Patricia Bauer, a former bureau chief for the Washington Post, writes in today's Post about abortion and the disabled, in the light or raising her own daughter Margeret with Down syndrome.
"Whenever I am out with Margaret, I'm conscious that she represents a group whose ranks are shrinking because of the wide availability of prenatal testing and abortion. I don't know how many pregnancies are terminated because of prenatal diagnoses of Down syndrome, but some studies estimate 80 to 90 percent."
"What I don't understand is how we as a society can tacitly write off a whole group of people as having no value. I'd like to think that it's time to put that particular piece of baggage on the table and talk about it, but I'm not optimistic. People want what they want: a perfect baby, a perfect life. To which I say: Good luck. Or maybe, dream on."
"And here's one more piece of un-discussable baggage: This question is a small but nonetheless significant part of what's driving the abortion discussion in this country. I have to think that there are many pro-choicers who, while paying obeisance to the rights of people with disabilities, want at the same time to preserve their right to ensure that no one with disabilities will be born into their own families. The abortion debate is not just about a woman's right to choose whether to have a baby; it's also about a woman's right to choose which baby she wants to have."
I don't agree entirely with the point she's trying to make in her piece. She seems to come close to advocating that no fetus should be aborted because of disability. At the same time though, she does not advocate that abortion should be restricted, but rather that abortion should not be used for the "convenience" of eliminating a fetus that will suffer a mild or moderate disability during it's life. Whatever larger point she is trying to make, she raises some extremely difficult questions that I think we as a society are going to have to wrestle with in the very near future.
For one, to what extent should abortion be used to eliminate fetuses that show signs of disability? The writer details her own personal experience with her daughter and how her daughter, though disabled, is as fully capable of enjoying life as any fully-abled person. That her daughter enjoys life, and thanks to modern medicine is capable of leading a considerably longer and fuller life then she would have been able to only 50 years ago, would undercut any rationale to have her terminated before birth because her life would supposedly be one of suffering. But how many families would deliberately choose to raise a child that is mentally and physically disabled? If the figures she cites above are to be given any credence, then not many. And this leads to a larger question. To what degree should fetuses be eliminated that aren't disabled, but merely have characteristics the parents don't want their child to have? What if the child is inclined towards obesity? Or will inherit diabetes? Or stands a good chance of suffering cancer by middle age? Can abortion really become, as the author says, about the right to choose what type of baby a woman will have?
I believe that abortion should be protected by law, with few limitations. I also believe that women should have adequate access to and knowledge of methods of contraception, so that abortion is rarely used to prevent an unplanned for pregnancy. But such freedom also gives women the freedom to eliminate a fetus based only on considerations as to the future child's genetic make-up, and some women and couples will exercise this freedom to eliminate fetuses that don't meet their standards. This is certainly legal, but is it morally valid? In terminating fetuses that we consider "inadequate", are we not placing a lower value on some lives, and a higher value on others? Is the life of Michael Jordan more "valuable" then the life of Margaret Bauer? If not, then how can we justify terminating fetuses that show signs of Down syndrome? If yes...what does that mean?
Smarter people then me are so far unable to answer these questions, but they are certainly questions that lead us to wonder about some of our basic beliefs about the worthiness of lives, our own and others. And we have no choice but to try and answer them, as inadequate and flawed as our answers may be.
Tuesday, October 18, 2005
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8 comments:
Good stuff.
While browsing your archives, I came across some very interesting posts and comments that I believe should be repeated in relation to this post:
adam: "I was raised Catholic, and I am as cynical as any of those comedians who talk of the absurdities in the Church. However, I chose to remain Catholic because I believe they most strongly profess the core of Christianity is working for social justice. The Bible says "You will be judged by how you treat the least among you" and "It is easier for a camel to walk through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to get into heaven." Are these not the values that we should most instill in people? The ones we should make most prevalent in our society? Would that not be best route to creating peace and tolerance, and destroying hatred and greed?"
