Grief, Guilt, and the Loss of an unborn child

CatoCooper13

CatoCooper13

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Termination of a Down Syndrome baby before birth!!!!

Just the past January, on the 20th -- 2003 -- a family in Australia who already has a 2 year old 'normal' son ...were expecting their second baby. They went into hospital for the 20 week scan to find out their baby's sex and health status, etc.
They were informed the baby had signs of having Downs Syndrome which shocked the family. (I understand the shock) They went home to think things over and decided on terminating the pregnancy as to prevent any 'pain and suffering' their unborn son may receive should he have been raised to full term.

I was really upset about that because I have met quite a number of Down Syndrome kids/adults who have thrived in the communities. Sure, they do receive extra assistance and support from the communities for their special needs, but they are happy and they've been given a chance to live life to the fullest.

I feel that particular family was selfish -- thinking that having a Down Syndrome baby would burden them and stress them out. Yes, it could be stressful, but it'd be a learning experience, seeing how other people have coped with it and grew from it.

What do you think of this?
 
:shock: They are being selfish. :| If I find out that my baby will have DS, I will still accept it, no matter how severe it is, because I know I'm a good mom, and I can deal with the stress of raising my baby to my best.

That's really so sad to see some people doing that. :cry:
 
Yes, it's sad to see people do that. A few years ago, there was a case where one woman sued a hospital for allowing her baby to live. During the delivery, the baby was born prematurely. The doctors spent hours to help the baby live. The baby survived. Since the baby was born prematurely, she would have breathing problems and not have much control over her body. Now, she's older and going through a lot of health problems. These health problems are costing the parents a lot of money. Because of that, the mother sued the doctor for trying to help the kid survive which resulted the parents to go broke taking care of her due to her health problems.
 
Wow, that really sucks, but hey, that's part of having children. We should all be expecting the worst of everything, no matter what the doctor was trying to do. :| That's just my opinion.
 
That's just plain stupid to abort a baby for down syndrome.


A few months ago I found out my unborn daughter had sign of spina bifida...Did I get my wife to terminate the pregnancy? HELL NO! we opted to keep preggo going and when she gets born in Sept she goes straight to the OR to have surgery to close her spine. After all she deserves a LIFE, doesn't she? I know it would be a lot challenge with the spina bifida and all, but she doesnt deserve to be aborted just for that!
 
it is sad to see that happen -- ppl can choose to abort or not based on the child's health status and make their decisions on what they want to do in the long term caring for a child with special needs
 
Originally posted by Fly Free
it is sad to see that happen -- ppl can choose to abort or not based on the child's health status and make their decisions on what they want to do in the long term caring for a child with special needs
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Yeah...some people can be very selfish and self centred -- all they think and worry is about themselves and how they'll cope with a disabled child. Their child is their child, period! Despite the disabilities! They gave birth to the baby! The baby's not at fault at all, innocent of any wrong doing. :cry:
 
some ppl aren't rich enough to buy special needs for their children with disablities and stuff like that.

But of course, I just didn't think it would be a "sin" for them terminating a child that isn't EVEN born yet...but I mean, I know it sounds cruel and selfish, but BELIEVE me...some ppl do it for many reasons, even though it's personal and all, but I do believe it would be a sin to terminate a baby that is ALREADY born...

you see, there's a difference between born and unborn...

So they proably weren't rich enough to do proper things with their child when it comes out into the world but proably had to terminate it due to personal and stressful problems.

I don't have anything against birth control (or abortion, whatever you call it...), because that's just their rights. I know many of you think it's bad and I can understand that, but the baby isn't complete, so there's always a way to abort it or just continue...something like that. So, I feel sorry for the child being terminated, but it has already gone to a better place.
 
Still, aborting/terminating an unborn baby whilst still in the womb -- the baby's ALIVE....already has a heartbeat and formations of a body by the first 8 weeks. So, that is considered 'murder' if someone decided to terminate the baby after 8 weeks' gestation.
 
Well, I support abortion only for certain reasons. What you posted about down syndrome definately ain't one of those reasons. Just because someone had a disability doesn't give the parents the right to avoid the turnmoils and wonderful lives of those children.

If it was allowed around back when I was born....I don't think I would be alive today.
 
