The Mentally Deficient

[TK-8252]

Probably the same reason a lot of abortions take place. You assume they were aborted simply because of the fact they had DS.

I'm sure if you look at a lot of abortions many of them will contain diseases and disorders. Whether that had any play in the decision of whether to abort or not is unknown to us, and to use a statistic like that as an arguement is foolish.

 

Apparently that's why, considering what the study shows.

 

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/abstract/65500197/ABSTRACT?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0

 

That's the study that Wikipedia cites for their number. It appears to be a European thing.

 

The study says that abortion rates for Klinefelter syndrome were 50-66%. It seems that less people want a Down child than a Klinefelter child.

 

Untrue. Go to wal-mart.

 

Okay, I rephrase all of the items in that list. They can't do those things well.

 

Neither can a lot of people, what does this have to do with their ability to interact with society? Many places around the world have minimal automobile usage

 

Where I live, considering that there's no sidewalks, bike lanes, or public buses, it would be incredibly difficult to really do ANYTHING in life without the ability to drive to do it. In a city it's a different situation however.

 

... Uh... wow.

 

Hey. If you guys can all be overly dramatic then so can I.

 

Of course they CAN EAT, but they have much more difficulty in doing so than regular kids.

 

... No one learns the same, if you're going to argue that they don't meet some standard then you better be prepared to end a lot of lives.

Not to mention there are many people that suffer from learning disorders, they however are not retarded. They simply have an exotic thought process. Their brain handles information in a much more unique fashion. Are you saying we should abort those fetus' as well?

 

Once again, this will bring about an end to the human race.

 

[...]

 

So do epileptics, diabetics, people with celiac disease,, people with ADHD, the list could go on.

 

Are we to abort them all?

 

That's a fair point, but someone with DS is going to learn with much more difficulty than someone who's got dyslexia or ADHD.

 

So do nearly all the people on the TCU campus, should we abort everyone that will be going to TCU?

 

What is that, the Texas Christian University? Hey... NOW I like how you're thinking!

 

JUST KIDDING.

 

So is abortion when done on a developed fetus. Thought process = awareness = life. Therefore termination = murder.

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/09/AR2005110902079.html

 

DS can be detected within the first trimester.

 

How, exactly?

 

Well, poor parents can't afford to raise a kid, and it just drags them all into poverty where they ALL will burden society. But that's a different issue...

 

Not really, if you truely believe the words you say.

 

Targeting specific cases such as rape, incest, and retardation would not be very widespread.

 

If you ignore several major catastrophic events as well as the daily life of a lot of people.

Pets provide an emotional support to people that cannot be recreated, same with kids.

 

Ooh I forgot about guide dogs for blind people.

 

Yes, pets can be great for people emotionally. They are a form of entertainment for the owner(s) - a retarded human really shouldn't be used as a form of entertainment.

 

Your cries to "liberals" earlier gives a different impression.

 

Pro-choice means pro-choice.

 

Not sure what you mean here either. I'm pro-choice on abortion... people should have the right to make up their own mind on getting an abortion (within a certain time period, of course). This thread is about opinion, not what the official policy should be. That's saved for the abortion threads. My opinion is that society would be better off if they gave birth to healthy babies, that simple. Is that a Nazi utilitarian attitude? You have the right to your opinion just like I have a right to mine.

 

Support that claim, numbers don't mean ****. You claim these women aborted simply on the reason that they don't want a tard for a child.

 

[...]

 

Gotta love blind assumptions based on ignorance.

 

[...]

 

Prove it or just stop talking.

 

I've covered this in this post earlier.

 

Medical science would. Clearly your lack of understanding a term you use freely shows that you have no place in an arguement of this kind.

 

Medical science would. Perhaps that's why I'm not a medical scientist.

 

I suppose Sith and I weren't clear enough. You said, the only reason they will get a job is because the manager wants to help them or they feel bad for them. But in those kind of jobs, the only reason ANYONE gets the job is because the manager likes them more, or feels sorry for them, or just wants to help out. There is no standard of excellence for people to wash windows at McDonalds. No one person is more qualified than another.

 

Sometimes it's because the girl's got a nice ass. Sometimes it's because the company really needs an employee. But I'd find it bizarre if a boss would hire a DS over a regular kid if it wasn't because they felt bad for the retarded person or they just wanted to help them out, even though they'll get less work out of them than from a regular kid.

 

My sister is going to marry a man soon who has a severe learning disability. He doesn't learn like most people, it takes him much longer to learn anything new, and he has struggled his whole life getting through school. Shall I proclaim at the wedding reception that he should have been aborted so as to not burden society with his inability to learn like I do?

 

Does that man have DS or some other form of severe mental retardation? Or is it just a learning disability?

 

So we can do selective dog abortions then. Only abort the useless breeds in an effort to improve society. Cool.

 

Do doctors perform abortions on dogs anyway? That'd be bizarre.

 

Unless they're retards. Widespread retard abotion is A-okay

 

A lot of women seem to agree with that.

 

Walking the ad-hominem line? Anywho, those babies probably would've just grown up to fight in the war if it hadn't ended, and that much war is bad for our society, so it seems reasonable enough following the logic presented by this retard-abortion schema.

