Abortions and Children
 

This was a question that was addressed on another message board:

Ladies...If you found out you were having a child with a birth defect/illness, would you terminate the pregnancy?

Guys...Would you want your significant other to terminate her pregnancy? What would you do/say?

Discuss...

I think there are a lot of things that would have to be taken into consideration when making a decision like that.

Mainly, what quality of life would the child have? If the child were so ill or had so many birth defects that it would not be expected to live to adulthood, and would be in pain and miserable for their entire life.... Who knows.

Having never been pregnant, and therefore not knowing how that feels, I wouldn't feel comfortable saying what I would or would not do. But, I do think I would probably at least consider it.

Re: Abortions and Children
 

It would depend on the situation - if the kid were to, say, have down's syndrome, or another defect/illness whereby they could still live a full and (relatively) functional life, then I'd be considerably more inclined to keep.

If it were something like, say, a defect to an organ or brain function, where the kid would have very little chance at functioning on any reasonable level or having any sort of quality (or length) of life, then I'd be all for giving it the ol' heave-ho. Maybe not, like, "all for" - I can't really say w/out being in the situation, but from the outside looking in I think that's the division.

Luckily, I'm having my penis turned inside out in a few months to avoid precisely this situation - trannys ahoy!

good question.

terminating should be the last resort. i would have to discuss this with the mother and then make a decision after looking at the entire picture. if the child is going to end up suffering for the rest of his/her life, then maybe the best thing is to terminate. i actually think parents who end up with these types of kids are blessed. they change your life for the better and can be an inspiration to others.

i heard on the radio one time about this guy who left his wife because the child they had was a special-need kid. not cool!

have any of you seen the saint jude's childrens hospital special that comes on once in a while? the little boy with cancer was a hartbreaker. he didnt make it in the end, but his parents made sure he was loved and happy. thats the best we can do. i wanted to call in and make a donation, but had no money.

Sadly, my understanding is that this happens much more than most people realize.

I would be a liar if I said that I absolutely would stick by my anti-abortion stance, if I were to be pregnant with a child who would never have any sort of real life. I've babysat a child who was blind, deaf, and had cerebral palsy, so it's not like I don't know what I would be getting into. But I would also want to know, to mentally prepare myself (and my husband) for what was to be.

Just in case no one has ever read this:

WELCOME TO HOLLAND
by Emily Perl Kingsley

c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved.

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

One one hand, I didn't bother with some of the pre-natal tests (particularly the one that detects spina bifida and sometimes Down's Syndrome) because they had a high false positive rate and it didn't matter to me what the results would be. I wouldn't have changed my intentions either way at that point. I was an Occupational Therapist and almost expected that I would have a handicapped child because I had the resources to cope with it and even provide a lot of therapy myself.

On the other hand, there ARE some defects, which would be highly life limiting such as heart problems that aren't fixable, which may have led me to that decision. If they knew a baby couldn't make it once out of the womb, why go a whole 9 months, go through the pain of labor, etc., knowing that the baby wasn't going to make it.

On the third hand, I have friends who had numerous ultra sounds which showed that there was an inoperable problem with their baby's heart. They were seriously contemplating aborting the baby because they were told that the baby had no chance of making it outside the womb. They decided to get a second opinion and the second doctor agreed. Then they got a third opinion, who said that he could operate and fix it. At that point, they decided that if there was a chance that the baby would be ok, they would keep the baby and see what would happen. The baby was fine and didn't need any heart surgery at all. So... I'd have to make darn sure and I would probably get second, third and even fourth opinions before making a decision.

I don't know. I would like to think that I would keep my baby, no matter what. Even now I wonder how I would react if I found out something was wrong with this baby. But I can't say how I would choose unless I were in that situation.

My niece was born with a life-threatening defect that required her to have intensive surgery two days after she was born. She's now four months old and doing well. Her quality of life should be that of/near to a normal, healthy human being. But that's not always the case. In her situation, my sister and BIL had no idea anything was wrong until Leah was born and babies born with her condition usually have about a 50-60% chance of life.

Tests such as an amniocentisis and chronic villae sampling can say definitively if there is a chromosomal problem (Down's syndrome or an unbalanced translocation) but they can't predict what kind of life that child will have. And ultrasounds and blood tests (AFP, etc..) are so imprecise, any abnormalities found could be nothing when the child is born and others may be missed completely.

