h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

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If I may so, that seems a very Heinleinian/Libertarian view! Death *is* abhorrent. Period, as you Americans say.

thanks for the clarification, Ste.
The couple I know (woman is Downs, the man not) must have been in the other 50% (i.e, their child is not affected.) I had always assumed that Downs must be 100% heritable, until I attended that seminar.
BTW, I know and have worked with 20-30 people with Downs, and that's one reason why I find it a pathetic excuse for having an abortion. All of the people I know with Downs syndrome have lives worth living, that they and their parents value, so on this topic I feel particularly strongly.

>>Death *is* abhorrent. Period, as you Americans say.<<

Della I'll take that as your personal experience, and your personal belief, rather than as an absolute, undeniable truth.

I've experienced things worse than death. Unfortunately I'm not alone in that.

And death isn't the big baddy for me that it is for some. Abhorrent certainly isn't a word I associate with death. It fits with why and how some people die for sure, but death itself is what we all get to do in the end, so why hate it so much?



And just in case you wonder, I did like Heinlein alot when I was younger (if we are talking scifi), but I am not a Libertarian.

kea, I said that because of my personal *recent* experience, which some people here know of, and which I would rather not mention right now, I'm feeling very vulnerable about it today...
Even so, Tamberlaine's remark struck me as being pragmatic not in a good way - issues of life and death are more than just resource and monetary issues!
The fact that resource-poor societies did dispose of disabled children doesn't mean that we have to now. People with disabilities have worth in themselves.
Yes, I know there are experiences worse than death - I've had such too,but in the circumstances I am in at the moment, it doesn't seem that way to me now!

"Channel 4 to screen graphic film of abortion"

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1185399,00.html

"An abortion is to be shown on British television for the first time. A Channel 4 programme will also use previously banned images of aborted foetuses in one of the most controversial television programmes broadcast in Britain."


"More than 180,000 abortions are performed each year, and it is now one of the commonest and safest medical procedures in Britain."





"My abortion and my baby"

http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1185537,00.html

"Julia Black had a termination at 21, and never questioned her pro-choice beliefs ... until she fell pregnant at 34. In this frank dispatch from both sides of the debate, she asks if it is possible to disentangle facts from emotions "

Della, yes, sorry I had forgotten about things in your personal life recently (or the things I know about). I haven't talked with you about that, but I have wondered how you and Ap are doing. That makes sense that you would be feeling deeply about death at the moment .

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In the context of the reference to Peter Singer's work, I think it's important not to talk about disabled children as a generic class. From the little I have read I doubt that Singer is talking about children with disabilites who have a chance at a qualtiy of life.

I also suspect that he isn't proposing that all severely disabled infants _must_ be left to die, but more that there needs to be a discussion about the value of such lives and to what extent we are valid in maintaining those lives compared to not maintaining others. I'm surmising as I haven't read enough of his work yet.


>>Even so, Tamberlaine's remark struck me as being pragmatic not in a good way - issues of life and death are more than just resource and monetary issues!<<

hmmm, so if we spend 3 or 4 times the usual amount of money to raise a severely disabled child are we not denying that resource to some other disabled child?

One of the issues I have with the anti-abortion position is this ideal that all these unaborted children (disabled or nondisabled) can have useful lives. In fact the way things stand at the moment there are too many children to look after properly, so it is a very straight equation of saving some children is to the detriment of others.

I think we in the West value the individual life too highly.

Obviously there is no doubt that people with disabilites have the same inherent worth as human beings as the undisabled. It never ceases to amaze me how selfish the undisabled are in general around issues of dis/ability. I think the disabled are in a more vulnerable situtation in society because of that and as such more care is needed with things like policy.

I also think that pragmatism is in the eye of the beholder. We make pragmatic decisions about people's deaths all the time. People die in NZ because we don't spend the money to save their lives, and that 's not even getting to poor countries. Saving or not saving the lives of severly disabled infants needs to be seen in this context too. I agree with whoever said that we usually find this too difficult to think about.


I'm also aware that even the term 'severely disabled' is a catch all phrase, and that each child is in an individual situtation.

