Aspies For Freedom

Well, let me preface this by saying I don't think I could ever have an abortion...  hell, I can't even use "the pill" because so many birth controls are essentially just embrionic abortion, but...  that's beside the point.  

If you are sure your child will be severly impaired, and you know you cannot care for them, adoption is not always a good choice.  People aren't exactly lining up for handicapped children.  My parents adopted two boys when I was a child, two brother's that were 3 and 2.  The 3-year-old had been in foster care since he was 6-months-old, and the 2-year-old had been there since birth.  (Well, technically since a few minutes after birth...  you see he was born in a public toilet, but luckily his mother had the decency to go drop him off at the hospital).  They were brothers, but even they had different experiences.  The 2-year-old had been lucky and got placed with a decent foster family that kept him until he was adopted, the 3-year-old bounced around from institution to foster family to institution to different foster family.  When my parents got him, he didn't even know how to give a hug or a kiss, he had to be taught.  Both boys were severely FAS (fetal alcohol syndrome) and it has manifested itself as mental retardation and psychological instability throughout their lives.  As the story goes, the 3-year-old is actually a success story.  While his IQ tests lower than his brother, he's much more stable.  He lives in a great group-home now and is an acholite (spelling?) in his church.  The people in his group home like to take him as a spokes person to conferences because he is so friendly and "talented".  His younger brother, on the other hand, is so psychologically unstable that puberty almost killed him.  Even now he has such mood swings that it makes my heart ache.  My brothers are both good reasons why it is NOT a good idea to terminate a pregnancy because of the risk of dissability, and good warning signs of what can happen to unwanted children.  My brothers were numbers 3 and 5 for their biological mother.  We haven't the faintest idea what happened to 1, 2, and 4.  Number 6 was the only girl, we had limitted contact with her until she was 6, and then her biological parents tried to reclaim her, and after the court battle, her adoptive parents took her and dissappeared.  Number 7, however, was the miracle child that was actually born "clean" to the mother, right before those helpful people convinced her to get her tubes tied (thank the lord).  Number 7 was a musical prodigy, did well in school, and had tons of friends.  While I love my brothers immensely, We can still see in Number 7 what their potential WAS before their biological mother so callously tried to destroy it...  and remember, she was one of the "good" ones, she actually bothered to pull Brian OUT of the toilet and take him to a hospital.  I have a big fear of forcing parents to have children they can't handle...  how many more will make my brothers look like miracle children?

If my child were going to have Lesch-Nyhan syndrome, and spend his or her life wheelchair-bound, severely neurologically impaired, and engaging in severe and uncontrollable self-injury, I would abort.

If my child were going to have Tay-Sachs disease, and endure a painful, tortured existence only to die at the age of four or five, I would abort.

If my child were going to have Trisomy 13 or anencephaly or some other deadly birth defect, and be likely to die before or shortly after birth, I would abort.

If my child were going to have sickle-cell anemia or cystic fibrosis, I MIGHT abort.

If my child were going to have Down syndrome, Prader-Willi syndrome, autism, epilepsy, Fragile X, achondroplasia, Treacher-Collins syndrome, or any disorder in which the child still has a good chance of having a decent quality of life, I would NOT abort.

As for muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, spina bifida, and other conditions that are severely physically impairing but usually not mentally impairing, I honestly don't know. I don't have much information on these conditions.

I have met plenty of people with disabilities who wish they were not disabled, but I have not, to date, met anyone with a disability who wishes they were never born.


With regard to forced abortions/sterilization in people deemed "unfit" as parents: My mother has schizophrenia which is under control through medication, and with some help from my grandmother (generally help with driving, money, and moral support) was able to raise me just fine. My childhood wasn't perfect, but it was far better than those of some of my friends with "normal" parents. I had to witness my mother being dragged off to the hospital a couple of times when she slipped up on her medication, but even during these rare episodes where my mother lost control of herself, I was never, ever mistreated, abused or neglected. Although she definitely couldn't have done quite as good of a job without my grandmother around, I certainly do not think my mother was "unfit" to raise me. I think making this kind of judgment call (and certainly schizophrenia would be very high on the list of conditions where the mother might be considered unfit) is extremely dangerous.

In this day and age, I have NEVER heard of such a thing! Maybe in another country that I am not aware of, but not in the US definitely. There are very few things now that are inoperable. My son with DS was born with intestinal blockage, duodenal atresia, and an imperforate anus. He had all the internal plumbing so to speak, just not the anus itself. He was given a colostomy a day after birth to allow him to eliminate, and through many more surgeries, eventually the surgeon created him a rectum and hooked the "internal plumbing" up to the rectum. To look down there, you would never know that it wasn't there when he was born.

It's only due to replication of the "Down Critical Region" of Chr21.

And Alzheimer symptoms.

They aren't.  You appear to be forming your opinion entirely on popular press accounts. I do not trust "the media" to accurately describe dropping a bowling ball from the top of a tower.  When describing medical research, you'd be just as successful getting your information by reading tea leaves. The popular press is not trustworthy.  All aspects of DS are given research attention, and much of it actually dovetails with other research.

I see, and the peer-reviewed professional scientific journals, over how many years, you have used to form your opinions are?

Kabie, that's horrible.  

There is a pervasive opinion--more of a sickness, really--that a person who is disabled is de-facto miserable.  Few people even think to look at the way disabled people are treated, and even fewer are willing to question why it should be that way.  

Third paragraph removed

I agree with your position... and what the Doctor said is a sad and revolting reflection upon him.

Doctor's pressed my wife and I to have my son aborted based upon the results of an ultra-sound. We did not comply. Robert is a treasure and we love him dearly. The Doctors were mistaken about what they thought was the matter with him.

I am so sorry you lost a baby