For some parents any time spent with their child, whether it be a few hours or years, is worth the 9-10 months of pregnancy and labor.

I would keep it, no matter what.

I am sorry, but if a Child cannot live a healthy and knowledgedable Life, then there would be only one decission!

Who of You can decide that a Child who can be vegetated can function?

What is Life For Them. Hell in a broken form.:(

That's a tough decision, and one that I hope none of us ever has to make.

It would depend on the birth defect or illness. If the child had such severe problems that it was likely to be stillborn or live a short, pain-filled life and not survive to adulthood, then I probably would terminate the pregnancy. If the problems were less severe, I probably would not terminate. But where do you draw the line between severe and not?

Plus, you have to consider that doctors aren't perfect. You could end up aborting when the child could have led a near-normal life, or not aborting and then having a child who lives a short, painful life.

I would abort, no questions asked. Too many kids born with severe disabilites say things to the effect of "I would have asked to be aborted if I had the chance."

I carry a Tay Sachs gene. If my husband carried the same our child would be born with it. It's a horrible and dibilitating diease and the children born with it rarely live to 2. If one of the prenatal tests indicated Tay Sachs I would be scheduling an abortion immediately.

I admire people who have the dedication to raise such children, but it breaks my heart to see some people with great minds imprisoned and frustrated by their bodies, or people who will never even know their name. I just don't have the emotional strength for it.

Just something to consider, doctors aren't always right when they tell you things like "your child will never do this or that". It's just a diagnosis based on the best of their medical knowledge, but they are human and they aren't always 100% right.

Example: When my mom was 6 months pregnant with me, they told her that due to a birth defect they'd recently detected, that IF I EVEN survived being born, I wouldn't be able to speak, walk, or perform any basic tasks like feeding/dressing myself, and I would have the brain function of a kindergartener. They said I'd be unable to go to school and she'd be taking care of me 24/7. They suggested that she terminate the pregnancy. Since I was her first, she decided not to.

I am now an absolutely fabulous person with practically a full ride through school. Last time I checked, feeding and dressing myself was not a problem either.
:)

I bore 5 of my children after 35--well, 3 of those after age 40. My doctors really wanted me to get amniocentesis each time but I had a miscarriage at 35 and didn't want to risk the chance of another miscarriage that amniocentesis carries. (Small, but it's there.) I also realized that I couldn't have aborted anyway.

I opted for the really intense level 3 ultrasound that shows most problems. Thank God, there weren't any!

no...plain and simple...no

after that, yes I would.


And I admire you and those like you who are honest enough to admit this.

Enjoy Hell kstar :)

Don't believe in hell, but thanks.

Did you even read the whole post?

I guess I'm in the unpopular minority who would choose to abort.

My mother has worked with special needs adults for over 25 years. My father has worked with mentally ill adults for that same amount of time. My mother's brother, my uncle, is 48 years old but has the mental capacity of an 8 year old. He whispers when he speaks. He has countless doctors because he's got several health problems including a sleeping disorder, high blood pressure, diabetes, etc. His routine psychologicals have revealed that he has a touch of obsessive-compulsive disorder and autism. He lives with us now since my grandmother passed away a year ago. My mother wanted to see him with family and not in some group home. All that said, I love my uncle and respect my parents for the type of work that they do. But I see the daily struggles my parents and my uncle faces. And quite honestly, I don't have the patience for it.
When most people are expecting children, they look forward to the different stages of their child growing up and going on to the next level. I'm 8 months pregnant now and can't wait to hold my baby. But I also can't wait for my child to start walking and then for my kid to learn the alphabets and experience summer camp. I can't wait for her to learn to drive. I can't wait for her to go to high school and then off to college and for her to get married. There's a certain quality of life I want my child to have. I don't think I could handle raising an 8 year old for the rest of my life. :(
And this is something my mother didn't see coming until a couple of years ago when my grandma got sick. No one thought, oh what about so-and-so who needs constant special attention? No one had made provisions for taking in a grown handicapped man who was an 8 year old on the inside.

What she said!