Della,

I was hoping that you would clarify what you said earlier about people who believe a foetus is a 'potential human' would somehow naturally go on to not value the lives of living children. I'm sure you didn't mean to be insulting so perhaps you could explain how one way of thinking would 'lead to' the other.

az

Well, having said what I did about my personal experiences, and the psychological aspects thereof, if we're going to talk about the value of life, and individual lives, I think I would like to address some of these points. If I sound like I contradict myself at all, it's because it's not a black-and-white issue for me, please call me on it and I'll try to explain myself more clearly.

I agree with Kea, I also think that Western society places too great a value on the individual life. Not that I don't value my own life, or those of others. I may value certain *individuals* more than others, and their death has been, and would be, a huge loss to me. But as part of the big picture, no one life is necessarily worth more than another, and certainly not at the expense of others. It seems to me that much of Western society is built upon a largely Judeochristian notion that human beings were "created" in "the image of god", which (mistakenly, IMO) places a higher value on human life than on other life. It is only to human beings that human life has such great inherent worth.

I personally don't believe in taking dramatic measures to save one individual life. That is why I have a DNR order. Death is a natural result of having been alive, and modern medicine and technology have progressed to the point where the human race has pretty much overtaken natural selection. This might be good on a personal level, but it's led to overpopulation, the dessimation of many of the world's natural habitats, and the unnatural extinction of hundreds of species. It also puts a huge drain on society's financial resources, forcing society at large to support scores of children whose parents don't have the ability to care for them. Perhaps some of these people shouldn't be *having* these children in the first place? Perhaps some of the anti-abortionists, instead of pressing for legislation to ban abortions, should make a call for better sex education and easier access to reliable birth control.

Having been in a situation where it was quite likely I would have given birth to an extremely disabled child, I came to terms with the idea (to me, it is self-evident, but to some it isn't, so I will call it an "idea" as opposed to a "fact") that it would be terribly selfish and cruel of me to force another human being to live a life of suffering and pain, when I was in a position to prevent it. That disabled people can have long, productive, and happy lives is not in question. I know many of them who have. I also know that I wouldn't want to. So what is in question is whether or not, on an individual level, any one person should be forced to live such a life.

What Della said about people who believe a fetus is a "potential" life (including myself), in turn not valuing the lives of living children concerns me, too. Not just because it is a sweeping generalization, and in most cases is most certainly not true. But also because you hear all the time about fanatical anti-abortionists murdering doctors and nurses who provide this service. Not to mention that most of the anti-abortionists I've known have no qualms about sitting down to a steak dinner. It's wrong to terminate potential lives, perhaps for the greater good, yet it's perfectly fine to murder another human being in the name of a cause, or to slaughter living, sentient beings on a large scale, for personal convenience? I don't get it.

hi psychocandy (and kea),

Awhile ago I came across an article in the Guardian that talked about a small child, less than a year old, who had gone through a surgical transplant procedure replacing eight of her vital organs. And my first response to that was - why??? It even said in the article that her chances of living a healthy life afterwards were quite slim. Yet great expense and medical expertise was undertaken to save this one child from certain death as most of her organs were not functioning properly.

At the time I wanted to start a debate on this idea but held back lest I be thought of as insensitive or cruel. But it did occur to me that this was a serious issue to be looked at and discussed.

Also, the anti-abortionists seem to have this mandate that ALL life is sacred and should be allowed to happen, yet where are they when the mother cannot support this child or when the babies are born with serious disabilities?

President Bush is campaigning to have all elective abortions stopped in the US (though doing it very sneakily by first creating other laws that call a murdered pregnant woman a double homicide, for example). Also there is the case of the woman in Utah now in prison charged with murder because she chose not to have a caesarian and one of her twins died as a result. Yet Bush had no qualms about bombing and killing innocent babies in Iraq.

Has anyone looked at the links I posted earlier today about the film to be shown on British television showing a termination and including images of dead foetuses? I think this is a brave stance taken by pro-choice people to show the reality of the situation without the grotesquely unfair and sensational 'showing of dead foetuses' stance usually taken by anti-abortionists.

Also the statement given by the filmmaker in the other article shows just how difficult it is for women to make this choice.

az

My response to that news report about the child receiving 8 new organs was similar to yours. But I expect if the child were mine, I'd want to everything possible to try & save them.

