Aborting Severely Handicapped Fetuses in Britain

Some news from across the pond:

http://www.inclusiondaily.com/archives/07/12/11/121107ukbioethics.htm

"The country's Abortion Act of 1990 allows a pregnancy to be terminated at any time if two doctors agree there is a "substantial risk" of the baby being born with a 'serious handicap'.
What is considered a "serious handicap", however, is left up to the doctors to decide."

"For instance, pregnancy records released in October showed that a total of 156 babies with Down syndrome were born between 2002 and 2005 in the southwest portion of England. During the same period, doctors performed 194 abortions based on Down syndrome diagnoses in the same area.... Statistics released from that Anomaly Register for the Southwest also showed that 54 fetuses diagnosed with club feet, 26 with 'extra' or 'webbed' fingers or toes, and 37 with cleft lip or palate, were aborted during the same time period."

So, it's true, is it? Discrimination begins in the womb for children with disabilities. I'm not exactly surprised. I remember vividly when, as a young teen, I 'babysat,' a term that seems insulting when I look back on it, a woman older than myself who had cognitive and developmental disabilities. She communicated with some sign language and occasionally verbally, but required significant care. I was exhausted after only a few hours of keeping track of her- highly mobile, she ran faster than I did, and I found the fact that she wore adult diapers disturbing. What fourteen year old really wants to be told that she may have to change the diaper of a twenty-something? I wondered how her parents managed, and discussed the issue with my mother.

She responded, "I don't know."

I pressed further: "But Mom, what if I had been born with disabilities like that?"

My mother replied, "Then I hope I would have found out before you were born and in time to have an abortion."

I was shocked. I'd been expecting a motherly response, assurances that she would love me just as much, that she would have learned to cope; pretty much the polar opposite of the response I got.

Reading this article brought back the memories of my reaction to hearing those honest words from my mother. Can anyone decide, by the time a fetus is old enough to know if it will be born with a disability, if it is better off not being born at all?

"In November of 2006, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists suggested that the deliberate killing of babies with disabilities should be considered as a treatment option. The RCOG suggested in a Sunday Times of London article that 'active euthanasia' should be considered for the overall good of families, and to keep parents from the emotional and economic hardship of raising a child with disabilities."

As opposed to euthanasia after birth, I suppose abortion would be preferable; especially for the unfortunate medical professionals tasked with performing the hypothetical euthanasia. What would it do to a person to actually, physically kill a post-birth infant? Probably about the same thing it does to people to kill puppies when animal shelters are overcrowded- "Shelter worker burnout," it's called, and it's the reason both for high turnover in animal shelters and for frequent incidences of neglect in shelters. Are we really heading toward a world where hospital employees have to worry about "dead baby burnout?"

It's easy to react viscerally to these images, but when I think on it over and over again, I come to the same conclusion. There are only two ways to resolve this debate without endorsing discrimination on the basis of disability from the moment of conception onward. The first is to prohibit all abortions after a certain point- perhaps the point at which the fetus would be able to survive outside the womb without extraordinary medical assistance. The second is to allow abortion at any time during pregnancy, and to leave the decision to the pregnant woman, while ensuring that resources supporting adoption and other options are readily available.

Making exceptions to abortion law on the basis of disabilities suggests to women pregnant with a disabled child that perhaps it doesn't deserve to live. It discourages them from seeking out the perspectives of women raising children with severe disabilities and hearing the voices that say, "Yes, you can, I did!" The statistics kept on abortions due to disability encourage the 'everybody's doing it' mentality, and turn the choice to abort or not abort when a fetus is diagnosed with a disability into a poll or popularity contest, rather than the intimately personal and heart-wrenching decision it is for every individual faced with that pre-natal diagnosis.