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Going, going, gone

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Another article about disappearing Down Syndrome children. The author describes how his friend had a baby born with Downs and

once the dust settled it became clear that, despite the bleakness of the diagnosis, she was still a very proud, very committed, and very loving mother to a tremendous and joyful young child. …She even embraces the idea of having another child with Down syndrome.

He goes on to say this:

As current evidence would suggest, my friend is in the ideological minority.

And if he’s commenting on having Downs children, then yes, stats suggest most are aborted and keeping a Downs baby puts a woman in the minority.

But if he’s commenting on a mother embracing her child, even with a diagnosis of Downs then I’d hazard to say she’s in the majority.

It’s the abortion choice that robs a mother of the chance to love and embrace her child, no matter the difficulty. Which I think, once the initial shock is over, is the way things go. It’s getting there in face of this culture that devalues “imperfect” life that is the hard part.

Something special indeed

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‘
[h/t Michelle Malkin]
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Andrea adds: Thanks for finding these stories and posts, Brigitte. I’m going to stop watching/reading them at work, though. Because everytime you post on this topic I cry. It’s not particularly professional. Maybe it’s because of these heroic parents. Maybe it’s because of the faces of those kids and adults, who are different, sure, but are they not people, too, and why can’t we as a society see that? Maybe it’s because I know that we, as a society, sanction killing these people and those on the screen are the lucky ones, simply for being alive.

Careful

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Read about how our society desires to do away with the differently-abled.

‘I think we have to be honest about the fact that a determination of Down syndrome very early in a pregnancy is very likely going to be accompanied by pressure to terminate a pregnancy, and that’s been the experience of most of the families that are connected to the Canadian Down Syndrome Society.’

The story indicates we may soon be able to get rid of them earlier. Sooner. Faster. More expediently. Achtung.

(courtesy of The Shotgun.)

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Brigitte says wait a minute: This news story talks about such tests as “medical advancements”. But the only “treatment” I can see is termination. What kind of medicine is it that considers killing the patient earlier and more effectively “progress”?

Defending eugenics

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Note to this dude’s family members: Guard your health. If you don’t–he’ll take you on a cruise only to pitch you overboard. Something about people who are not self-sufficient requiring too much “constant care and supervision.” What a classy guy.

So in the anti-abortion advocate’s eyes, a parent’s desire to raise healthy children by squelching unhealthy fetuses while the are still in the womb is little more than a pernicious quest, but it is not considered a pernicious quest to knowingly bring severely disabled children into this world. On the contrary, such a choice is held out as an great example of upstanding morality.

Um, yes, you got it. It is upstanding morality to care for the weak and disabled. 

This group “The Center for the Advancement of Capitalism” says they are “dedicated to advancing individual rights and economic freedom through Ayn Rand’s philosophy of Objectivism.”

They might want to update the mission statement: “Dedicated to advancing the individual rights of healthy folks…” “economic freedom for self sufficient types” etc. I’d be happy to help them toward greater accuracy.

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Update: The words above are the “upclass” version of this. You can pretend to be erudite to conceal your contempt, or you can just make a t-shirt. (Quoting Kathy Shaidle on this one: “Stay classy, liberal America!”)

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Véronique adds: Hmmm, you know what I find “interesting”? I have recently been reading several Human Rights Tribunal proceedings through my day job. Regardless of what you think about the CHRT, all I will say is that there are some pretty messed up individuals out there. Anyway. Reading the quote from Andrea’s post reminded me of a lot of sample hate material dealt with by the tribunal. Except that you replace “severely disabled” by “blacks” or “jews” or “gays.” Now, you would never get away with that. But it is worth remembering, when arguing for “the rule of reason,” that you can make a reasonnable case for eliminating just about anyone on the planet. Well, except yourself of course. Because we all know that were everybody like me, the world would be a much better place. Lonelier too.

Update: I was looking for something on the National Post website when I stumbled upon this video http://www.nationalpost.com/multimedia/video/player.html?video=71742a12-b27c-4a66-a6e5-f49bf9e7c4da

At some point toward the end the mother comments about a letter-writer who posted a comment to the effect that had her daughter been a dog, she would have been put down by now. 

So yeah. All this to say: there are some pretty sick people ou there. And I’m not referring to Kenadie.

Down Syndrome and misinformation

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Enthusiastic as I am about the information campaign lead by the Down Syndrome Society, I can’t help but wonder to what extent their efforts aren’t compromised by their unwillingness to face the abortion debate head-on. Not wanting to state that abortion can be wrong, their argument is based on a contradiction: How can you explain to a family facing a prenatal diagnosis of Down Syndrome that any selfish reason is enough to abort any fetus except for theirs? Is their decision less right than that of a 30-something who forgot to take her pill?

