"The child will have a terrible life!"
On Abortion
Abortion-supporters may make the claim that abortion spares children from being born into unideal circumstances. "The mother isn't ready! She can't afford a child!" The claim that "a child will be miserable and so should be aborted" is a cold one. This attempts to equate abortion with mercy killing, and implies that even just a little bit of suffering is enough to deem a life as not worth living. But how can someone assess the value of someone else’s future life?
On average, in Iceland, just about one or two children with Down's syndrome are being born each year. How is this possible? Did they find a cure? Nope! They've just been aborting their children after taking a prenatal screening test. In a rather disturbing turn of events, it is estimated that, in Australia, 90% of pregnancies are terminated if Down syndrome is detected. Mothers are pressured to abort these babies. Similarly, spina bifida has also become cause for abortion. Putting aside for a moment the fact that these diagnoses are not always accurate (and I know of many testimonies in which this is the case[1]), note also that both of these conditions are completely compatible with life. My grandfather had spina bifida and was expected to live no longer than 20 years - however, after living a good life as pastor of his church and the father of three children, he died an old man. But had his life been only 20 years, it would have been no less significant for him to have lived it.
Every so often, an abortion-supporter says the quiet part out loud: "screening shows that the baby has a disability, therefore it should be aborted." More than that, mothers have been told that "you are selfish and irresponsible for not aborting your disabled baby." There are many instances of children being born with extreme brain malformations, and still live a number of happy years before passing on. Facing terrible odds, some babies live for only a few hours, but for that time, they feel the love of their parents. There is love. There is joy. There is stress. There is hardship. No life comes without suffering, and in no way is suffering grounds for taking the life of humanity's most vulnerable. Regarding the argument that abortion is justified if the baby is predicted to die within a few days, Brett Cooper of the Daily Wire comments: "You would rather abort your child than try to give it a fighting chance. Especially at a time when still many of these utero-diagnoses can be wrong."
Cooper also states, "We would have a society based on eugenics and not on the love of children no matter how perfect or imperfect they are." It would be so easy for me also to refer to "eugenics" in this context - but, somehow, I feel as though that would be too generous. The eugenicist desires to improve the genetic quality of human population, often through rather questionable and immoral means. However, today, I do not see that babies with Down syndrome are being aborted in pursuit of some betterment of human genetics - rather, it seems more likely that they are simply aborted due to the unwillingness of family and society to support such a child. It is a dark day when parents are no longer willing to love their child no matter how perfect or imperfect they are.
Any person who aborts their child on account of a disability is implicitly admitting that they don't want a child like them, that they see them as a burden, and that they believe the world would be better off if they were never to exist - "I don't want a child like you." Brett Cooper puts it this way: "They would rather try again and hope for something "better" than raise the child that they have just conceived." Nothing about such a view screams an equal regard for life. Any person who aborts based on a disability can no longer claim to regard disabled people with the same dignity as any other person - "You are more effort, and therefore less worthy of life." Above other examples, this is truly what it means to be ableist.
Some will baselessly argue that a child born into adoption will grow to be miserable. But in fact, through private adoption agencies, almost all babies are adopted within the first month after birth. In domestic infant adoption, the number of children who aren’t adopted is pretty much zero. There are an estimated 1-2 million couples waiting to adopt in the US, and Guttmacher’s figures show that there were 930,160 abortions in the US in 2020 (up from 916,460 in 2019). Some sources estimate that there are as many as 36 families for every one child placed for adoption. Babies are adopted almost instantly; however, it is true that older children are slower to adopt. The average child waits for an adoptive family for about three years, and the average age of children waiting for an adoptive family is eight.
The adoption system is not to be confused with the foster care system, though they do cross over. Foster care homes children who are temporarily unable to live with their family due to crisis, unsafe conditions, abuse, neglect, etc. Most children who leave foster care never return to it – many return to their parents/carer, go live with a relative/guardian, or are adopted out. These systems aren’t perfect, but they could be far worse, and it should be highlighted that the effectiveness of the adoption and foster systems are an issue separate from whether abortion is morally permissible.
Whether disabled or adopted or abused or poor, these are people who are worthy of life, dignity, and care. A chance at happiness and purpose is better than no chance at all. By being alive, a person is given an opportunity to be happy – abortion strips that opportunity away. How arrogant and anarchic for someone to judge another person’s life as not worth of living, and then act upon said judgement.
[1] Note that being "at risk" is no guarantee. There have been many instances of children being born perfectly healthy despite the warnings of medical professionals.
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