 

That was sarcasm that I just had to throw in there. I DO find it ironic how you could support atomic bombings of civilians but then call selective abortion of Down syndrome an evil Nazi scheme.

 

If the shoe fits...

 

Which it doesn't, of course. Abortion is not in any way the same as millions killed in concentration camps and gas chambers. To say so would be insulting every single victim of the Nazi death camps.

 

Imagine how much not greater their life would be if they were aborted.

 

That line sounds like something an anti-abortion rights activist would say about ALL abortion in general. Why do we have ANY abortion if any life - no matter how miserable - is better than no life at all?

 

And how do you know their life would be any better? There are a TON of 'normal' people who HATE their lives and end up killing themselves. Maybe they would have been one of those people if they weren't handicapped in some way. Do you know? I suspect you don't.

 

No I don't know. But I do know that people who hate their lives do so because they screwed it up somewhere along the line, or they don't have the courage to face their problems and fix them. Make your life better. If you're not retarded you CAN do that.

 

Maybe not, but the "I feel sorry for them" line is worthless, as there are LOTS of people to feel sorry for, but just because you feel bad at their current situation doesn't mean they shouldn't have ever existed.

 

Lots of people to feel sorry for, yes. But people can turn their lives around and become functional members of society. Retarded people can never become regular people and that's what's the most saddening.

 

Oh I don't know, since they're usually involved in special education programs from the time most kids would start school, all through high school, and maybe a few years after...I'd say no longer than any average person who made it through high school on average.

 

And who pays for all those special programs and education? Surely that would be pretty damn expensive. What about parents who can't afford to pay the bill?

[Jae Onasi]

What does jimbo think of how his wife stays up till 1 A.M. on online forums?

Hey, he was playing Morrowind. As long as it doesn't involve men wearing less than the Chippendales men, he's fine.

 

Uh... of course it is. No one in this thread has said that it's not the mother's choice.

 

Actually, Emperor Devon did say, or imply that it should not be the mother's choice, as I note below.

 

If I have the right to abort, then I also have the right to continue the pregnancy, since it's my body, after all.

 

My opinion on the matter might sound loopy to some people, but I disagree.

 

That would violate my rights to carry a baby to term and my right to raise a Down's or mentally retarded child. How is that 'pro-choice'?

 

 

No one's even dying. Again, I'm not proposing any executions. Everyone would benefit. How is that so bad?

 

I heard my children's heartbeats at 10 weeks gestation. I first felt them move at about 16 weeks along. I saw them moving on ultrasounds, and even saw one of my kids sucking her thumb at about 20 weeks. My son had hiccups every day from about week 35 on. They responded to my voice. They were very much alive well before they were born.

 

This thread is about whether it's a better decision to abort a fetus that will be retarded... which is something that 91-93% of all women pregnant with a retarded fetus apparently believe is right

 

Well, something about that number made my crap detector redline, but I didn't have a chance to do some real research until today. The article you quote is from an article that was published in the journal Prenatal Diagnosis. When I checked out this article and journal, I learned a couple things.

 

First, the journal is published by a company called Wiley Interscience. Most reputable journals are peer-reviewed and published out of university centers, not by corporations. The writers are generally scientists and doctors who work in academic centers and don't have a financial interest in the research. I do not know how Wiley reviews articles for publication because it's not listed on their site, though I didn't do an exhaustive search. I don't know if the articles that get published in that journal go through the same rigorous review that articles for more well known academic journals go through.

 

Second, when I looked at the article itself, it was a literature review. The only problem was that it was very specific in which articles it included in order to come up with this particular statistic. If articles didn't meet the inclusion criteria, their data was discarded. This makes me extremely suspicious of manipulation of data in order to come up with a certain outcome.

 

So, I went to Medline to do a little research, using the phrase "termination rate after prenatal diagnosis of Down's syndrome". I found several articles that clearly show that the termination rate was not anywhere close to the 90+% found in the article in the Prenatal Diagnosis journal.

 

Note that these links are to Medscape's free version of Medline--you may have to become a member in order to view it.

 

The BJOG (international OB/GYN journal) noted in this article that the prevalence of live births after a diagnosis of Down's decreased by an age-adjusted 13%.

 

A Singapore Medical Journal article noted the birth prevalence of Down's syndrome babies for those who had a prenatal diagnosis of Down's. There were 295 live births, 4 stillbirths, and 197 abortions. This is a 39.7% abortion rate, not the 90+% range.

 

A journal article in Pediatric Perinatal Epidemiology noted that in the north of England, the termination rate was 38% between 1995-1999

 

And, interestingly (at least to me), this article in Lancet showed that having Down's had a protective effect against cancer--the rate of death from cancer was less than one tenth as often as expected with the exception of leukemia.

 

Your assertion that 90+% of all women with a prenatal diagnosis of Down's decide to terminate the pregnancy is based on a Wiki article (hardly peer reviewed material there) that cites a flawed study in a journal that may have a financial and/or political agenda.

 

What does forced abortion of Down's/genetic mental problems do?

1. Violates my rights as a woman to determine whether I carry that child or not.

2. Violates my rights to have a family on my own terms

3. Encourages discrimination against those who have Down's who are already alive. If the Unborn Down's children are inferior, then by extension so are those who've been born.