On the cost issue, even though the NHS budget is limited, I'm not sure that denying such treatment necessarily means more people with other illnesses being treated. I suspect there are different budgets.

Regarding her life expectancy, I feel this is similar to the issue about going to every length to save premature babies. We end up with some severely disabled children. On the other hand, the medics are learning all the time, not only for the benefit of infants, but acquiring new techniques which can be applied in other situations.

It's a very tough call, Teasswill. Had that been my child I would have wanted every possible thing done as well. I was just trying to look at if objectively, if that is possible.

az

Definitely every disabled child is an individual. Because I have worked with people with disabilities, physical, intellectual and what we in the 'field' called 'multis,' for (gulp) 30 years, I am aware of this very much.
'Hard cases make bad law' is a phrase I came acorss once, and the 'multis' are the hard cases. But we needn't kill them. People with very severe disabilities will die at birth or shortly after, and I am sure that if I were the mother of such a child, I would find it easier to live with the knowledge that I had let her be born, and had met her outside the womb, even if only for a few hours...
Most of the people with disabilities that I have worked with since the '80s, even if they are multidisabled, are thinking reasonable people, who, as I said, value their lives, as do their parents.

Here is an article I found on a website I sometimes look at. Please note - I do *not* endorse the site, I look at it to see what kind of lunacy the Bushies are up to now. But nevertheless, the article is of interest...Note also, I have abridged it, but the link is below.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=37872

Graphic testimony in legal challenges to the recently passed federal ban on partial-abortion is revealing the truth about a barbaric practice, asserts a public-interest law firm involved in the cases.

The testimony at three trials – in California, Nebraska and New York – includes descriptions of the dismemberment and decapitation of unborn children moments before live birth, says the Washington, D.C.-based American Center for Law and Justice.

Abortion-rights activists argue the law, signed in November by President Bush, is so broad it infringes on women's "right to choose."

The ACLJ is supporting the Department of Justice in its defense of the ban and attending the trial in New York City.

A physician testified in the San Francisco trial – where Planned Parenthood is challenging the ban – he often must separate the skull of the unborn child from its body during the abortion in order to remove the child from the woman's body.

The child's head is the most difficult part of the body to remove, said the doctor, who requested his identity not be revealed.

"Dr. Doe" told U.S. District Court Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton he often delivers all of the child’s body with the exception of the head, which remains inside the woman, and then uses scissors to cut the neck and separate the child’s head from the body.

He testified he would then use forceps to crush the head before removing it from the woman's body.

An abortion provider in the New York City trial testified an unborn child often is dismembered during the procedure and does not immediately die after limbs are pulled off.

The baby remains alive until the head is crushed, he testified in a case in which the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Abortion Federation are challenging the ban.

The ACLJ says it will file friend-of-the court briefs representing members of Congress who sponsored the partial-birth abortion ban legislation approved by with wide bi-partisan support.

In San Francisco, a chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood testified she chooses methods that violate the new law because they are among the safest options.

The Partial-Birth Abortion Act is the first substantial limitation on abortion since the Supreme Court's landmark Roe vs. Wade decision in 1973.

The three cases are expected to reach the high court.

Insulting? Of course not! Did you take my remark as referring to people here? I certainly didn't intend that, no, I was thinking of Peter Singer - I had read a pamphlet he sent me in response to a letter I sent him about people with disabilities. His pamphlet, and the views he expressed shocked me to the core, as does the support he has got for his views on disabled children versus animals. AFAIK, he is also an animal rights activist. Disclosure - I am *not* an aminal rights person, the animals I like are cats, and that's about it, I am resolutely urban, and generally don't very much care. Yes, I am a carnivore, or omnivore, I should say, but unlike most NZers, don't eat very much meat..

