kelley wrote:
>
> "My point is that the prejudices are transmitted, and condoned. There are
> pressures to have "perfect" babies and many many people will abort at the
> sign of a cleft foot. It does happen. So while we might like to think these
> things do not go on, for the people who have lived with disability all our
> lives, we know better than to live under such illusions."
> --Marta Russell
>
> if that's not suggesting that because some may have "trivial" reasons then
> all people have trivial reasons, I don't know what is. many many people
> abort over a cleft foot? huh?
I can see how you would interpret cleft foot abortion as being trivial
- on one level it is, but Eugenic abortion is not trivial as an issue,
that is the point I was making in the last post.
>
> the point is to deal with the prejudices, etc., not to get rid of abortion
we do not disagree on this.
> b/c it might be used in ways we don't want. and i don't think we need to
> delimit people's ability to engage in third-tri abortions or take advantage
> of techniques designed to determine if a child has a life threatening
> disease. i had a baby who, along with one other baby, was born with some
> bizarre mysterious illness, a virus infection that no one could identify.
> we, the parents, were petrified and i was pretty sure, after about 5 days
> crazed from lack of sleep, i got a little freaked out and concluded from
> the fact that team after team of doctors were stumped and my kid wouldn't
> nurse that he was going to die. if i could have known if he'd have an
> illness which would mean death in the first year or toddlerhood, i'd really
> rather avoid that situation. i'd just rather not carry to term. it's not
> because i want a perfect child but because i don't want to go through the
> agony. and i suspect that's the way a lot of people feel.
My OBGYN asked me on the second visit to her office, what if your child has the same impairment that you have - insinuating that this would be "problem"? My response was "what if she does?' That cut her off but I am certain she was ready to launch into a spiel about my "options."
Marta