4. Violates my religious rights--I believe that life begins at conception. By forcing me to kill my unborn child, you are forcing me to violate my religious beliefs.

5. Re-instates a state program on eugenics. We've already seen how that was abused not only in WWII but in many other countries with forced sterilization programs. I don't think we want to return to that level of crude behavior 'in the name of science'.

6. Discourages alternative research on gene therapies. It would be much better to work on cures and treatments than just killing those affected fetuses.

 

 

And, just because these were so darned funny....

I'm sure we can find a bomb-sniffing autistic kid somewhere.

(tongue completely in cheek) I bet you could find a bloodhound cerebral palsy kid too, and a seeing-eye guide-Down's.

 

So we can do selective dog abortions then. Only abort the useless breeds in an effort to improve society. Cool.

Good. Please do. Maybe we can get rid of all those stupid ankle-biter yappy dogs that I can't stand.

[SkinWalker]

Jae Onasi,

 

Wonderful post and an exceptional bit of debunking. I hope you stick around this forum for a while

 

As to Wiley Interscience, I can tell you that I've always found them to be a very reputable publishing house. In fact, most peer-reviewed journals are actually private, for-profit ventures. The peer-review part is what's important and, while referring standards vary slightly from journal to journal (even within a major publishing house like WI), I've yet to see any problems with Wiley. I've used several of their journals over the years in various research topics: American Journal of Physical Anthropology; The Human Fossil Record (actually an online book); Environmental Toxicology; etc.

 

Blackwell Synergy, Nature Publishing, ScienceDirect, Kluwer, etc... they're all private publishing houses and have top-notch journals.

 

Still, your analysis was spot on and informative.

[Emperor Devon]

Hey, he was playing Morrowind. As long as it doesn't involve men wearing less than the Chippendales men, he's fine.

 

And not Oblivion? Good gawd, your husband is old-fashioned.

 

That would violate my rights to carry a baby to term and my right to raise a Down's or mentally retarded child. How is that 'pro-choice'?

 

Read my posts in this thread, or anywhere else. I have never said I am pro-choice. Only that I support abortion.

 

I heard my children's heartbeats at 10 weeks gestation. I first felt them move at about 16 weeks along. I saw them moving on ultrasounds, and even saw one of my kids sucking her thumb at about 20 weeks. My son had hiccups every day from about week 35 on. They responded to my voice. They were very much alive well before they were born.

 

And just as sentient as the ankle-biter dogs you want to be rid of.

 

Completely seriously, I do not think babies count at such an early age. Hence why I support abortion, and not the random killing of babies. You can argue otherwise, but the definition of when something is alive varies among many people. There is no solid definition (that I know of) for how many weeks constitutes a baby as alive. To me, such an act is not murder. To others, it probably is.

[ET Warrior]

Okay, I rephrase all of the items in that list. They can't do those things well.

So now we determine a persons worth by how well they can do tasks? My ultimate goal of eliminating stupid people shall come to fruition!

 

Where I live, considering that there's no sidewalks, bike lanes, or public buses, it would be incredibly difficult to really do ANYTHING in life without the ability to drive to do it.

I'm going to go ahead and say that's a pretty rare damned thing to have an entire town that doesn't even have sidewalks to get people from point A to point B. Even so, there's still the option of having somebody ELSE drive you places. And don't even try to say that's an unacceptable solution because I've had to drive my roommate places for the past year because he didn't have a car, and it's never bothered me.

Of course they CAN EAT, but they have much more difficulty in doing so than regular kids.

And since it's harder for them, by god they shouldn't have the opportunity to have to do so. We wouldn't want life to be HARD for anyone.

They are a form of entertainment for the owner

Have you like, never actually HAD a pet? I think very few people buy animals so they'll have entertainment. They're a companion. A creature that you love and hopefully loves you back, that you can always have around when you come home. I'm not saying retarded people are like pets, but they're certainly not around just as a source of entertainment.

But I'd find it bizarre if a boss would hire a DS over a regular kid if it wasn't because they felt bad for the retarded person or they just wanted to help them out, even though they'll get less work out of them than from a regular kid.

Maybe it was because the kid with Down Syndrome was really nice, personable and friendly, and the other applicants were assholes. I'd find it odd if a boss hired a really stupid hot girl over a nice intelligent guy, but that sure happens. Should we start aborting the girls of pretty people?

Does that man have DS or some other form of severe mental retardation? Or is it just a learning disability?

A learning disability. But again, You cannot tell before birth HOW SEVERE the mental disabilities a child will have are going to be. There are people with Down Syndrome who have VERY little mental retardation, and are quite near to fully functional. Some aren't. If you're going to arbitrarily condemn all people with Down Syndrome, then you are okay with aborting people with any kind of mental disability. To say otherwise is pure hypocricy.

Do doctors perform abortions on dogs anyway? That'd be bizarre.

No time like the present to start. If we're going to improve society we must not dilly-dally.

Which it doesn't, of course.

I find it odd that all but seemingly 2 or 3 people all think it does. I've even discussed this outside the forums with all manner of people I know and they've all had the same reaction. This is very much analogous.

