Should only healthy babies be born?

BBC ^ | 19 SEP 03 | By Kirsten Lass

[madprof98]

Wow! Just this past Saturday, a guy waiting outside the abortion clinic asked me to stop picketing the place until his wife came out and got in the car. In fact, he actually wrote out a sign and held it up near my own until I agreed to leave. The sign I carry reads, "Please don't kill your baby." His sign read, "After 14 years of trying, we finally got a baby, and the baby had Down's Syndrome. Be compassionate." I'm sure he was convinced killing that baby was somehow "compassionate."

[Incorrigible]

Boy's letter on abortion rights wins him trip to D.C.

[workerbee]

Some believe that as we offer the chance to terminate for more conditions, society is becoming increasingly intolerant towards babies who are born with abnormalities.

You're spot on in bringing up the health insurance aspect of this (re #33) -- I fear we're not far off from the day when insurance won't cover neonatal abnormalities that could have been "corrected" through abortion. This will be esp. true when (not if) we get stuck with nationalized healthcare.

[honeygrl]

Anyone who starts with an argument like that has no heart at all. I hate the welfare system as much as anyone else, but I would never suggest a welfare mom have an abortion just to save tax dollars. I would, however, support the state giving them birth control pills or some type of contraception to save us all money. I'm not sure if they do that or not already. Abortion as a birth control method annoys me. Up in Canada, the government will even pay for abortions. If they start doing that here, I'm going to start thinking about moving to another country.

[honeygrl]

"I have a hard time believing that the "vast majority" would choose to abort Downs babies as the article stated."

Well, the article is from BBC so it's not talking about women here in the US doing that. Maybe over there women do that more often?

[ArGee]

Medical science has advanced to such a stage that we are within a few years of being able to detect more and more diseases and disabilities in the womb.

Imagine the following scenario:

Mr. and Mrs. Smith, it's a boy. As far as we can tell it has normal cognative skills and is developing all of its body parts normally. It is, however, gay.

Shalom.

[honeygrl]

"Who knows...Maybe other forms of "defectiveness" may some day be correctable, too. "

My hubby's younger brother is mentally disabled. He is mentally about like a 10yr old except that he can't read or write. It was genetic so the doctors think it may have been caused by lack of oxygen during birth. (it was 35yrs ago so they didn't monitor that kind of thing during labor like they do now) That has my hubby really on the fence about stem cell research because he's read that they can grow new brain cells with it that would have fixed his brother's problems or could fix them in the future. (i haven't really read up on it so I don't know that much on the details)

[Old Professer]

Those who propose this are probably exocephalos.

[Old Professer]

If they could grow stem cells to develop new brains, we should insist that the first batch be administered to Democrats.

[honeygrl]

He obviously hadn't spent too much time around someone who actually had down's or had someone explain to him that the testing for down's prior to birth isn't always correct.

[honeygrl]

Yes, they are obviously missing a few needed cells in there.

[Cooter]

Hawking's condition was/is not detectable in the womb. Stephen Hawking was a normal boy. He was diagnosed with ALS when he was 21. As far as the contributions he has made to society since being far from "normal", good point.

[Lorianne]

This article points out the big fat lie in the word "choice". I hear pro-'choice' proponents all the time proclaiming who should and who should not give birth based on all sorts of irrelevant criteria not limited to babies with potential medical problems.

Indeed our entire society "pressurizes" women (and men)toward abortion if they are "poor" or if the baby is perceived to interver with "success" of its parents. The pressure towards abortion is all over our society. New medical technologies will just make it moreso.

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the heads up!

[gd124]

In Europe one never knows. I certainly wouldn't think it to be true here. Those people are a different breed it seems. It is sad beyond words that we are even having this discussion.

I believe that Europe actually has much lower rates of abortion than the US.