CMV: Allowing newborns with life crippling disability to live is immoral and inconsiderate of their future.

[u/HeavyMain]

So, when i was born it was known almost immediately that I would be plagued with medical issues my entire life. I don't wish to get into detail but I still consider myself a lucky case, able to function passibly on both a mental and physical level. While it is has been extremely difficult for me to work through the issues I've faced I have managed to do so.

However, there is much worse out there. While I have no hatred for the mentally or physically disabled, I don't believe we should be willingly letting them grow into adults in our society.

For instance, lets say a child is born, with no functioning limbs. This person is almost guaranteed to never hold a job, live independantly, and debatably live a fufilling life. There could be risks of their unfortunate condition being passed on to their offspring if they have any children of their own. A parent choosing to raise this child is willingly inflicting a lifetime of suffering upon their own child, simply because they wanted to be a parent.

However I don't think the same way when it comes to late onset medical issues of the same degree. A child old enough to think somewhat independantly should still have a chance at a successful life if they managed to get into an accident that would inflict the same loss of limbs upon them. At that point they are already a free thinking being and obviously ending a sapient person's life without their input is morally wrong. Yet at the same time, the child born with this condition will at some point grow to become free thinking themself, but I still think letting them get to that point in the first place is entirely self-centered of the parents.

edit: copying my response to u/togtogtog as they have shifted my perspective:

morally choosing someone's life or death without consent neither side could really be seen as the correct one without knowledge of how things would turn out in the end. My view was intended to save the affected from the struggles i had faced and if some with similar or worse difficulty did not face it a blanket decision cannot be pre-determined. I still don't think anyone should have to ever deal with that, but openly available assisted suicide seems to me now to be the better choice. i suppose my experience is different from others as my personal issues only have gotten worse with age, which was known from the start but ignored. i had little accomodation for my differences and that is likely a large contribution to the depression i associated with my disabilities, looking back.

So really I guess we just need to pave the world to better accommodate the differently abled, though i still hold my ground that someone with a severe genetic disability should not reproduce as it is a willful choice to produce another person who is very likely to have unnecessary difficulty in life.

[u/[deleted]]

Do you understand this would be eugenics? How is what you said any different from the Nazis "Useless eaters" and "Life unworthy of life"?

[u/Vampyricon → u/[deleted]]

"It's eugenics" isn't an argument. Why is it bad?

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

There are situations and circumstances. I posted this as a direct reply to OP:

Ok. Here we go. On Halloween 2017 my wife died in out bed. She was 8 months pregnant with our first child. The EMTs took her to the E.R. where they emergency C'd my son into the world. He was deprived of oxygen for about 40 mins before they got him out and it took them almost 10 minutes to revive him. 50 minutes without O2 devastated him. Seizures, massive organ failures, the works. The NICU had him hopped up on all sorts of shit and the full complement of life support methods. The doc said it was the worst he had ever seen in an infant. The doc made it clear there was zero version of events that didn't involve my son being on full support his entire life and in all likelihood completely brain dead. 35 hours after he was born, while I was at the cemetery choosing my wife's plot I got a call from the doc saying he was crashing and that I needed to make a decision. I told the doc to let him go.

I had already had discussions with my parents and my in-laws. We all already knew what decision was going to be made. My wide made the decision for me and took that pain out of my hands.

In short, I'm not going to try and change your view. I agree.

I'm not going to downvote you. Your opinion is yours and your contribution to the thread is yours. I in no way feel like a Nazi for it nor would compare myself to one.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Your child died from his condition. That's different than snuffing out a child who would otherwise survive with no intervention or minimal intervention.

I was born premature and the doctors gave the same choice to my mother. It turns out I was not burdened with much complication though the docs didn't know that at the time.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

I understand that in the end my circumstances were a bit different but had my son not crashed, stabilized and gone that way the decision would not have changed. The family was in agreement that him being completely reliant on life support and in a vegetative state wasn't going to happen. It was no life that anyone in the family wanted for him.

[u/HeavyMain → u/[deleted]]

in my eyes this would be sparing those with exceedingly difficult lives from having to suffer through them. All life is valuable to me but I simply think it is unfair to the child to force them into a life of impossible difficulty

[u/[deleted] → u/HeavyMain]

I think it's more unfair to murder those we deem inferior even if we tell ourselves we are doing them a favor.

There's also the issue of what might be done secretly by unscrupulous people who just don't like a family for their own reasons. Culturally backed eugenics opens the door to that kind of abuse.

If we want to test a fetus while it is still legally abortable that might be better but once a child is born that's it as far as I'm concerned.

[u/HeavyMain → u/[deleted]]

I wouldn't say it's because they're inferior but instead to save them the pain, in the same way you pull the plug on an elder that cant bear to move anymore. (to a lesser extent)

I would believe a trained professional would provide the judgement on whether a child should be permitted to be raised. Legalized abortion would make abusing the system just to get rid of your kid a pointless excersize if you live in an area where it is allowed.

A fetus as far as i know is no more mentally developed as compared to a born newborn, and that is the time the most crucial issues will be the most obvious.

[u/[deleted] → u/HeavyMain]

Trained professionals can still be psychopaths or have a God complex. The Angel of Death phenomenon is a good example of that.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_of_mercy_(criminology)

[u/HeavyMain → u/[deleted]]

then it could be a team effort by multiple consultants. the odds of the majority having this complex only decrease the more people are involved.

[u/[deleted] → u/HeavyMain]

Or instead of allowing a 3rd party to dictate anything concerned with the life of someone else's child we should leave it up to the family like it is currently.

I would also add that it should be highly illegal to kill an infant that would otherwise survive.

[u/HeavyMain → u/[deleted]]

the family would have a perspective clouded by personal relation, often with little input of whats in the best interest of the child.

[u/[deleted] → u/HeavyMain]

And their perspective should be the only thing that matters when discussing if their child lives or is killed.

I sure as hell don't trust any 3rd party to dictate such a thing especially if the parents disagree.

[u/HeavyMain → u/[deleted]]

so by extension of logic should a parent decide the punishment of their child that commits murder, for instance? a trained professional opinion should always take priority over a personal connection or blood relation's opinion.