If you're not retarded you CAN do that.

And yet so many don't...and so many retarded people are perfectly content and lead happy fullfilling lives. Huh. Must suck to be so happy. And why can't a retarded person improve their lives? Sure, they can't make themselves not retarded, but paralyzed people can't make themselves not paralyzed, but they could improve their life in plenty of ways.

Retarded people can never become regular people and that's what's the most saddening.

Oh please. Starving children in Africa cannot improve their situation. Most people in war-torn countries cannot improve their situation. Plenty of people in extreme poverty cannot improve their situation. Extremely stupid people will always be stupid, no matter how much they try. Don't try to pull this pity bull****, because nobody is buying it.

And who pays for all those special programs and education? Surely that would be pretty damn expensive. What about parents who can't afford to pay the bill?

It's called the special education program of public school. Last time I checked, the government footed the bill for public education.

Good. Please do. Maybe we can get rid of all those stupid ankle-biter yappy dogs that I can't stand.

I'm hoping to get rid of all the tiny ones, particularly the ones the sorority girls carry around in their oversized purses around campus here. How I hate them so.

 

Edit - By the by TK....where the hell do you LIVE? You don't have SIDEWALKS? What do they put next to the roads? More roads?

[abcd1234]

No I don't know. But I do know that people who hate their lives do so because they screwed it up somewhere along the line, or they don't have the courage to face their problems and fix them. Make your life better. If you're not retarded you CAN do that.

 

This I have to disagree with. There are plenty of kids who grow up in poor families and have to drop out of school to help support their younger siblings and what not, and because of this they are stuck in minimum wage jobs. I bet there are a lot of people who know what their problems are, but if you were working two crappy, minimum wage jobs, you don't have time to go and get your GED, or a college degree for that matter.

 

I also have to agree with what ET said about the unconditional love. One of my mom's best friends has a child with DS and it doesn't matter the slightest with his parents or siblings. They all love him dearly.

[CapNColostomy]

Read my posts in this thread, or anywhere else. I have never said I am pro-choice. Only that I support abortion.

 

Ummm...You are aware that pro-choice and support of abortion are synonomous, right?

[Mike Windu]

Interesting thread.

 

Pre emptive mercy killings? Yeah, right.

 

I don't know if you have ever been around a retarded person and their family, but their family loves them just as much as if they were a perfect member of society.

 

As mentioned on p. 1, it's called unconditional love.

 

Back to mercy killings: how do YOU know that the person won't grow up to be a great member of society? No matter what you tell yourself, it's the same as killing someone with any of the thousands of disorders out there. Maybe we should have shot Helen Keller when she was a kid, spared her the trouble of being blind.

 

Oh wait a ****ing second, she overcame it!

 

Ray Charles? Stevie Wonder?

 

And even if these prestigious people didn't overcome their problems, would you have the right to kill them? What if they didn't become authors, musicians, etc? What if they had to have people help them? Should we shoot people for requiring aid for a disorder?

 

"It is very often that we discover amazing talents, qualities, and/or senses in people who we tend to think of as inferior to us, and yet we often find out how we are indeed inferior to them."

 

There seems to be a very fallicitous argument going around, that it would improve someone's life by killing them because they are mentally retarded.

 

Let me rephrase that in case you didn't catch it.

 

Killing someone to improve their lives.

 

Reeeeeet.

 

TK: If you're making an ethical/emotional appeal, you could look at it that the parents will be happier to have a regular child, and that the normal child will be happier to exist than the deficient one.

 

...

 

"damn it all to hell, our baby is retarded. let's kill it and try again."

 

Uhm, human worth?

[Dagobahn Eagle]

Back to mercy killings: how do YOU know that the person won't grow up to be a great member of society? No matter what you tell yourself, it's the same as killing someone with any of the thousands of disorders out there. Maybe we should have shot Helen Keller when she was a kid, spared her the trouble of being blind.

Absolutely. It's not like she ever accomplished anything. She was just miserable her whole life...[/sarcasm]

[Jae Onasi]

Jae Onasi,

 

Wonderful post and an exceptional bit of debunking. I hope you stick around this forum for a while

Thanks.

That's what I get for going to school way too long.

Well, this certainly has been an interesting discussion to say the least.

 

 

Blackwell Synergy, Nature Publishing, ScienceDirect, Kluwer, etc... they're all private publishing houses and have top-notch journals.

 

Still, your analysis was spot on and informative.

 

Yeah, when I went back and looked at some of the med journals' publishing locations, I noticed quite a few of them had been farmed out to publishing houses, some fairly recently, including the major one in my field--something I hadn't really paid attention to til now. I think JAMA, Lancet, and New England Journal of Medicine are still independent. I probably would have been better off saying 'editorial boards' instead, since those are the people who actually decide which articles get published.

 

There is a definite tier system in journal reliability in the medical field, and I don't know if it's the same in the other science fields. There are those journals like JAMA and NEJM, peer-reviewed by some of the leading researchers at the 'most prestigious' medical schools (e.g. Harvard). These are the folks who are publishing articles on the major research projects run by university-based medical schools. The researchers themselves have reached the highest levels of excellence in the field. Their work is usually regarded seriously enough to be able to obtain NIH (in the US) grant money for the research. I regard articles in these particular journals as extremely reliable, though my crap detector stays on because every now and then something really weird comes down the pike.

