Introduction
I am currently enrolled in an ethics class. Within this class, which is online, we get to have "discussions" with classmates about topics presented from the textbook, or other related items of note.
What is shown below is my response to another student (who is a mother) that was advocating the aborting of a child if a disability had been diagnosed during pregnancy. Her point of view centered around how the "disabled" baby might not have an appropriate quality of life, and if the disability was too severe, the right decision would be to abort.
Gee I wonder which side of the argument I might be on, let's see...
Good day Moron,
If I
may let me add some perspective to your words around the abortion of a fetus
marked with a “disability”.
To
begin, I agree with you the term “disability” can have a spectrum of meaning. Personally,
I hate to harp on words, but I will say I despise the term. I like “differently
abled” (and I realize how ridiculously liberal and PC that may sound, but hear
me out). As someone with cerebral palsy on my right side I have personal
experience with what it means to have a “disability”. In reality, because my CP
predominately affects my right hand, I can do most anything any person can do, I
just may have to perform the task differently or it may take longer. This does
not impact my quality of life. In much the same way this applies to many people
with “disabilities”, those individuals simply need to approach a task or
problem in an alternative way in order to accomplish things. For instance, I would
have you Google “Jim Abbott” – he was a Major League Baseball player born
without a right arm. Merely watch a video of him pitching a no hitter game and
you will see what I mean more clearly.
Which
leads me to my next point: Much the same as the term “disability”, so too can
the phrase “quality of life” take on a variety of meanings. Even those with
what onlookers might call “severe disabilities” can in fact be happy, content
and enjoy life. Case in point; my work in a group home for the Division of
Developmental Disabilities showed me that a fourteen year old boy who was
blind, had cerebral palsy, was autistic and even confined to a wheelchair can
enjoy life. How do I know this? Because I saw the way his face would light up
when he heard music. By the way; B.B. King was one of his favorites.
Doctors
are fallible; likewise mothers and fathers are just as prone to off judgment,
misinformation and mistakes. Who is to say what one’s threshold for quality of
life should be in order that they may be allowed to exist?
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| Photo credit: disabilitynow.org.uk |
