To Abort or Not To Abort: That is the Question?

[slicer15]

What you also have to take into account is how the child would have reacted in later life, had it been given a chance and emerged as perfectly healthy. If it stays with a guardian/s it may find out about its origin. Now things like this can seriously damage a person psychologically. There was a case here where a grown woman found out from her mother that she had no real father - he was infertile and she was the product of a sperm bank. She was seriously psychologically harmed and it took her years to recover. She basically lost her identity, she couldn't identify herself anymore. Granted, it is totally different than an abortion, and it had a far happier ending (she eventually married an man who also happened to be infertile, but she decided not to get sperm from a donor) but the basic concept is the same. How would the child of the mother have reacted if the news was broken to him/her in the same way?

[ 06-03-2003, 02:08 PM: Message edited by: slicer15 ]

[IronDragon]

When she give birth to the child she might not wanna give it up for adoption she might think that it belongs to her. And one thing, won't it be a risk that the baby will get some mental or psycical problems?

Since she has a guardian it is the guardian who makes the decision and her wants will not affect that decision. Given the level of her disability I doubt she would be able to communicate her desires one way or the other. From the description her IQ would be in the severe to profound range or less than 32. Her deafness would indicate she would have extremely limited speech if any at all and it would be unlikely that any but regular caregivers could understand the few words or idea she could express.
Individuals with that severe of a disability would also likely have multiple physical disabilities and related health problems; I would be shocked to learn she is not wheelchair bound or that she requires tube feedings and/or nutritional supplements to maintain a minimum weight. Toileting is likely beyond her abilities requiring diapers.

Since the woman’s disability was caused by a meningitis infection at age 3 weeks I doubt there would be and genetic predisposition to pass on but given the other complications. I would imagine it would be difficult in the extreme for this or a similar woman to carry a child to term and deliver it safely. I was able to have a brief chat with the on call doctor at lunch and she felt the newspapers estimate of 10% chance of survival seems very generous. Seizure medication can be highly toxic to a fetus in the first trimester and the doctor believes that some damage would likely have occurred, though to what extent would depend on what medications the woman was on.

[Lovisa]

Yeah u got a point there...

[Azred]

It is a shame that everything worked out like it did, but I would have ordered the abortion, as well as a sterilization so that this doesn't happen again in the future. She wouldn't understand what is happening to her during pregnancy, anyway; she likely wouldn't even recognize that she had delivered a baby or that the baby in front of her was hers (had the pregnancy come to term).

That probably sounds harsh and/or cruel to some of you, but I am not afraid of making difficult choices.

[Bardan the Slayer]

Neither am I. I just think that if a baby has a 5% chance of survival, that's 5% better than it will have after it is aborted. I also believe that a baby may have a right to life even though it's mother may not have the slightest knowledge of what it is.

If the mother is so cleartly incapable of caring for the child, then have it adopted. Don't start killing people because their parents are mentally incapable.

[Aelia Jusa]

I agree with Bardan on this one. I think that in general abortion cases, the needs of the mother have to be taken into account since she will be the one carrying and either raising or giving it up after birth, which is not trivial. Especially in a rape case, where, although it is certainly possible to make a good come out of a bad so to speak, there is a lot of bad that can come out of not aborting, for the mother and the child. But I think in this case, the mother's 'wishes' aren't really relevant because she doesn't really have any, regarding the pregnancy (or the rape? That's unclear). I'm not sure exactly how much she understands, but it's obviously not very much. Unless her life was at risk and the chance of the baby being born disabled in a serious way was very high, then I think she should have had the baby and it given up for adoption. I'm not anti-abortion absolutely, but this case is a little different to most.