What if this is what the future looks like?
I originally saw this post linked to at HMS, but I thought I would just give you the direct link. I don't know much about Darwin Catholic Blogger, but this post was pretty thought provoking. The conclusion to the post:
This discussion of terminating pregancies of potentially or definitely disabled babies is very timely if you watch Six Feet Under. This past week, Brenda and Nate learned that a pre-natal blood test indicates that there is a chance their baby has some sort of disability. An Amniocentesis would confirm the diagnosis. Nate is pushing Brenda to get the next test, and then terminate if the baby is disabled. Brenda, having already miscarried this season, not only doesn't want the amnio but wants to continue the pregancy regardless. One of the most disheartening things about this episode with respect to Nate is that even after he has an intense discussion with Maggie about what her life was like through the two short years of her terminally ill son's life, all he got out of it was Oh it's so hard, when Maggie was stressing how much she loved having her son in her life even for as short a time as that was. At the end of the episode, it is clear what Brenda's choice is as she proudly struts her pregannt self down the street in new cool maternity clothes (with some more in the bag).
Brenda is by no stretch of the imagination a "Jesus Freak." She is someone, though, that just suffered the loss of pregnancy (on her wedding day, even), and knows what it is like to anticipate and hope and dream. I remember when I started to bleed early in my pregnancy and having to go in for an ultra-sound to check on the baby. I was lying there, hoping the nurse would find it, hope that I would see it there, with its heart beating, in the right place. And while she was trying to locate the baby, and I can barely breathe, because she is stil poking around with the ultra-sound instrument (very early in the pregnancy the ultra-sound device that goes over the belly cannot see the baby, so you have to use one that, uh, goes up in), not finding anyone until---TA-DA--there he was, with his little heart pounding away. I exhaled, then realized that with all my anxiety of finding a living child in the right place just then, it would have been legal for me to terminate yet.
But back to the Darwin Catholic. In addition to public assistance possibly turning on parents of the disabled, what will our Insurance Companies do?
Anyway, just some wild stuff.
Okay, I'll stop being so serious.
It seems pretty clear that as pre-natal diagnosis of DS becomes more common, fewer and fewer babies with DS will be allowed to be born, and of those who are born, a large percentage will be from actively religious families. There may very well come a time in the not too distant future when having a child with a pre-natally detectable genetic disability is seen as something only "Jesus freaks" and "fundamentalists" do. And it will be interesting to see if there is then a push to reduce public assistance for families with disabled children, on the theory that it's "optional" to have such a child.
This discussion of terminating pregancies of potentially or definitely disabled babies is very timely if you watch Six Feet Under. This past week, Brenda and Nate learned that a pre-natal blood test indicates that there is a chance their baby has some sort of disability. An Amniocentesis would confirm the diagnosis. Nate is pushing Brenda to get the next test, and then terminate if the baby is disabled. Brenda, having already miscarried this season, not only doesn't want the amnio but wants to continue the pregancy regardless. One of the most disheartening things about this episode with respect to Nate is that even after he has an intense discussion with Maggie about what her life was like through the two short years of her terminally ill son's life, all he got out of it was Oh it's so hard, when Maggie was stressing how much she loved having her son in her life even for as short a time as that was. At the end of the episode, it is clear what Brenda's choice is as she proudly struts her pregannt self down the street in new cool maternity clothes (with some more in the bag).
Brenda is by no stretch of the imagination a "Jesus Freak." She is someone, though, that just suffered the loss of pregnancy (on her wedding day, even), and knows what it is like to anticipate and hope and dream. I remember when I started to bleed early in my pregnancy and having to go in for an ultra-sound to check on the baby. I was lying there, hoping the nurse would find it, hope that I would see it there, with its heart beating, in the right place. And while she was trying to locate the baby, and I can barely breathe, because she is stil poking around with the ultra-sound instrument (very early in the pregnancy the ultra-sound device that goes over the belly cannot see the baby, so you have to use one that, uh, goes up in), not finding anyone until---TA-DA--there he was, with his little heart pounding away. I exhaled, then realized that with all my anxiety of finding a living child in the right place just then, it would have been legal for me to terminate yet.
But back to the Darwin Catholic. In addition to public assistance possibly turning on parents of the disabled, what will our Insurance Companies do?
Anyway, just some wild stuff.
Okay, I'll stop being so serious.
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