The problem with the whole information campaign is that it does not address the root of the problem — which is, incidentally, the root of the abortion argument — that is, rampant individualism. As long as we uphold rampant individualism as the flagship of liberal society, we can inform people until we are blue in the face, nothing will make self-sacrifice palatable, as “Paul” so aptly demonstrated on our Comments page. Not even calls for more diversity.

Don’t get me wrong: I believe eugenic abortion is as wrong as any abortion, and I also believe that expecting parents are misinformed. But I wish that pro-abortion advocates who feel squirmy about genetic abortions would say something against abortion, at least in the one regard. Have the courage of your convictions–it’s liberating.

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Patricia adds: I agree with Véronique that, if abortion is wrong, then it’s wrong, whether it’s for eugenic reasons, for reasons of “sex selection” or because I have a beach holiday planned. For most feminists, the right to abortion is a great cause for celebration, except when the fetus aborted is a girl and it’s aborted because it’s a girl. For the pro-choice parent of a child with DS, the objectionable reason for abortion is the DS. Neither is a morally coherent position.

That said, as a parent with a child with Down Syndrome, I understand why the people who run the CDSS are so particularly appalled with the eugenic effect of maternal screening and prenatal testing programs that are offered as part of good prenatal health care in Canada. I think that for most of these parents, it’s one thing to recognize a generic “woman’s right to choose” out there somewhere. After all, for most of their lives, they’ve been told that the only reasonable enlightened position. But now, all of a sudden, that right to choose is being exercised to eliminate kids like yours from the face of the earth. Suddenly, you find that it’s your child who is treated as a mistake who somehow slipped through the cracks of good prenatal care. (I know, I’ve used that phrase before.) And your status is “freakish” as you realize that there are fewer and fewer parents like you around. That is an eye-opening experience for many people, I think.

And also, I think that there is a bit of an epiphany that happens when you have a child like this, especially if it’s not something that you ever anticipated touching you personally. You realize that this thing that everyone seems to think is so awful, that should be avoided at all costs, is probably one of the better things that ever happened to you. As one parent writes about his daughter with DS “she has enriched my life to a degree I didn’t think was possible. She changed my whole focus on life, on what has value and what doesn’t have value, and what we consider valuable.” Not surprisingly, you get a bit evangelical about it. (There was an article on just this point in the Ottawa Citizen on the weekend.)

 Now, obviously, I’m hoping that this epiphany will make these parents and other people realize that they should reconsider their whole position on so-called “unwanted” human beings. It is, to me, the only logical conclusion that can be reached from this starting point. But even if they don’t get any further on that road, at the very least, it seems to me that their stories help to undermine the whole ethos of “kids as lifestyle accessories” and the rampant individualism that underpins this view of children.

“Airbrushing away diversity”

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The Ottawa Citizen has a front-page picture and a two-page spread on the implications of widespread genetic testing for pregnant women that would, well, limit the number of children born with Down Syndrome.

Read the stories here, here, and here.  

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Andrea adds: I don’t think Canadians realize how the system is biased toward abortion. To highlight:

We would like to see information given to women in a fair and balanced and value-neutral way,” said Krista Flint, executive director of the Down syndrome society. “We don’t think that’s the case currently — we know that’s not the case. Families involved with (the society) tell us regularly that that hasn’t been their experience. The central message they receive is ‘Don’t have this baby, it could ruin your life.’

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Rebecca adds: The central message they receive is ‘Don’t have this baby, it could ruin your life.’ Flint is talking about women whose fetuses test positive for Down’s Syndrome, but really, this is what the rationale is for most abortion, when you boil it down. And as long as we privilege (heh, I’ve been spending too much time talking to academics if I can use that as a transitive verb) the quality of life of adults over the life of their child, an awful lot of people are going to abort an awful lot of babies because they think it’s what’s best for them (the parents).

And another provocative quote from the same article:

But we don’t tell parents, ‘Oh, we’ve identified your fetus as a female. She’s more likely to be predisposed to breast cancer, she’s more likely to be sexually assaulted and she’s more likely to have a lower paying job.’ Yet when the single chromosome is for Down syndrome the medical profession chooses to give a litany of what can go wrong when there’s so much that can go right.