 

Then there's the 'throwaway journals'--the ones you read and throw away later instead of keeping for the scholarship. These have discussions of things that are generally more relevent for 'real life medicine' like case studies, summaries of what's going on in the field, changes in standards of care and such, though they can have some great research as well. The articles don't deal with the esoteric research minutiae sometimes found in the more 'scholarly' research journals. The articles are more practical for the average practitioner. The research in some of these journals can be supported by grants from major companies, so not surprisingly you'll see research that supports the companies' claims--these major companies never publish the data about what _doesn't_ work, as you can imagine.

 

So, when I see private/for profit companies companies publishing journals, I automatically think that there _may_ be a bias--these publishers have to make money to stay in business. I don't know how much influence they have over the editors. Since JAMA and Lancet are independent, there theoretically is no interference from the publishing company in editorial decisions. However, the major scholarly journal in my field now has an outside publishing house producing it, and there doesn't seem to be any change in quality of the research that's been presented.

 

There's a continuum between the pure research journals and the throwaway journals, and I'm not sure where Prenatal Diagnosis falls in that continuum. The inclusion of the literature review article that says 90-ish% abort surprised me a bit, since it's contradicted by what apparently happens in 'Real Life' according to the other articles I found. Now, this isn't my field, so I could be wrong. It just seemed that the design of their study on articles was flawed at best, and the statistics were flawed accordingly. It's not going to take a rocket scientist to say "hey, they say 90%, but in _my_ practice, and those of my fellow OBs, it's 35-50%. What gives?"

 

Probably way more discussion of reliability of journals than anyone really wants.

 

@TK--people can walk on the grass if there's no sidewalks. There are plenty of people who don't drive who _aren't_ retarded. How do they get around?

 

@ET--I can't complain too much about stupid people--I've done some spectacularly stupid things myself, and I theoretically should know better.

 

@Emperor Devon--we wanted to try out Morrowind first before tackling Oblivion, since we found playing Kotor first made TSL a lot easier to understand in terms of gameplay mechanics. Well, that and we got Kotor before TSL came out. A lot of people seem to enjoy Morrowind, so we thought it'd be fun, too. We're relatively new to the PC gaming scene, since we really haven't had computers with the power to play games really well until the last couple years.

[SkinWalker]

It just seemed that the design of their study on articles was flawed at best, and the statistics were flawed accordingly. It's not going to take a rocket scientist to say "hey, they say 90%, but in _my_ practice, and those of my fellow OBs, it's 35-50%. What gives?"

 

That is the inherent problem with meta-analyses, and for those that aren't aware, a study that takes a look at a number (n) of other studies is called a meta-analysis. The problem with a meta-analysis is that n=whatever studies the researcher choses, so the method of choice becomes of paramount importance when designing the research model.

 

If I get the chance today, I'll look at that study and see what their methodology was. Clearly, Jae demonstrated that their meta-analysis missed or omitted some data.

[Jae Onasi]

If I get the chance today, I'll look at that study and see what their methodology was. Clearly, Jae demonstrated that their meta-analysis missed or omitted some data.

 

They gave a brief description of their inclusion criteria in the abstract.

[SkinWalker]

This thread has been engaging, and I haven't participated with exception of offering a bit of well-placed (in my opinion) sarcasm that had the intent of helping to maintain a perspective.

 

Prenatal screening is something that I remember very well when my daughter was still in the womb. I still remember the feeling that I'm sure most parents-to-be feel when they go through it: "is my baby healthy? If not, what will I do?" My wife and I only discussed this a bit prior to our daughter's birth -preferring to cross that bridge when it came and to not dwell on it too much.

 

The decision to terminate a pregnancy due to discovery of fetal chromosomal and/or morphological abnormalities is one that should remain with the parents. Termination of a pregnancy is a very complex decision and one that can potentially have long-term "psycho-emotional morbidity" as a result (Kersting et al 2005; Korenromp et al 2005).

 

When looking at medical ethics, there are some basic principles (six if memory serves correct) that are considered in ethical decision-making. One of these is primum non nocere, or "first do no harm." This often gets applied in legal issues as well.

 

Regardless of what some in society may think about the "burden" that children born with medical abnormalities might present to "society," there is also the parents themselves to consider. Terminating a pregnancy does have a significant psychological impact on many people. Is this impact worth the trade if the parent is relieved of the financial or emotional burden of caring for a child with Down Syndrome or some other abnormality? I don't know. And neither does anyone else in this forum or any other.

 

This is why the decision to terminate a fetus in such a situation should reside only with the parents. Not the government. Not the medical establishment. Not religions (definately not religions). And not with society. The parents are the ones that will have to live with their decision, regardless of which one they make.

