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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]To the PP, are you in DC?  If so, find out if your kids can qualify for Katie Beckett Health Care Waiver.  
Big hugs, from another Mom with almost your exact same life. xxoo[/quote]

Thanks but we're in NOVA.  It's really frustrating when people say that having an SN child as bad as you think and there are resources out there to assist.  There aren't.  Those people are all about pregnancy and not about day-to-day life.  The two organizations posters provided links to ( http://jillshouse.org/ and http://www.hopeinnova.org/ ) don't provide the kind of support I posted about needing.  HOPE in Nova is all about 'crisis pregnancy' and Jill's House only accepts kids starting at age 6 and there's still a cost to the parents - and I also have one 'normal' child.  It would be nice to be able to give her more time and to have money for her to do classes like ballet.  I forgot to include the cost of relationship counseling for DH and I.  Having SN kids has really put a strain on our relationship.  I should just walk away from this thread.[/quote]

No one should think or assume that having a child with special needs is easy. And it's true you have more on your plate than people with only typically developing kids (although those take lots of time and money too, and can put a strain on marriage). But what is the counter argument here? Kids with disabilities don't deserve to be born because they may take more work? No one should talk about the positive aspects of children with disabilities because there are negatives too? Do you wish you had aborted your SN child? I mean maybe you do, and maybe in the context of your situation that makes sense. But it isn't obvious to me that because a person will take more work to raise, or care for, that they don't deserve to be alive. And if, even as a liberal, a person stands up for the rights of disabled kids, many people will say...that child shouldn't even be here, the parents should have aborted him. And also if you argue for the rights of kids with disabilities like Down syndrome to exist, or even just that the obvious solution to the diagnosis doesn't have to be termination, then you are called anti-choice, which I'm not.[b] Abort a kid with Down syndrome, you have that right.[/b] But that doesn't mean I have to think it's always the best choice, and that doesn't mean it might not make it harder for kids with special needs who are already born.

I'm sorry you are struggling.[/quote]

So I should be determined to bring a DS baby into this world for the greater good? Is that your argument? Screw whether I can financially provide the best care and therapy, screw that my marriage might not last over it, screw that my other children will suffer and be neglected while I run around trying to take care of my one child's demanding needs. Screw that. The most important thing here is that I have him/her so you won't judge me and we can populate the world with DS children for everyone else's benefit. Screw my personal choice. [/quote]

No! Not for the greater good, but maybe for the sake of the kid. And I never said screw your personal choice. Did you actually read what I wrote? I wrote, "Abort a kid with Down syndrome, you have that right."

Your post is full of so many sad assumptions that I don't know where to start. So you think the siblings of kids with Ds are neglected and suffer? I can introduce you to lots of families (many pro-choice and liberal by the way, as I am) where that isn't true at all. True, children with Ds often need therapies. So do many "typical" kids. If you definitely can't provide for the kinds of needs most kids with Ds have financially, then it's doubtful you can provide financially for any kid, because most kids with Ds don't take expensive medicine or need constant expensive therapies. I might add that any one of a number of things can happen with a typically developing kid which would necessitate expensive meds, or therapies. And again, if the strain of a kid with Ds will break up your marriage (the lives of most kids with Ds don't differ that tremendously from those of "typical" kids) then there is a good liklihood it won't survive parenthood, which can be challenging period. Why is it worth it to do all the hard work to raise a "typical" kid but not one with Ds? What are we really striving for here? Would you abort for autism? Extreme shyness? Mental illness? ADHD? Sensory processing disorders? Bi-polar? Because lots of kids fall under some umbrella of special needs, it just isn't detectable prenatally.

The most important thing here is not keeping me from judging you, no! The most important thing is not to stigmatize kids with Ds by perpetuating a lot of the myths you have in your previous post. But in the end the decision should be yours. But I don't have to like it.[/quote]

Since when did you become an expert on everyone's personal situation and how it should or shouldn't affect them? The whole "should we abort because of shyness and bipolar" that was really unnecessary and you crossed the line. I would hate to think anyone would make this decision lightly, but let me ask you this: Have you ever had a child in and out of the hospital with tubes in every orifice just battling to stay alive? yes, that's their normal...isn't that sad? So if you haven't walked in those shoes...please shut the hell up. [/quote]

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