I remain perplexed by those who are pro-choice for economic, educational, or aesthetic reasons while believe abortion is wrong if it’s made because of the sex of the fetus, its health, or its predisposition. Is it really more frivolous to abort a Down’s Syndrome baby than it is to abort a healthy baby who was conceived before the mother finished school? Is it worse to abort a girl because you wanted a boy, than it is to abort two of your in utero triplets because you don’t want to shop at Costco, as in that infamous New York case?

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Véronique adds:

They [the two sisters of an 8 year-old boy with Down syndrome] have developed and learned things I didn’t need to teach them, just by contact. They’ll see a person with a handicap at the shopping mall and they’ll say, ‘Oh my gosh this person is cute.’ They see the beauty of the person behind the handicap. We don’t have to talk about that, they live it.

Reminded me of a question my daughter asked me about her cleft-affected sister: “Is she special because she has a cleft lip or does she have a cleft lip because she’s special?”

By any other name

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A few days ago, a woman named Renate Lindeman wrote an opinion piece in the Ottawa Citizen. She is the mother of two children with Down Syndrome. She is also the president of the Nova Scotia Down Syndrome Society. Over the last year, she noticed a startling development.  Registrations with the Society declined significantly. She didn’t have to look far for an explanation: The drop in registrations coincided with the province’s introduction of an expanded prenatal screening program.  

Now, I would describe myself as pro-life and Renate describes herself as pro-choice. To me, this situation, and our discomfort with the eugenics of it, highlight the “hollowness” of choice rhetoric – the “freedom” to abort very quickly becomes the duty to abort. (See my feticide post; I am also assuming that eugenics makes most of us a little uncomfortable.) Renate sees the situation more as a failure to provide women with meaningful choice. She writes: 

Many hospitals across Canada do not bother to inform about living with Down syndrome, but instead limit information on their information to the prenatal screening — and prevention — process.  This isn’t offering a choice to women; this is leaving women no choice…

With only negative or misinformation available it is a sad but true statistic that over 90 per cent of parents in Canada choose abortion when faced with a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome. As president of the Nova Scotia Down Syndrome Society I have seen the number of registrations of new babies drop an astonishing 85 per cent…

Is this the aimed objective? 

I’m not sure what other objective there can be that would justify over-strained provincial health budgets being extended to include enhanced prenatal screening. In Ontario, doctors are required by law to offer maternal serum screening, even when the pregnant woman has indicated no interest whatever in prenatal screening. I’m cynical enough to wonder if somewhere a bureaucrat has justified the cost of prenatal screening by the savings incurred by the elimination of “defective” infants who might otherwise weigh heavily on the health system. 

Renate isn’t waiting for provincial health department or the hospitals that “care” for pregnant women to take the initiative to provide accurate information on living with Down Syndrome. She and the Nova Scotia Down Syndrome Society have an excellent website, wonderfully titled “Down Home”. I recommend it highly. 

Renate has also initiated an online petition asking for a Prenatal Diagnosed Condition Awareness Act. This legislation

would ensure provinces and territories … set aside appropriate resources for the establishment of educational and awareness campaigns that will enhance knowledge about diagnosed conditions and allow organizations to create and distribute balanced and accurate information to women and prospective parents.

When is Hollywood pro-life?

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Last night I watched Law and Order, which reminded me why I rarely watch TV these days. The episode opened with a bombing at a medical clinic that did genetic testing of fetuses. An early suspect was a couple whose pregnancy was terminated after mistakenly being diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome. Implicit in the show was that the only problem here was the mistaken diagnosis; of course the abortion was appropriate if the baby had actually had a chromosomal disorder.

Then, in the second act, the plot twists: the lab that was bombed was linked to a scientist trying to find a “gay gene.” (The usual gratuitous swipe at religious Christians was then inserted.) A few convolutions later, and we learn that the pregnant woman in a coma, after being injured by the bomb, is carrying a boy with, yes, the “gay gene.” The father chooses to abort the baby, arguing that being gay is like a disease. The repugnance of all the other characters is loud and clear – suddenly, an abortion would be part of a “gay holocaust.” (Yes, they actually used that phrase.)

Now, straw men and implausible plotting aside, how can any sensible person reconcile this logic? The argument that abortion must be an option all the time, to anyone, for any reason, is at least internally consistent. The argument that an unborn child is a person regardless of what his genes may contain is also pretty straightforward. But to maintain that a fetus is a lump of cells with no intrinsic value or rights, unless it carries a gene for homosexuality, in which case aborting it is a grave sin, is morally and logically incoherent.

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