Originally posted by SilenceGold
Well, I support abortion only for certain reasons. What you posted about down syndrome definately ain't one of those reasons. Just because someone had a disability doesn't give the parents the right to avoid the turnmoils and wonderful lives of those children.

If it was allowed around back when I was born....I don't think I would be alive today.
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:werd: silence.


I wouldn't wish the same thing on my unborn daughter. Spina bifida or not, she deserves to have a life and for me sure its going to be challenge dealing with the spina bifida and all.

What is the world coming to....parents trying to make a 100% perfect baby?! It is impossible to have 100% perfect kid ALL the time.

So if life gave ya lemons, make lemonade out of it then!
 
i really against abortion !!! if it happen to us... i would tell my wife to keep it alive and have it adoption or oraph once the kids get older and meet us i will give them the explain why we give them away because we can't afford to raise them but support them to be alive full period that what they deserve to be alive !!
 
Originally posted by SilenceGold
Well, I support abortion only for certain reasons. What you posted about down syndrome definately ain't one of those reasons. Just because someone had a disability doesn't give the parents the right to avoid the turnmoils and wonderful lives of those children.

If it was allowed around back when I was born....I don't think I would be alive today.
Click to expand...

But...if that was allowed back the time around when you were born -- are you talking about detecting deafness? How would that be possible? I don't know of any possible technological devices that'd be well advanced to detect such things as deafness.
Is there?
 
I don't think so, goldie.

But they would mostly detect for heart beats, blood pressure, sex, and stuff like that but i don't think there would some such techolgoy where they could detect your deafness...that would be just alittle weird if there is one, then they would have to put it INSIDE the mother's to find out...lol
 
Originally posted by WaterRats13
But...if that was allowed back the time around when you were born -- are you talking about detecting deafness? How would that be possible? I don't know of any possible technological devices that'd be well advanced to detect such things as deafness.
Is there?
Click to expand...

No....you took my statement out of context. I didn't mean that if there were any devices to detect deafness. I meant that if my parents knew that I WOULD BE disabled....they wouldn't want to deal with it.
 
Abortion is available for those who aren't supposed to get pregnant, due to their severe health problem, or physical problem. If they don't get abortion done on time, then the pregnancies could take their lives. :( That's my point of view of abortion... I do not support abortion to kill unborn disabled babies. Do I make sense here?
 
One more thing to add....I recall reading somewhere that there was an abortion on a child because it was discovered that the fetus didn't delevop lungs. I found that a good reason.

Another reasons are forced pregnancies such as rape.

Chel got a reason too.
 
I am VERY hardcore on the subject of aborting disabled babies, as I have multiple disablities due to a condition simliar to Downs syndrome.
Now if my parents had known I was going to have my syndrome, they would have been told that I would be essentially a vegetable. While my healthcare costs are very high, my life has been very full and I am NOT at all extremely profoundly retarded or even "at best severely MR!"
There's no way to tell how badly a child will be effected just by prenatal tests. Sure there are some Down's kids who are profoundly/severely retarded, but there are even kids with Downs who are geniuses! I actually even know of several Down's girls who are attending college! (both 2 year and 4 year) Quite a lot of the nonacheivement seen in the disabilty population is directly due to the fact that most parents listen to the experts(who tell them that their kids will be severely affected and there's no hope) and don't try to help their kids suceed, or the parents buy into idoitoic suburban values and just want a perfect designer hyperschuduled child who will be beautiful, popular, and extremely high acheiving.
 
I do agree that for abortion to be done -- is for good reasons like what SG and others pointed out. Still, it's such a painful and hard decision to make, you know?
 
I'm actually OK with parents aborting children with conditions like anacephely and profound holoproscencephaly, where the child will be in a persisant vegetative state. To me, abortion in that case is like removing life support from a person in a coma. I am also OK with parents aborting a child b/c the child has died inutero (stillbirth/miscarriage) due to a disabilty. I am NOT OK with parents aborting a pregnancy b/c the child might be disabled. A/B (able-bodied) people tend to think of disabilty as a horrible bleak sitution. Many of them are uninformed about the typical everyday day to day lives of actual people with disabilties! (sort of the same way a lot of parents automatically choose oralism b/c they are uninformed about the typical everyday day to day lives of deaf and hoh people) and should be counseled and should meet people in their communitiys who live with disabilty and can give them a more realistic picture of what life is like !
 
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