Reply to s/o - Aborting because a child is "disabled"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]And let me just add that while you are sitting on your ass crying crocodile tears about the abortion of Special Needs kids, some idiot has gone on for 14 pages in Schools General Discussion about why her children have to go to school with Special Needs kids.  This is the real problem for Special Needs kids -- not abortion -- REAL LIFE -- so why not join reality, toots, and dry those crocodile tears.  Phantom special needs babies don't need your help.  Real special needs kids do.[/quote]
 
Okay, (I'm not PP) but I will say one thing about this. First of all, the unborn aren't "phantoms." I am pro-choice, but unborn babies are real, not phantoms. But second, and I agree with your larger point in many ways, when mothers who discover their babies have Down syndrome and abort there are fewer kids with Down syndrome. This does impact children born with Down syndrome. The fewer kids with Down syndrome there are, the fewer supports are available to them, the less research into their development is done, and the more the children with Ds who are here are treated as oddities.

If people don't respect the lives of children with Ds enough to give birth to them, will they really care as much about their lives once they're born? The issue is complicated. Terminating a pregnancy because a baby has a condition incompatible with life is different than terminating a pregnancy because a child may have an intellectual disability. People who don't have Ds make judgements about how worthwhile a person with Ds's life will be based on their assumptions. What a life as a person with Ds (for instance) has may really be very different than those assumptions. Not to mention that one could abort a baby who has Ds because they are afraid they may have health issues, or create a burden for those siblings left after parents die, and then give birth to a child with an even more debilitating disability that can't be detected prenatally.

I am pro-choice and believe women should be able to make choices for themselves. I don't have the right to make these choices for other families. But this issue is a difficult one, and sometimes I think people do make the wrong choice.

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You hit the nail on the head.  The drop in Down Syndrome children isn't because it occurs less but because these children aren't allowed to be born.  One of my favorite books growing up was about a girl and her friend with Down Syndrome.  
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0590401688?SubscriptionId=0QCHRJVSKG6F3BRGBNG2&tag=pbs_00005-20&linkCode=xm2&camp=2025&creative=165953&creativeASIN=0590401688[/quote]

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