Hello, psychocandy. First, I found your posting about your experience very moving, and I respect your courage.
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As a pro-life person, I can assure you that many of us *do* make these calls.
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Yes, we *do* hear all the time about it. But it actually is very rare in the USA and unknown in the world outside there!
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Yes, I am one of them. So? Eating meat is not murder, IMHO.
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As a pro-life person, I am consistent. I am against war, and against capital punishment, as I have endeavoured to explain elsewhere. Many pro-lifers are also against war, and I think many of the ideas you put forward as being those of pro-lifers are those of some in the *USA* which, I for one, am not.
Potential human life - no. Actual. There's no point in denying that. Abortion is the termination of a life separate from that of the mother, and it is human, not any other species. That should be acknowledged and the debate can proceed from there.

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In my case, assisting them. (That's one of the reasons) why
I do the job I do.
My penfriend Tom, is a man in the UK, who's in his 60s, and his son Mark was born with severe disabilities, which were exacerbated by an early vaccination. Mark cannot talk or eat, and is in a wheelchair. He has just completed a degree at Liverpool University. Mark is a valued member of society, and has achieved infinitely more than his parents were told he ever would when he was born.
I do not understand why pro-'choice' people want these films shown!

As far as I know Singer is primarily an animal rights activist and is only using the disabled children v animals debate as way to make a point.

>...I am sure that if I were the mother of such a child, I would find it easier to live with the knowledge that I had let her be born, and had met her outside the womb, even if only for a few hours...<

I personally know someone who has experienced this, and can tell you that for her, that was absolutely NOT the case. Especially as those few hours, for the child, were spent in severe physical pain and suffering. His death was a mercy. Maybe for other women, it would be easier to go through this. That is exactly why there is a need for the woman to have the ability to make the choice for herself. (I personally feel that to force another human being to endure even a few hours of pain and misery, for one's own gratification, is morally reprehensible. But that's just me. )

>...I am resolutely urban, and generally don't very much care...<

That was exactly my point, you don't care. I'm not an "animal rights activist", either. I do not, however, support the butchery of a living, sentient being with as much value as any human life (and in many cases, a great deal more so) while at the same time harboring antipathy towards a woman's right to terminate a "potential" life, which is neither capable of living on its own, nor sentient. Nor do I support the sort of reasoning whic would sacrifice an existing life, or quality of life, i.e., that of a potential mother, in lieu of a fetus which might or might not lead a fruitful life. Why? Because I care.

And, as an aside, to say "I don't like animals, except for cats, so I don't really care" would be like someone coming along who doesn't have the respect for life that most of here seem to have, and saying that they don't have a problem with abortion, and don't care one way or another, because they don't *like* children. It's just as repugnant and offensive.

I've already said I find late-term abortions to be downright nasty. But in many cases they are medically necessary to save the life of the mother. A total ban in these procedures is not the answer. You, I, no-one else, has the right to force our own ethics on another person, nor should anyone wish to see conservative lawmakers allowed to create legislation against an often very necessary medical procedure.

>Potential human life - no. Actual. There's no point in denying that. Abortion is the termination of a life separate from that of the mother, and it is human, not any other species. That should be acknowledged and the debate can proceed from there.<

I was referring to early-term terminations, which involve a fetus and not an actual human life. If the fetus is so underdeveloped that it could not feasibly survive outside the womb, then it stands to reason that terminating the pregnancy is in no way terminating a life separate from that of the "mother". It's not as if a fetus is a parasite, which can move to another host. It is part of the woman's body, and could not survive if removed.

Then again, I do realize I've butted in on a discussion on late-term abortions, which is another issue- as I've said, I only support thse procedures when they are medically necessary. I was born at 24 weeks, so I know fully well that at some point, there is a HUGE difference! That is why I consider myself to be pro-choice, but not necessarily "pro-abortion".

Della, if I seemed like I was getting snotty with you, I didn't mean to, Touchy subject, and people, myself included, can get very sensitive about it. I apologize if my comments were rude. And thank you for your kind words of understanding about my own experiences, I really appreciate it. Forgive me if I didn't show you as much respect for a moment there.

As far as those films that the links referreed to, I think I understand why the woman who made the film wanted them shown. I think it was to show that not every woman who has terminated a pregnancy, or who is pro-choice, fails to look at and understand the implications of her actions. I know I do. Abortion is often seen as an "easy way out". It most certainly is not!

OOps, when I typed "underdeveloped", what I meant to type was "undeveloped". Sorry.