Would you terminate a pregnancy knowing your child would have a genetic condition?

I have thought long and hard over this. This question had popped into my head while thinking of my s/o and I's future. I want to have at least two or three kids. I know there is a risk of the child forming a genetic condition during pregnancy. However, I want my children to be a productive and self-sufficient member of society. I do not want to have to care for my child 24/7 if they had Down Syndrome, as opposed to those who are willing to give up their time to do so. Having to care for a child in that position is a huge burden financially, physically, and emotionally and would rather me nor my s/o have to deal with that burden.

Thoughts?

 

you shouldnt even have kids, its all about adult hood and being parents, how could you be a good parent if you dont want anything wrong with your child, i thought about this too and i just dont know, i wouldnt want to get rid of my kid because i couldve been in that situation, i would want to give my kid the opportunity that i was given

 

I understand that things could happen to my child as he grows up, it's a risk I would take. But any risks before birth can be dealt with. How am I not a good parent if I want my child to be productive and want the best for him?

 

Having a debilitating condition in no way means you cannot contribute to society. What is contributing to society in the first place? Which society? The global society, the western society? Whichever, it may be harder for stereotypical contributions to be made, but it is certainly still possible.

I'm definitely pro-choice, but aren't such conditions detectable very late in the pregnancy? In practicality such late detection results in a very late term abortion (often illegal.) If it is not detectable until birth, then you're getting into the area of euthanasia and people deciding other people are worthless.

I would certainly prefer a child without such conditions and would hope for one whom isn't plagued with such conditions, but I imagine parents would often love the child either way and not write them off due to conditions they could not control.

They can only be dealt with if they're detected. If someone wants an abortion and the fetus still isn't at the threshold of being a living being then go ahead.

Also, kids are not mini versions of their parents. What you may see as the best for a child may be something the child wants nothing to do with.

 

i think they can do genetic testing to see if your future children will have anything you dont have, its dormant in you but can become active in your offspring, its like a 25 percent chance in some parents but thats if you have it, you cant really tell until the child is either in the womb growing or until after, and like he said, let your child decide, your job is to be a parent and support their decisions, i dont think i would get an abortion even in early detection, its like giving up on my kid, nah wont happen

 

It's a situational question, especially since i'm the guy and not the one doing the terminating. I don't have a problem with it though, a foetus has no rights, and no one has a greater property interest claim than the mother. You can't force someone to continue with pregnancy if they don't want to. If you don't like it, don't associate with them, tell them off for their choice, tell others about what they've done, but you can't forcibly stop them from doing it since it's their right to.

 

every organism has a right to life, whether you agree or not.


and ffs, everybody should stfu about the "productive to society" or "can/cannot contribute to society" -- in the end, everybody is after themselves, not society.

 

Taking a stance as broad as every organism having the right to life includes.. well.. every organism, which would make it a violation of said right to kill anything, whether it's hunting deer or cutting down a tree for firewood.

Most people take the stance that every human has the right to life. I took a medical ethics class that was very interesting concerning the rights & morality of life and death situations. In the case of abortion, you run into a slippery slope when defining when the fetus gains the right to life, whether it is when it is conceived, gains brain activity, a heartbeat, or up until delivery.

 

My best hopes for my child is them contributing to the civil society. Work hard, pay their dues, and success will follow. And yes, the stereotypical view of an able-bodied man or woman is what I mean. You can't tell me a normal person and a person with Down syndrome both have the same chances of becoming a lawyer, a nurse, a teacher, a construction worker, or even a police officer.

Every parent-to-be has done screening tests. Screening tests can be done in any trimester of the pregnancy, and although the results can't tell you if the fetus will born with any abnormal genetic conditions, it provides you with a ratio that shows the chances of your baby having problems. Now invasive diagnostic testing is different. This poses a slight risk to the baby because of having to insert a needle into the uterus, but amniocentesis testing or chorionic villus sampling can express with 99% certainty whether your baby has an chromosomal abnormality.