 

Would my wife and I have chosen to terminate her pregnancy if some serious abnormality like trisomy 21 (Down Syndrome)? Probably. But for reasons that go beyond the syndrome and the "burden" of caring for a child with Down Syndrome. Reasons that I won't go into here because they're not relevant. But then again, maybe we wouldn't have. We never had to make the decision and, for that, we are fortunate. One thing I can say for sure is this, I know several parents that have children with DS -not a one regrets the day they gave birth to their child. And each child is loved by their parents and considered to be the center of their universe.

 

For those interested in recent research in trisomy 21, I posted a news bit with a reference to a journal article on my blog: Science in Action: Sonic Hedgehog and Down Syndrome.

 

Scroll down to the bottom of the page to read a brief summary of recent developments in finding a treatment for trisomy 21 with a link another article; and, of course, to find out what Sonic Hedge Hog has to do with it.

 

 

References

 

Kersting, A; et al (2005). Trauma and grief 2-7 years after termination of pregnancy because of fetal anomalies - a pilot study. Journal of Psychosomal Obstetrics and Gynaecology, 26 (1), 9-14

 

Korenromp, M. et al (2005). Long-term psychological consequences of pregnancy termination for fetal abnormality: a cross sectional study. Prenatal Diagnosis 25 (13), 253-360.

[Prime]

Prenatal screening is something that I remember very well when my daughter was still in the womb. I still remember the feeling that I'm sure most parents-to-be feel when they go through it: "is my baby healthy? If not, what will I do?" My wife and I only discussed this a bit prior to our daughter's birth -preferring to cross that bridge when it came and to not dwell on it too much.

We went through that too. I can't imagine how we would have felt if what is being proposed here was in place....

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joey_Moss

 

What a horrible life Joey has led and what a terrible burden to society.

 

I will say it again: The ignorance.

[TK-8252]

I'm getting so tired of having to quote five different people in every post (thank god that rccar and GSK both have more stamina than me ) so I'm just going to come out and make myself clear, again, because it seems that people have such a wrong idea of the position I'm arguing:

 

No where have I ever supported some kind of "forced/mandatory abortion" for a fetus detected as having DS. After all, who's going to force that abortion? The government? And you all haven't figured it out yet that I hate authoritarian big government? If you think that Devon has supported mandatory abortions, which I do not think that he has suggested, then that is clearly not my intention.

 

This thread is a CASE-BY-CASE thing. Like Skin said, aborting a fetus because you would rather have a functional child is a PERSONAL CHOICE and that is what I believe. No one can force you to get an abortion in a free country, period. It is MY OPINION that society would be better off if mothers chose to abort a fetus with DS... if I was a pregnant woman I'd choose the abortion. Because I'm a heartless Nazi killing machine? Strange, because I'm the one who argued against the slaughtering of the civilians of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

 

@TK--people can walk on the grass if there's no sidewalks. There are plenty of people who don't drive who _aren't_ retarded. How do they get around?

 

How do they get around? They either get a ride with someone else, or they drive illegally.

 

Trust me, there is no way in hell that you could get around in my town without a ride. What's next to the roads? Either dirt, a ditch, or trees. The closest neighborhood to the main road here is about a half hour walking distance away. And if you lived any further out - where it takes a half hour just to DRIVE to the main road - good luck walking.

 

Have you like, never actually HAD a pet? I think very few people buy animals so they'll have entertainment. They're a companion. A creature that you love and hopefully loves you back, that you can always have around when you come home. I'm not saying retarded people are like pets, but they're certainly not around just as a source of entertainment.

 

Yes I have had pets. Three to be exact. The current pet - a cat - is very entertaining. Having it chase strings and such. I wouldn't really call pets "companions" but maybe that's just me?

 

It's called the special education program of public school. Last time I checked, the government footed the bill for public education.

 

The government foots the bill? And where does the government get their money... oh! From the taxpayers. Why should I be FORCED to pay for a service - special education - when I don't use it anyway?? If I have a retarded kid then let ME pay for my own child's special education. After all, I chose to keep the kid despite knowing that there's a good chance it would have DS.

 

Oh please. Starving children in Africa cannot improve their situation. Most people in war-torn countries cannot improve their situation. Plenty of people in extreme poverty cannot improve their situation. Extremely stupid people will always be stupid, no matter how much they try. Don't try to pull this pity bull****, because nobody is buying it.

 

People in Africa or in Iraq can't improve their situation because they've been victimized. Different situation. And perhaps you're not "buying" my "stupid pity bull****" because it's hard to explain. If you want me to go into the psychology of it, there is a feeling of "guilt" so to say that I AM a normal kid and I see some retarded kid in a wheelchair and I'm like, damn, why him and not me? I KNOW that they will never live a normal life and that's one thing that I hold most important over all things - a normal life. YES there are exceptions where people who have DS or other disabilities can go and accomplish great things, stop saying I'm ignorant of that fact, but the VAST majority will have nothing in their life except "unconditional love" as everyone is saying repeatedly.

 

Which is something else I don't understand - unconditional love. Perhaps you just have to be a parent to understand that concept. Personally I hate kids. I hate being around them. I have no plans of ever having kids. They're annoying and they have filthy habits. At least all the kids I've been around.

 

I know I know, everyone here is going to say TK... TK... how can you say that you insensitive bastard! Now you're saying we should be aborting ALL children eh??

 

No. That's not what I'm saying.