Do you not recall the Catholic Church's teaching on abortion? "You will be judged by how you treat the least among you" Is the unborn (disabled or not) not the very least among all of us?
nat-wu: "They have their politics of intolerance and self-righteousness, spouting off their old-testament "eye for an eye" scripture, while we remember what Jesus said (to paraphrase): first love God, second love everyone else. When they tell you you're not a Christian because you don't go to church, ask them what kind of Christian they for not doing what God commands them to."
Does God command us to kill those who are disabled? Do they not deserve our love and the love of God??
I'm curious... do any of you have children? If you were faced with the birth of a disabled child, or even just an unwanted one... what would you choose???
Actually yes, my wife just gave birth to our first child. Thankfully, he was born in perfect health.
I would like to say that had we known ahead of time that he were to have a disability such as Down syndrome, we would have nonetheless chosen to have him. But my question goes to more difficult issues. What if we knew for certain that he would be born with a genetic disease which would cripple him, and leave him with little chance to survive past 20 years? What about 15? What about 5?
It's all well and good to believe in the wrongness of abortion, and so exempt yourself from facing such a dilemma. But you also exempt yourself from having to face the dilemma of giving birth to a child that perhaps should not have been born, considering that it would suffer a short life span and little enjoyment of life.
Regardless, this post was not meant to elicit a general debate on the merits of abortion. If you do not believe in or practice abortion, then you will not face this dilemma. If you do, then it is disquieting to think that the freedom that you have fought for may be used by shallow couples to eleminate otherwise perfectly acceptable future children from the world, based on traits that couple finds unacceptable. This is an issue worth considering in greater detail then it has been so far.
According a legal right to a woman to choose to have an abortion, under certain circumstances, is not the same according an unfettered moral right to the woman. While the law recognizes that women, before a certain point, have the absolute right to terminate any and all pregnancies, the law also recognizes that each fetus is a "potential life" that the state has an interest in protecting. I would say that this is how the majority of us who support abortion consider the issue, as the extreme position that life exists at the moment of conception, and the extreme position that the woman has an absolute right over her body at all stages of pregnancy, are illogical or morally reprehensible. Short of legislating for what reasons a woman may have an abortion before viability- which would be impossible even if it were permissible-our only recourse is to use our moral judgement, not only of ourselves, but of others.
In other words, to answer your question, yes, I believe it is both morally and intellectually honest to consider the fetus' future health. I say this because though I accept and agree with the law, I reject the idea that because it is legal, we are not supposed to pass judgment on a woman who aborts a fetus, whatever the reason. My presumption is that many women have abortions because they are unprepared or unwilling to take on the responsibility of a child. Similarly, there are women who will abort a fetus which shows signs of genetic defect, but still because they are unwilling/unable to raise any child. However, there will be women who are prepared to raise a child, who will abort a fetus with signs of genetic defect. My question then goes to these women, as for them it is not the choice to have or not have a child that they are exercising, but the choice to not have a potentially unhealthy child. My qustion to them is, to what extent does that defect "devalue" the life of that child? And I will admit to having a problem with fetuses that are aborted because they show signs of Down syndrome, just as I would have a problem with a woman who aborts a fetus because another child means she can't afford a Mercedes. But it becomes considerably more difficult when the genetic defect we're talking about is one which will result in an early and painful death. Who can say for sure whether that child should or should not be born?
I am honest enough to admit that moral condemnation doesn't count for a whole lot these days. I don't agree that every wrong that's committed should be addressed by law, but at the same time I know that simply condemning something as a wrong doesn't mean that anyone can effectively stop the practice. But this is the system that we have, and we must make the best of it.
I do agree with you that the word "right" is tossed around a little too casually these days. I was talking about it more in a legal sense, but I should have used the word "liberty", which is the word the Supreme Court uses to describe the "right" a woman has to an abortion. This is of course counter-balanced by the state's "interest" in the potential life that she would be aborting. I would agree that both legally and morally, most people feel there should be restrictions on when an abortion can take place, even if they generally support that right. So yes I would say it is a limited right.
