Down Syndrome and the Pressure to Abort

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stella95:
When I was pregnant for the first time (I was an older mom) my husband and I told the doctor that we did not want any testing done on our child because we were having that child, period. The doc brought up the subject of testing at nearly every visit, once even mentioned that she was disturbed to find “educated” parents who felt this way, and finally had me and my husband sign a paper that we had voluntarily rejected to have certain tests. Even after we signed the document she’d look at us meaningfully and say that it was still not too late…to do what, she would never specify.

It was infuriating. Our kid did not have DS, but if this is the kind of pressure docs put on parents who refuse to have the testing, I hate to imagine what sort of pressure they put on parents who do have the testing, discover their kid has DS, and still refuse to murder their child in cold blood.

We had a Catholic doctor for our second kid, I told him how I felt, and I still remember the relief on his face, bless him.

Parents should be warned by their priests and families about the medical establishment and its attitude toward less than perfect babies.
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How revolting. :mad: Especially her comment about “educated parents” - as if only uneducated people would be pro-life. Blech.
 
The thing is not every doc will force you into this stuff. Our second doctor, who was Catholic and practicing in a Catholic hospital, was happy to respect our decision.

If the doc you first meet turns out to be an insensitive clod it’s always possible to switch. It’s hard to do that during a first pregnancy, however, since everything’s so new and worrying, and there’s the implication, as there was with us, that if you disagree with the doctor you’re uneducated, stubborn, unreasonable, stupid and barbaric. Oh, and a bad parent. How many times have we heard people justify aborting a DS baby “for the sake of the baby”??

This world never ceases to amaze me 😦
 
A study, published in the British Medical Journal, found that parents whose unborn child was diagnosed as having a chromosomal disability were sometimes given “grossly inadequate or frankly misleading information” leading many to abort their babies.

Read more about Down Syndrome, Dwarfism and Pre-natal Testing life.org.nz/abortionethicalkeyissuesabnomailities.htm
**Pre-natal Testing and Foetal Disability **
life.org.nz/abortionethicalkeyissuesdisabilities.htm
and **Abortion & Foetal Abnormality **life.org.nz/abortionethicalkeyissuesfoetalabnormaility.htm

IVF pioneer Dr Robert Edwards, at a conference in France in 1999, commented: “Soon it will be a sin for parents to have a child that carries the heavy burden of genetic disease. We are entering a world where we have to consider the quality of our children.”
 
When I read things like that I feel like grabbing my kids and running off to a desert island. That’s nauseating. “Quality” of our children?!?!?! Does he think children are merchandise?? Soon it’ll be a sin to give birth to a child who’s less beautiful than Angelina Jolie and Keanu Reeves!
 
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stella95:
When I read things like that I feel like grabbing my kids and running off to a desert island. That’s nauseating. “Quality” of our children?!?!?! Does he think children are merchandise?? Soon it’ll be a sin to give birth to a child who’s less beautiful than Angelina Jolie and Keanu Reeves!
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I know what you mean. I fear for the next generation after having researched and written articles on the subjects of abortion & euthanasia. These sick people are the ones who advise and influence policy and law-makers.
 
And what really scares me is that most people have become so implicated in such truly evil things that they don’t want to face what they have done. It’s the very magnitude of the horror we are perpetrating on innocents that’s making it less likely for us to turn back. The more we hide abortion behind lovely words like “choice,” better we feel, less we have to face.

Sorry, but this whole subject makes me furious.
 
Sorry to ‘fan the flames’ so to speak, but I’m reminded of when I was reading a letter printed in a medical journal (I think it was British Journal of Paediatrics) about Fetal Alcohol Syndrome. The letter was basically about how excessive alcohol (the mum binge drinking) is most likely to affect (ie, cause numerous defects in) a baby in the first term since that is when it has not yet developed organs to process the alcohol, etc. That was okay, good scientific research, but then at the end he said ‘if the mother has been binge drinking and then finds that she was pregnant at the time, the fetus should be aborted.’ Now my question is, since when does this writer’s expertise cross over from the field of medicine into the field of morality? What kind of recommendation is that? I mean come on, growth defects, learning defects and facial defects (most common from FAS) aren’t that great but surely that’s not enough to justify killing the person…

PS about what stella said. I don’t reckon that Angelina Jolie and Keanu Reaves look that great anyway. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, chances are even the ‘ugliest’ person on the planet still looks beautiful to God.
 
It’s the Utilitarian view where people are regarded as economic units. Of course, if parents resist the pressure to abort, they will then have to face the spectre of Eugenics. In the UK (& elsewhere) healthcare is rationed according to certain “clinical guidelines”. (These “guidelines” are also imposed by insurance companies and some hospitals in the United States.)

An assessment is made of the cost of the treatment per additional year of life which it brings, and per quality adjusted life year (QALY) . . . which takes into consideration the quality of life of the patient during any additional time for which their life will be prolonged. The clinical and cost effectiveness of the treatment under review is then used as the basis for a recommendation as to whether or not . . . the treatment should be provided in the NHS.

I worry about my brother’s ability to receive essential treatment should he need it in the future. He is 35 and in relatively good health. The thought that he will be refused treatment because someone makes a negative “quality of life” decision for him is frightening.
 
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Flopfoot:
PS about what stella said. I don’t reckon that Angelina Jolie and Keanu Reaves look that great anyway. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, chances are even the ‘ugliest’ person on the planet still looks beautiful to God.
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"I have seen flowers grow in stony places,
and good deeds done by men with ugly faces
and the Gold Cup won by the worst horse at the Races
So I hope too."Couldn’t resist putting that in.
 
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