I hope I am never in the situation where I have to make this decision...'cause I don't have the strength for it either

growing up my grandmother who lived right beside me had adopted the three daughters of one of her neices, one of them was mentally handicapped and pretty much dependent on my grandmother and the rest of us (even me when my grandparents health started to get bad) to get by, one was borderline mentally handicapped (she could function on her own in most capacities of every day life), and then one who was at the top of her high school class (before she dropped out of school, which still amazes me to this day). Yes raising children with disabilities is a big time commitment and sometimes it does feel like you are "imprisoned" but after a while you get used to it.

I am glad that there are people that can post differing opinions - going to hell has nothing to do with it :)

I have worked with people with different abilities for most of my life. My mother is a gracious volunteer for several organizations & taught us early that helping others is the best job in the world.

I have been the guardian of a woman with Down's Syndrome for several years. She lives in a facility with 5 other women with similar different-abilities, and they all work, do chores, etc. Her biological family has not seen or done anything for her since she was a small child & first put into an institution (back in the 60's). Thankfully volunteers saw that she was an independent woman, and worked to get her into a more mainstream facility where she has enjoyed life to the fullest. I met her when I began working at the home in the mid-90's and my life wouldn't be complete without her. I consider her to be part of my family - she and the other ladies were all bridesmaids at my wedding.

All that to say that I don't think any part of her life is less meaningful or inspiring because she is differently abled. She looks at things in a way I only wish "normal" people could - every snowflake is a brand-new wonder (not a horrible mess that leads to slow traffic), puppies & kittens are like having Christmas every day (not another responsibility to feed and care for), and nothing in the world can compare to a big ice cream cone (even in the dead of winter, and the amount of calories & fat in the ice cream)!

Doctors can be wrong - and often are - like Jocelyn, I know many people who were told that their children would suffer through a short life, only to be born perfectly happy & healthy.

Today there are SO many more advances in medicine for people born with different abilities. Better care for them, better services to help provide support for the families - it is amazing what opportunities there are that weren't there before.

ETA: I know that people post that they wouldn't have the strength for things - and I totally respect that! I am just saying that being a mom & helping with elderly grandparents, etc. you learn that strength is there sometimes when you don't even know it :)

No, I wouldn't. I would just give extra care and love to the baby.

Futureshock...
 

I had a friend that had an abortion at 6 months because she found out her child cand an incomplete chromosomal translocations that would have caused the child becoming severely mentally retarded if it survived outside the womb, and most of its internal organs undeveloped.

For me, because I am older, I would probably have to undergo all kinds of testing and pray to God that my child had no know gross deformities or uncurable birth defects. I would do everything I could do to take the utmost care for myself prior to pregnancy, then after conception, birth and post-natal care. That means attempting to have a very healthy lifestyle, eating properly and possibly having numerous vitamins and medications. And there is no guarentee for a healthy baby.


The Futureshock with Dr. Strangelove...

As far as women pursuing fertility--aside from the gross treatment options--I think that most of the research is leading toward that movie "GATTACA"--doing conception by in vitro fertilization. It is just a matter of 5-10 years that everything will be known as to how to handle human embryonic stem cells, eventually leading to handling human oocyte and spermatagonia cultures. And we are headed to a "Brave New World" in that respect--regardless of the moral, religious and ethical questions raised. Folks are just money hungry...

And we will have all kinds of new technology in creating the best environment for fertility with a huge price tag on it. Just the way it is. Moreover, we will be able to do all of the science fictional stuff thought 10-20+ years ago and it will be easy as hooking up your iPOD...

In the future, abortion will basically become an archaic method of surgery from a medical standpoint and moot discussion on its legality and morality.

Women will not have to have children. Children could be "grown" and "harvested"... Not like in the "Matrix"--different--but the concept will be the same...

And most genetic diseases, including mentally ill diseases, will be essentially pulled out of the gene pool... Folks that don't need to be having children, like crack whores and pimps, will be an underclass that we might never have to see in this Brave New World.

Pregnancy would be a "spiritual pursuit" like doing a "spiritual quest" by arranged parties...

Ladies and gentlemen, we have now entered into the Eugenics Wars...

Since I've never been in the position to have to make that kind of decision I'm not sure. I know a lot of people think one way and then when they are in a particular situation they change their minds. I'm pro-choice but that doesn't mean I would be running off having an abortion. If it was a severe case I would probably choose to abort...which would not be a decision that I would enter into lightly.