I definitely agree with you that we use the word "right" far too casually these days. People go around crowing about their rights under the constitution, forgetting that along with such rights comes responsibility. The framers intended it that way, because there is always that balance between freedom and obligation. But you always hear people talking about their "right" to say whatever they want, or to own a gun, or to have an abortion, and they forget that these rights are always counter-balanced by not only reponsibilities, but also by the states' interest in regulating the behavior of their citizens.
I do think this is the majority position. I'm not sure that those on either end of the abortion debate understand that. I have heard talk that Democrats would like to redefine the issue in recognition of the fact that many people are morally uncomfortable with abortion, even if not to the point of supporting outlawing it.
But going back to the original point, I think a lot of people are going to have moral reservations about terminating fetuses that shows signs of mild disability. To be honest, it's hard to be entirely consistent on this issue, and it's easy for someone on the other side of the issue to accuse someone like me of being okay with aborting perfectly healthy fetuses but not disabled ones. That's why my post is mostly my questions, which I haven't yet been able to answer. I'd like to hope that people smarter than me are putting some thought into this, though I think it's more likely this issue would get lost in the entire abortion debate.
Well, I don't really see how Anonymous' quotes of our earlier sayings are relevant. The point Xanthippas made was that these are questions that must be pondered for people to come to some moral point of view on the subject. Honestly I'm not going to devote much time to it. I don't plan on having any children, but if I did, I wouldn't insist on aborting one I found slightly unacceptable. There's a line out there between children we know aren't going to live because of genetic disorders and children who will be handicapped for their entire lives. Where each person stands on what they consider abortion for is up to them. As for me, I don't know.
I realize that your post was not to address the rightness or wrongness of abortion. Any Christian, or anyone claiming to be a Christian, already has an answer to the questions you pose. "Someone smarter than you" has already provided us with some pretty convincing answers.
You say that if your child were diagnosed with Down Syndrome, you would deal with it. But if it were some other disorder that would shorten his life, that would be a different issue. Medically speaking, a child born with Down Syndrome can live for many, many years, while another child with the syndrome can live for very few years, often just 2 or 3. There is no exact science to calculating life-span of a person with a genetic disorder. Tell that to my 27 year old cousin with cystic fibrosis who should have died by the time she was 16. And who are we to try to calculate any life's worth - whether it is just a few short years or decades long? Just because some in-uteran test says a child has a disease and some actuary calculates a percentage of survival doesn't mean that the child will "fit the bill". Modern medicine advances in leaps and bounds every year. Miracles happen every day.
Who are we to say that a child who dies at 4 years old has had any less of a happy or fulfilling life than someone who dies at 30, 40, or even 80? And who are we to say that a child who dies at 4 did not provide some joy and fulfullness for her parents, siblings, and anyone who meets her?
I've worked with many children with debilitating illnesses and many children who are "normal". The "normal" ones aren't happier or enjoy life more than the others. If anything, the contrary is true. The children who suffer from a disorder are often far happier and find joy in every day of their life. Maybe if we all could see the joy in our lives like those children, we would be less likely to end the lives of those who have hardly been able to live at all.
Do me a favor - if, God forbid, your wife becomes pregnant and you discover that the child has "few chances of surviving"... contact an adoption agency. You might not want to deal with the child, but there are thousands of couples in this country that can't have a child of their own and would give anything to take care of yours - regardless of his chances for survival.
I'm not sure that anything you say here is necessarily contradicted by my post. Your questions are exactly mine; how do you measure the "value" of a life that may, or may not, be shorter then it should be because of disability.
I'm afraid you last point regarding adoption really doesn't solve the moral issue in my opinion. I can't abrogate my moral responsibility for bringing a disabled child into the world simply by giving the child away to someone else.
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