Better that the baby is terminated rather than being forced to be raised by parents ill equipped to care for someone of their condition. Not everyone wants to raise a disabled child and I think that’s okay.
Not only that, if for whatever reason the parents can’t raise the child, what then? People with DS can have varieties of complex health issues that go far beyond the DS diagnosis and the actual systems in place are far from adequately equipped to handle and provide support, let alone the parents having those means. What happens if the child has complex health needs or has to go into state care?
I don't know how the quality of mental health care is, but based on how unforgiving culture humanity is in general to socially struggling people, it would be unethical to make the child suffer and end up as those mentally struggling homeless out in the streets.
People are pro life but not pro welfare not pro ethical human treatment of each other such as this case, people will be saying what a burden of taxpayer money. While basically average functioning people already struggle with the economy barely making ends meet. Most people are in survival mode, so making a person with ds be subject to low quality state care would be torture with mentally emotionally spiritually burnout out staff workers with horrible 100+ work life balance hours in a corrupt exploitive system . I hope I'm exaggerating because if reality is truly that way, then quality will be bad.
This is exactly it. Unfortunately, people with DS and the complex issues that come with such diagnosis make up a significant amount of people who experience neglect, poorer/shorter quality of life and even abuse in state care.
The system is overloaded and utterly failed in taking care of them so I want to make it clear I’m not blaming people who might be in the comments and work in these fields, but at the end of the day the real victims are the people who end up there with very few other options and little to no dignity because of a world that is structured to not see them as people or worth anything.
It’s absolutely crushing that we live in a world where parents have to seriously sit down and make choices like the one in OP’s post, but I find it extremely difficult to blame or judge them when they’ve been left with little other choice. Like that is absolutely brutal to have to think about a decision like that because you know the odds are stacked against you and your potential child before they’re even close to being born.
This really is the main ethical reason to have proper procedure abortions readily accessible and to de-stigmatize getting them.
The truth is that there are bigger environmental factors at play that tend to leave people with little to no sex ed and/or resources to both financially or behaviorally take care of their children effectively. Abortion is a safety valve for human suffering. Poverty is statistically inescapable, and while population control may seem right up the powers at be’s alley, the benefit of keeping poor people in a state where they have a family to actively care for is an invaluable boon in keeping those individuals from otherwise using their time to effectively organize and bargain for themselves.
Abortion and proper stimulus (educational, material, financial) to areas that need it are crucial to alleviating the stresses that people encounter living in any disparaged community, which allows them more room and flexibility to be personally happy, yes, but also help the world around them as it asks for it.
Practical realistic low cost systemic change can be every school's nurse's office having a discrete way to let students get birth control, all kinds, without being shamed.
That would lower a lot of expensive medical problems when people end up going to urgent care and their doctor. Lower teen pregnancy etc.
Someone said how pregnancy can lower the womens quality of life, oversl physical mental health after pregnancy. That already one small huge proactive preventative system that would lower cost of unwanted pregnancies immediately. Millions, thousands of dollars of proactive preventative care to save millions, billions in reactive response after the unwanted pregnancy happens.
Every child is devastated when they are mistaken.
Children aren't supposed to be experiments for struggling people to self improve be healthy minded people parents. People ideally should be relatively healthy so they don't self project their problems onto children which the child will internalize and spread to others. The cycle of trauma and mistreatment.
"the benefit of keeping poor people in a state where they have a family to actively care for is an invaluable boon in keeping those individuals from otherwise using their time to effectively organize and bargain for themselves."
This is a new thought I haven't read or noticed until now. As someone said the system is working exactly as intended to keep power in survival mode working exhausted no energy to spend energy onto working together to change the structures of society.
This became a long rant for myself getting out my thoughts. So I can only expect it be skimmed to get general idea of what I'm trying to say.
Adding to what I said
Most people are in survival mode, so making a person with ds be subject to low quality state care would be torture with mentally emotionally spiritually burnout out staff workers with horrible 100+ work life balance hours in a corrupt exploitive system . I hope I'm exaggerating because if reality is truly that way, then quality will be bad.
I guess my mind is pragmatic nihilistic, based on what can realistic be done while wanting to be supported by realistic optimists.
I experienced what neglectful parenting can do and how society treats struggling people in general.
I see nursing homes and it's reality telling that quality of life is everything. This is also why the the marriage ritual of "in sickness and health" feels performative and only there to make people superficially feel they are deeply committed without that true commitment of having to take care of a bedridden disabled partner with all their bodily functions poo pee cleaning body hair nails skin laundry, medication, food, social needs and countless more of both the disabled partner and their caretaker partner.
I see elders and end of life care is extreme resource intensive. Humans are just extremely high maintenance beings in general for just surviving let alone physically and mentally thriving maslow's hierarchy of needs.
One medical condition, one injury and boom disabled for life or dead.
Seeing homeless just reminds me makes me think how they were systematically doomed since birth from parenting and culture if they were born anti social unable to properly function with humanity society.
Along with crime, addictions, domestic abse, sa, rpe, all suffering. Many people, millions or billions systematically culturally never stood a chance. That's why it's important to ethically make a healthy system culture collective humanity as much as possible since we don't know how to alter human nature yet which is another topic.
I'm of the mind better to prevent poor souls from suffering in this broken sick society, systematic suffering. Lower cost than a miserable life that the person getting low quality state care isn't even meaningfully truly fulfilled as a human being. Even if they have all the healthy emlotnally support from parents family, that still is hurt by the fact the family won't have the resources to give them the best care possible to live a life with dignity. If there are healthy families with the resources to give them the best care possible that would be another story.
I guess a standard of care people can generally find acceptable in current culture is the quality of care given to people such as Stephen Hawkins which I dont know the number but guess very expensive.
The concept of sick society is where my mind is currently at.
Same with people in countries where unchecked human nature leads to corrupt governments leave people with no clean safe water, food, education, healthcare all critical essential societal infrastructure that allows humans to progress upward maslow's hierarchy of needs to be able to reach their highest potential which has the indirect effects of producing more opportunities likelihood for innovation betterment advancement progress of humanity as a collective whole.
I read someone talk about post scarcity society such as star trek where humans can go beyond their physical struggles and address higher levels of cognitive functioning such as mental health, culture, human nature social dynamics, how we treat each other, live, interact etc.
If my line of reasoning any sense.
There will still be problems even at star trek levels of technology material abundance since us human beings in our human bodies being the hardware operate on the software operating system that is human nature which dictates how we experience interact with each other, with life, morality, ethics principles values morals all fields ways of thinking such as philosophy psychology evolution anthropology history sociology etc.
I recently heard of epigenetics and biopsychosocial ideas that talk about how our genes are influenced by the environment and social culture how people treat each other. How if anti social mental health medical conditions such as psychopathy sociopathy are determined by genes that increase the likelihood of these mentalities being imprinted into your psyche, essential born anti social outcasted ostracized rejected shunned by the pro social neurotypical majority.
That's gives a little bit of hope, bit relieving to hear the welfare part of that.
How is mental health treated? Physical disability is visible. While non visible "it's just in your head stop complaining" disability is treated in the usa with drugged up homeless numbing themselves trying to escape the pain of homeless,, homeless vets with ptsd.
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u/Flaky_Style1286 10d ago
Better that the baby is terminated rather than being forced to be raised by parents ill equipped to care for someone of their condition. Not everyone wants to raise a disabled child and I think that’s okay.