.

So it isn't murder, although you did end the POTENTIAL for life. That's the thing the parents would have done.

Now aborting after the point of the babies brain/nervous system forming imo is a different thing entirely. Abortions are also rarely done after that point, they are generally done before.

Just so you know

I believe life begins when the heart starts to beat (class was too long ago for me to remember when that is). That is what I mean when I said "life-blood starts to flow". The heartbeat is the first sign that the nervous system is operational (I happen to believe that the soul enters the body at that time but that is just an opinion based on my faith).