I'm not saying I would write off my child if they had a crippling condition. I would love my child regardless. Like I said before, my hopes for my child after birth are just that - hopes. Things can happen after birth and I would love my child regardless; but the chances are small and are a risk almost every parent will take and accept.

 

First of all, you should never be forced to have a child if you don't want to.

Whatever decision you choose to make should be a personal one, it cannot be forced on to you.

That said, I would weigh heavily in favour of aborting for the following reasons:

Given the conditions you mentioned, you are looking for a child , it is detected that he has down's syndrome.

1) You WILL have a child.
2) You have to choose between having a malformed child, and having a normal child.


Now ask to yourself, what is best for your wellbeing? Obviously, it is best for you to have a normal child, by a longshot, I know parents who have a retarded kid, and they love him, but its not a bright path ahead. Thus abortion

What is best for the child that will live? That is, what is best for the grown normal child should you choose to abort or the grown retarded child should you choose not to. Obviously, it is best for the child if he is healthy and not retarded, this one should be an easy answer once you understand the question. Thus abortion.

Now what is best for the child that will not live? That is, what is best for the normal child that is never conceived or the retarded child aborted.
Obviously it is better to have a child that was never conceived, than a child that was aborted. Since having a child that was never conceived should be indifferent, and having an aborted baby is not a good thing.
I consider this to be indifferent, as long as the abortion is painless. No one really suffers. But even if you do feel that aborting a baby is worse than not conceiving a child. You have to concede that it is certainly not a VERY bad thing. And to be honest, if it were a bad thing, it would be the only bad consequence of aborting a baby, while the bad consquences of not aborting it bestow greatly upon yourself and the child that WILL grow.

Just weigh it, on one hand you have a child that is aborted painlessly, sure bad for him, but on the other hand you have the health of your son, his wellbeing and your wellbeing.

And this argument doesn't even concern with wether it should be your responsibility to take care of the retarded child, this is just considers which of the 2 options yields the better outcome, rather than what is the right thing to do.

 

No.

I myself have a child and he suffers with conditions that weren't detected before birth and I treat him just like I would any other child.

Everyone is equal and that's how they should be treated.

 

But if you had a normal child you would have loved him just as much.
And he would have been happier.
And you would have been happier.

 

A person can be happy no matter what the conditions are.

Just because someone could be ill or have conditions which people may not see as normal that doesn't mean an individual cannot live their lives happily or I myself cannot be happy.

 

In that situation I would be in favour of abortion.

I myself suffer a lesser type of physical disability which is not recognised as a disability in my country. Manual labour / anything requiring somewhat decent balance in any part of your body, be it carrying things or just walking in a hazardous environment is not possible for me.

Given the choice, if I knew my child had the same disability or something else that is rather severe, I would rather have the child aborted. I physically won't have the ability to look after them when I'm older (when I'm nearing retirement age is when I'll probably experience a lot of complications), so I'd much rather have someone who can look after themselves when they reach adulthood.

 

thats saying, just because he has a kid with a disorder, he cant be any happier then if he had a kid without one, hes probably even happier, your statement is invalid

 

My thoughts exactly.

 

If all other things were equal, Pija already stated he would prefer his child did not have a genetic condition, and the child would obviously prefer to not be disabled as well.

Just saying "No, you and your child would both be happier if he were born disabled" is a ludicrous assertion.

 

I don't think most people would know how they would actually react in a pressured scenario like that.

 

its not ludicrous, you assume that just because someone is disabled that they automadically wish it didnt happen to them, yeah granted it sucks and they probably have thought about it, but others could care less about whats wrong with them, they embrace it because why not, better then dragging on about it, i can see what youre saying tho, no one wishes to be disabled, but sometimes disabled people are happier then normal people are, because they see the world in a different way because of whats wrong with them

 

Most people would sit down and carefully think it out, no? It's not like you have to decide in the next 5 minutes.