Genetic & Sex Based Abortions?

Senator Santorum spoke this week about this. Would you abort a fetus with Down's syndrome? Rick says 90% of parents do who find out. think this is ethical? Reminds me a little bit of the Spartans who would abandon crippled infants on a hillside.

But consider the opposite side, the Santorums used pre-natal testing and found out the kid she was carrying would have a fatal disease that has killed most of the kids with it by age 4. Is it ethical to submit your child to four years of pain and constant medical procedures because you don't like abortion?

Or is it moral to abort babies because of their sex like China and India do?
I wonder how common it is in America too?

Is it moral to take a newborn infant off of the machines keeping it alive if it will spend the next 4 years in the hospital and in pain?

I do not think abortion should be used as a method of birth control nor do I believe it should be used if you don't like the sex of the child you are carrying, like China and India do.

I am unsure what I would do if I were pregnant and told my child had a fatal or chronic disease...I believe each case should be dealt with individually. I'm not going to judge parents because of the hard choice they made to abort a baby or pull the plug on a newborn.

I also do not believe this highly divisive subject should be political.

No doubt, these are tough decisions to make. And I think I would choose abortion in the Down's case, even though I grew up with an uncle who had Down's. He had a pretty good life and lived until he was 68, but he was alot of work.

The decision is so personal I doubt anyone can say what they would do until faced with that decision.....when I was pregnant with my daughter, I was almost 40, and had a history of Down's in my family (my sister, who died within days of birth) I thought long and hard about having amniocentesis to determine if the child I was carrying would carry the defect. We finally decided to have the test done, we would both be 40 when this child was born and questioned if we would be prepared to take care of such a child should she out live us....and if she did.....who then would be responsible? The decision never had to be made, she was fine and is the delight of our lives.....and to this day I still don't know what I would have decided if the test had been positive.

I do believe that every couple/parent has the right to make these decisions for themselves without interference from the medical community or the government.....it is just too personal.

I honestly have no idea what I would do... there are so many factors and so many things I want to think I would be able to say and do, but there's always that doubt...

What I will say is... I never want anyone in government making that decision for me in either direction, the freedom to make the choice should be private, and made in each circumstance by the parents and specifically the child's mother.

I think this is NO ONE'S business, or decision, except the affected persons...And the friggin' GOP should get out of the bedroom AND the doctor's office.

LadyJazzer wrote: I think this is NO ONE'S business, or decision, except the affected persons...And the friggin' GOP should get out of the bedroom AND the doctor's office.

Exactly... we can think it's ethical, or not, but it really should not matter one way or the other. People who make this decision are not making an easy decision, and I don't think any of us would assume that it's a quick, easy, or painless decision.

There are those out there who want to legislate it, and it isn't any of their business.

Matthew 7:1

LadyJazzer wrote: I think this is NO ONE'S business, or decision, except the affected persons...And the friggin' GOP should get out of the bedroom AND the doctor's office.

so you would be fine if a culture decided to abort all their female fetuses? A pre-genocide, a sexocide?

I don't think the government ought to get involved.

Most medical societies and hospitals have ethics boards that review decisions -

The government does not need to be in the business of encouraging or hindering private medical decisions.

FredHayek wrote:

LadyJazzer wrote: I think this is NO ONE'S business, or decision, except the affected persons...And the friggin' GOP should get out of the bedroom AND the doctor's office.

so you would be fine if a culture decided to abort all their female fetuses? A pre-genocide, a sexocide?

I would be fine if the government got their noses out of people's private decisions on how to handle their own business.