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I really don't want to get anyone riled up over the question, I realize that many people have strong feelings about this issue but I do think it would be a very different situation if there was a serious medical problem in which the baby was certain to be born with severe abnormalities that would cause suffering for the baby and psychological trauma for the parents not to mention the financial burden. I think the parents would need to assess how serious it was with their doctors and do some hard thinking about the matter. Of course children are born with certain abnormalities all of the time but their parents love them and take care of them. I think it would be a very difficult decision and I honestly don't know how I would react to it. What do you think?
I really can't go there with this one. It would be a religious thing for me. But I once heard a story of a person asking if the baby couldn't see, should they be aborted, if they couldn't hear, should they be aborted, etc. Several questions were asked. The person listening gave the answer of yes. It would be just too painful for that child to live. The person asking the question said, "You just killed Beethoven." I may have some of the particulars incorrect, like the person killed, but you get the picture of what that person was trying to say.
You have asked a very difficult question, but the answer for some of us has to be no to abortion. Where are we going to draw the line in choosing who lives and dies. I am over 60 and if this keeps going, when will it be decided that life for old people is not productive and needs to be snuffed out. God is the one to make these decisions. I think it is dangerous to start thinking who should live and who should die.
I think it all depends on the parents. Personally, i think it would be selfish to have a child with birth defects, which might complicate quality of his/her life. Just because i "want" a child, i'll have it no matter what is wrong with him/her. Who is this benefiting, you or your child? You can give your love to your child all you want, your child still will be an invalid, no matter what.
So, i would say yes, but that's me, someone else might say i'm crazy to think that way.
I hope i'm not going to offend anyone, but look at animal world, when sick is born, it usually left to die, get abandoned by it's mother, killed, or whatever. Why? Because animals need to survive, the only way to survive is to be healthy and strong...
I think it all depends on the parents. Personally, i think it would be selfish to have a child with birth defects, which might complicate quality of his/her life. Just because i "want" a child, i'll have it no matter what is wrong with him/her. Who is this benefiting, you or your child? You can give your love to your child all you want, your child still will be an invalid, no matter what.
So, i would say yes, but that's me, someone else might say i'm crazy to think that way.
I hope i'm not going to offend anyone, but look at animal world, when sick is born, it usually left to die, get abandoned by it's mother, killed, or whatever. Why? Because animals need to survive, the only way to survive is to be healthy and strong...
I think it all depends on the parents. Personally, i think it would be selfish to have a child with birth defects, which might complicate quality of his/her life. Just because i "want" a child, i'll have it no matter what is wrong with him/her. Who is this benefiting, you or your child? You can give your love to your child all you want, your child still will be an invalid, no matter what.
So, i would say yes, but that's me, someone else might say i'm crazy to think that way.
It's definitely not crazy to think that way -- I agree with you, but it is also not crazy to think the opposite.
In fact, one does not need to have religion in order to value all life. Some of the crazy, liberal, atheist, vegans that I know are also pro-life because they feel that it is important to defend the lives of those who can't defend themselves. So I think they would be even more likely to want to keep a handicapped child -- not just because they "want a child" but because it is their child, a life they brought into the world, and a life that they will devote themselves to for the long haul no matter what.
Well, as a libertarian agnostic who actually faced this decision.......I can only tell you what I did.
I was told at my level II u/s that my dd was most likely severly down syndromed, and that there was a problem with the placenta not producing enough amniotic fluid thus resulting in a baby with non operable lungs. I was told that she would most likely die in utero, but if by some chance she survived labor and delivery she would still die as "we cannot intubate which doesn't exist" i.e. her lungs.
I decided that who was I to determine what constituted a worthy lifetime. Not a one of us is guaranteed 90 years of life, nor are any of us guaranteed a healthy life. I loved her, felt her die and delivered her a week later. I have no regrets. Her life had meaning, if only to her and I.
Oh, and just to show you what drs know --- she was chromosonally normal, she did not have downs.
I think it all depends on the parents. Personally, i think it would be selfish to have a child with birth defects, which might complicate quality of his/her life. Just because i "want" a child, i'll have it no matter what is wrong with him/her. Who is this benefiting, you or your child? You can give your love to your child all you want, your child still will be an invalid, no matter what.
So, i would say yes, but that's me, someone else might say i'm crazy to think that way.
I hope i'm not going to offend anyone, but look at animal world, when sick is born, it usually left to die, get abandoned by it's mother, killed, or whatever. Why? Because animals need to survive, the only way to survive is to be healthy and strong...
Ok, i'm done now.
Yikes! Eugenics always seemed to me to be a dangerous philosophy, too many extremes involved in it.
My story is similar to camping!'s. My wife and I were expecting our first child. The doctors also told us our son would be born with severe physical ailments... hydrocephaly and/or spina bifida (open spine). They urged us to abort him on at least four or five occasions. We refused. We are Christian and we believed, for better or worse, we were blessed with this child and we would accept him no matter what and for as long as we could have him. Skip forward to the delivery. No open spine. No water on the brain. He was/is healthy and normal. He's now 14 Our lives are much richer for having him.
We are human beings. We are NOT animals, no matter how we're "officially" classified. What happens in the rest of the animal kingdom should not be used as justification for our behavior. We know better. We were given minds to think and reason. I think it more selfish for someone to abort their child because their lives would be "inconvenienced" by having a child with a disability.
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Our lives are much richer for having him.