 

Which is why it's most sad that retarded people have to act like kids ALL THEIR LIVES...

 

This I have to disagree with. There are plenty of kids who grow up in poor families and have to drop out of school to help support their younger siblings and what not, and because of this they are stuck in minimum wage jobs. I bet there are a lot of people who know what their problems are, but if you were working two crappy, minimum wage jobs, you don't have time to go and get your GED, or a college degree for that matter.

 

Don't drop out of school. If you do, get your GED. Who doesn't have the time to get their GED? And you don't even need a college degree to improve your life. I don't have any plans to go to college. A trade school is really all you need if you want to be an electrician or something like that.

[Dagobahn Eagle]

Would my wife and I have chosen to terminate her pregnancy if some serious abnormality like trisomy 21 (Down Syndrome)?

I asked myself that, too.

 

I'd probably vote for abortion anyway, since I'm just 20 and still in high school (lagged behind due to "mental deficiency":p). If it happened when I and whoever I end up with are ready to have children, then Heck, I don't know. I really do not.

 

@TK--people can walk on the grass if there's no sidewalks. There are plenty of people who don't drive who _aren't_ retarded. How do they get around?

Move out of the city to one with a slightly better-planned public transit/pedestrian system?

[ET Warrior]

And where does the government get their money... oh! From the taxpayers. Why should I be FORCED to pay for a service - special education - when I don't use it anyway??

You know your tax dollars pay my salary. Are you using the science data I'm helping to collect? No. So either I should stop getting paid or I should've just been aborted? I also don't agree with my tax money being used to aid Katrina victims. I'm not using that service. Same with the tax dollars that go towards community services outside of my specific community, because I really don't need them. And not everybody will need their kids to goto public school. Some people attend private schools, but they still have to pay taxes that paid for every other kids education. That's the way taxes work. They aren't always going to directly benefit you.

 

Which is something else I don't understand - unconditional love. Perhaps you just have to be a parent to understand that concept.

I would've thought anyone with a family would have a firm grasp of unconditional love. I was apparently mistaken.

 

Don't drop out of school. If you do, get your GED. Who doesn't have the time to get their GED?

People whose parent died and their single mother/father doesn't earn enough to feed everyone and pay the bills and they're working two full-time minimum wage jobs so their family can live. There's the unconditional love part coming into play, sacrificing your own future for your family.

[Dagobahn Eagle]

There will always be special education. People will get depressed and fall behind. They'll develop social problems. They'll just be plain lazy and lag behind. They'll be in a car accident, need time to recuperate, and lag behind. This friend I got to know during a hospital stay had to stay home from school every other week to take care of her sick mother (she had a sister, and they alternated school and nursing sick single mom). She ended up three years behind (I was tempted to use the space between these two parentheses to sing the praises of the Scandinavian welfare system, but... Nah). She was determined to catch up, but for all I know, maybe she's today going to a special school that lets you take it at your own pace, regardless of age or how far you are behind.

 

It doesn't matter if you cure/abort every mentally deficient/physically handicapped/both fetus out there, you'll always need special education.

 

Why should I be FORCED to pay for a service - special education - when I don't use it anyway??

Because it's the right thing to do:p.

[TK-8252]

You know your tax dollars pay my salary. Are you using the science data I'm helping to collect? No.

 

I'm not aware of what your job is.

 

I also don't agree with my tax money being used to aid Katrina victims. I'm not using that service.

 

I'd rather give aid money to the Red Cross and private Katrina charities than to the corrupt federal government. Maybe you like giving your money to incompetent bureaucrats who are going to waste your money instead of putting it to good use, but I'd rather contribute to a trustworthy charity, thankyouverymuch.

 

Same with the tax dollars that go towards community services outside of my specific community

 

Why don't the people in that community pay for their own community, and you pay for your own?

 

And not everybody will need their kids to goto public school. Some people attend private schools, but they still have to pay taxes that paid for every other kids education.

 

Vouchers my friend!

 

That's the way taxes work. They aren't always going to directly benefit you.

 

A lot of the time, the only people who benefit from taxes are corporate cronies and government bureaucrats.

 

I would've thought anyone with a family would have a firm grasp of unconditional love. I was apparently mistaken.

 

I don't understand how just because someone is in your family you should love them unconditionally. If your father beat your mother and treated you like ****, and then you never see him again because he goes off to prison, should you love him anyway just because he happened to be the one whose sperm contributed to your creation? I don't think so!

 

I love my parents because they are caring people who are always there, and have given me everything I could ask for.

 

People whose parent died and their single mother/father doesn't earn enough to feed everyone and pay the bills and they're working two full-time minimum wage jobs so their family can live. There's the unconditional love part coming into play, sacrificing your own future for your family.

 

Yup, that's a problematic situation indeed. But I guess that's what welfare private charities and churches are for...

 

 

This is all TOTALLY off-topic though. Perhaps we could start a new thread on this thing since to be honest, I'm completely bored with the original topic, since clearly no one is going to have a change of opinion on this matter.

[ET Warrior]

I'm not aware of what your job is.

Irrelevant, I still get paid with taxpayers dollars, and I'm not providing any of them any semblance of a service.

