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“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?”

The birth dearth

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I read about the “birth dearth” in last week’s Ottawa Citizen.

As a mother of five, I always get a kick out of suggestions that a baby cash-in can boost the country’s birth rate. Don’t get me wrong: as a stay-at-home mom with a monumental student debt, I could sure use the extra money. But the promise of a $ 1, 000 baby bonus pales in comparison with the $1, 200 I spend monthly on groceries. And that says nothing about the price of keeping my kids clothed, sheltered and happily busy with gymnastics, dance and other activities. My point is that maybe someone should tell left-leaning thinkers that there is only so much money the state can throw at declining birth rates until it must start making family cool again. And pictures of pregnant Britney, Gwyneth and Katie won’t cut it.

What then, is a government to do when it wants to proclaim that children are a personal choice that women must assume and ask them at the same time to have more, many more? It gives them more money and hopes they won’t notice the hypocrisy. Trying to turn childbearing into a money-making endeavor? Good luck…

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.

I am woman, hear me sob?

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A semi-interesting piece in today’s Ottawa Citizen by Susan Riley about Hillary Clinton’s “sudden display of emotion” at a recent campaign event which has reportedly helped her avoid another defeat in New Hampshire.

…no one would portray Hillary — wealthy, well-educated, well-connected and white — as a victim. As an individual, she obviously isn’t; as a woman trying to become president of the United States, however, she faces as daunting and history-shattering a challenge as does Obama — and her odds may be longer. In the New York Times, veteran feminist Gloria Steinem argues that “gender is probably the most restrictive force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen, or who could be in the White House.”

This argument can quickly become futile and self-defeating: who has it tougher in America, black men or women? Both do, in different ways, says Steinem — and, of course, intolerance hurts others, including Jews, Muslims, and, in the case of Republican candidate Mitt Romney, Mormons. But when it comes to winning political office in North America, Steinem argues, it is still hardest for women. The evidence is everywhere — including at 24 Sussex, where Prime Minister Stephen Harper is dining tonight with the 13 provincial leaders, not a woman among them.

Perhaps I am weird. But this endless victimizing really bothers me. So it’s tough for a woman to become president of the United States? I hope so! It ought to be tough for anybody. 

[youtube:http://youtube.com/watch?v=6qgWH89qWks]

 

UPDATE, Jan. 14: Re Judi’s comment – there is a third possibility. Maybe Hillary Clinton is losing (or in danger of same; I’m not counting her out just yet) because people don’t like her, irrespective of her gender.

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