 

Why don't the people in that community pay for their own community, and you pay for your own?

So the real problem is that you don't know how taxes work, then?

 

I love my parents because they are caring people who are always there, and have given me everything I could ask for.

And if they got in a car wreck, became paralyzed, and suddenly relied upon you for support: physically, emotionally, and financially, would you stop loving them?

[TK-8252]

So the real problem is that you don't know how taxes work, then?

 

I know perfectly well how taxes (don't) work.

 

And if they got in a car wreck, became paralyzed, and suddenly relied upon you for support: physically, emotionally, and financially, would you stop loving them?

 

I'd be glad to pull my own weight after all they've given me by working my ass off in school and work as much as I have to to pay for my own expenses. Both of my parents have health and life insurance so it wouldn't be THAT big of a problem financially for them.

[Mike Windu]

But if they happened to be two people who were deficient in their parenting, you'd say **** them?

 

 

Looking out for number one eh? Lovely mentality.

 

p.s. oh how so convenient for them to think of you ahead of time and get life insurance so you wouldn't be drowning in debts. But of course if my parents were bad to me I'd just take the money and run.

[TK-8252]

But if they happened to be two people who were deficient in their parenting, you'd say **** them?

 

 

Looking out for number one eh? Lovely mentality.

 

p.s. oh how so convenient for them to think of you ahead of time and get life insurance so you wouldn't be drowning in debts. But of course if my parents were bad to me I'd just take the money and run.

 

It is totally amazing how pretty much everything I've said in this thread has been blown way out of proportion and put in an overly-dramatic tone. Can't there be a discussion on such an issue without there being this kind of condescending attitude? Seriously.

 

Let's be real: if your parents created you, they DO have the legal duty to care for you if they have the ability to do so. To not do so would be child neglect. There's a difference between being a "deficient" parent and being a total dead-beat who doesn't even try to raise their kids. It's not just "convenient" that they thought of me and got life insurance... it's also good parenting. A bad parent might not get life insurance.

 

Now, if both your parents were total assholes who beat the **** out of you and verbally abused you, but actually DID get life insurance, I'd have no problem taking the money once they pass on and using it to improve my life and get it back on track because my parents screwed it up. Is that looking out for myself? You ****ing bet it is. And I wish more people looked out for themselves instead of just complaining about how their life is screwed up and not DOING anything about it other than living off welfare for the rest of their lives, and then abusing their own children in a vicious cycle.

 

Holy ****! Now everyone in this thread is going to start telling me how I'm so insensitive... I'm so ignorant... I'm so heartless... because I think that all people on welfare are lazy whiners. No that's not what I'm saying and that's not what I think either. I'm saying that more people should actually take responsibility for themselves.

 

 

Phew... I don't know how I got off on that rant. Too much listening to Carlos Mencia I suppose.

[Jae Onasi]

We went through that too. I can't imagine how we would have felt if what is being proposed here was in place....

 

Yech--not only having the tests, but hoping they'd be normal, and when discovering they're not, having to deal not only with the distress of knowing your child has a disability, but also wondering how you're going to deal with state-mandated termination. Not a pretty picture.

 

We skipped the alpha-fetoprotein/triple screen tests entirely. It wasn't going to make any difference in carrying the baby, and most babies are just fine. I didn't want the stress or the amnio risks (no matter how low they are), especially when the 5 month ultrasound could pick up pretty much everything anyway. The midwife amused hubby and me by saying "Oh, you people are so easy."

 

@TK--just to be clear so there's no mistaken impressions on the research thing and the Wiki quote--I didn't mean to imply _you_ had made up crap for my crap detector to redline on. I was referring to the number in the article itself, not your research and quoting of that article/number. I was glad to see you'd taken the time to check out some sources.

 

Edit--on tax dollars paying for services for others--I'm very happy to have a fire and police dept around. We've only had to call paramedics once. Maybe I'll never need the fire dept. and so I'm not seeing a direct benefit, but if my neighbor's house catches on fire (heaven forbid), I'll sure be glad they're around taking care of his house so that mine doesn't catch on fire also.

[SkinWalker]

With regard to the number of abortions, the more I look into, the more I see it as being closer to accurate than not. I just read a note on some site (I've no idea where now) about how in Germany doctors spoke before the German Parliament (Der Deutsche Bundestag) about the number of children born with Down Syndrome. The expectation was 1 in 600, resulting in over 1,000 but the actual number was 63.

 

Regardless of the number of abortions for these types of abnormalities, I won't fault the parents. They have to make these types of decisions. But the ethical questions are to what degree does the medical profession and society influence the decisions to terminate a DS pregnancy? And is this influence (whether it is positive or negative) ethical?

 

Jae,

 

I included the Prenatal article in case you want the full version. Its only 5 pages long and the methodology, which I was interested in, is only a couple of paragraphs. They basically gathered data from papers that mentioned x number of women pregnant with one of their target abnormalities but only if they mentioned whether the fetus was brought to term or terminated.

 

As an anthropologist, my first impression was that n was too restrictive to be able to conclude anything about all women diagnosed with fetal abnormalities. That is, unless all women with fetal abnormalities are mentioned in peer-reviewed literature.

prenatal.zip