Asymmetrical Information

Megan, I must say that I cannot understand your point. Are you blaming Ms. Findling for her decision because she "caused" the situation? She did not choose to have her unborn son develop a grave medical condition that would make it almost impossible to live a normal life. If anything, I would consider her decision far more justifiable than that of a woman who aborted a normal fetus merely because pregnancy was inconvenient (not that a woman in the latter position shouldn't have the choice).

I am not trying to debate her choice. I'm just flabbergasted by her use of hte phrase "I regret having been put in the position to have to make that choice." "Put in" generally implies an actor who did the putting.

Okay, I understand what you mean. I suppose one could say that Fate, or Chance, put her in that position.

She's pissed at God. But, I bet God isn't thrilled with her choices either.

By having the abortion, who exactly is the woman sparing, the child who has to grow up with Down's Syndrome or herself?

A child can be born with every deformity known to medical science. What he or she needs is to be loved unconditionally.

The real heroes are the many parents who raise handicapped children.

What if in the future science positively identifies the "gay" gene, and it can be detected early in pregnancy? No doubt there are people who would opt for abortion because (a) they do not want a gay child or (b) they want to "spare" the child of the hardship of growing up gay, facing ridicule and discrimination, and possibly violence. Would Ms. choose to celebrate such abortions?

"I don’t regret my decision — but I regret having been put in the position to have to make that choice. It’s something I’ll live with for the rest of my life.”

At face value this could be read that legalized abortion forces women into impossible choices - of choosing life or death for a developing human being. I had never thought about how that choice is quite a burden, amplified here even more since the pregnancy was sought. "Regret having been put in the position" could be read to mean that abortion should be illegal to unburden women of this distressing moral choice.

Although the quote above could be read that way, I really doubt that was the intended meaning of the speaker.

Okay, I'm certain I'll get flamed for this, but why should the decision to have an abortion be "emotionally devastating"? or "something I’ll live with for the rest of my life"? I mean if it is strictly the author's decision, having no effect on anyone but her, and anyone offering up an opinion is trying to tell her what to do with her own body, it doesn't really make sense that it should be viewed more significantly than any other minor elective surgery.

She did not choose to have her unborn son develop a grave medical condition that would make it almost impossible to live a normal life.

Luckily for her unborn son, instead of an un-normal life, she chose to have him live no life whatsoever. Boy, that lucky bastard really dodged a bullet.

Another signatory, Debbie Findling of San Francisco, described her difficult decision last year to have an abortion after tests showed that she would bear a son with Down syndrome.

Beware of observer bias. I don't see you quoting many CNN polls here, and I don't think you've ever attacked Moveon for the Hitler ad they didn't produce. I also don't think you should damn the effort for what appear to be solicited, unedited comments (?? They appear to be, but I'm not sure) on a controversial topic.

I'm not saying that person wasn't being honest in her thoughts. I'm saying we don't know.

Overall, I have mixed feelings about the publishing effort. I'm pretty strongly pro-choice, and a man, so take that for what you will. I like the idea, and I think it is powerful. I find the tone and method odd, and unlikely to end up with the best article they could have.

It still surprises me how many anti-choicers show up here to make bad arguments. I expect the ones that can make good arguments. I just don't know why the others bother anymore.

Because obviously she's NOT okay with admitting what she did. She's okay with having an abortion because the Man or Nature or God made her have to choose between an imperfect child and her convenience, not because she made that choice.

--Apparently, Ms Magazine is planning to feature women who had an abortion and aren't ashamed. Which is as it should be, in the sense that you shouldn't do anything you're ashamed of.

Well, that's a curiosity of confusion of the present and the past. Just because I managed to do something at the time that didn't make me ashamed doesn't mean I won't live to feel ashamed about it.

But if you can find a way to blame Fate or Life or God or Nature, then it's still possible to avoid responsibility and shame.

--why should the decision to have an abortion be "emotionally devastating"? or "something I’ll live with for the rest of my life"? I mean if it is strictly the author's decision, having no effect on anyone but her, and anyone offering up an opinion is trying to tell her what to do with her own body, it doesn't really make sense that it should be viewed more significantly than any other minor elective surgery.

And yet, for some reason, she found it devastating. Huh. Imagine that. Choosing to end your child's life isn't always as easy as minor elective surgery after all.

A third interpretation is that she's saying that she regrets being forced to make a choice that was emotionally difficult--and she didn't know that terminating her pregnancy would be difficult, and regrets that it was.

Who, exactly, "put" her in the position "to have to make that choice" . . . the baby?

The Down's Syndrome put her in the position "to have to make that choice". Having a baby at 42 may vastly increase the chance of that event, so it is proper for her to accept the corresponding fraction of the responsibility. But that fraction is more like 10%, not 100%. The other 90% is plain bad luck. I don't think that invalidates her choice of words.

(For the record, I completely support her decision to abort. Aborting the Down's fetus and adopting another child is in practice a strictly better decision than raising the Down's child, under all reasonable metrics I can think of.)

She made the decision to get pregnant at 42, an age at which it is known the risk of creating a child with Down's Syndrome is higher, and somehow she gets just 10% of the responsibility?

I think Jane is taking the comment too literally. It is not some other that she refers to when she says she "regrets having been put in the position..." but LIFE, in general. shit happens, as they say.

There was no luck involved, she took a known risk when she decided to get pregnant at 42. Once it was determined that the child was Down's Syndrome she took resposibility for deciding whether it was best to bring that child to term, or not.

She regrets having had to make the decision, but I don't see, in her remarks, that she is trying to deflect responsibility either for the situation or the decision.

I'm not an anti-choicer, but I disagree with her choice. I work with people with disabilities and have two relatives with Down's. In fact, I'm covered under ADA myself now, although I don't think of myself as disabled. Able-bodied people are so quick to judge the quality or the value of the life of the disabled.

Even if she didn't feel she had the gumption to raise a Down's syndrome child, it would have been a beautiful lesson for her 5 year old daughter that all life has dignity and value... if she had the baby and gave it up for adoption.

Now the 5 year old daughter knows her mommy's love is conditional. I love you because you weren't disabled...you were perfect and undamaged. God forbid she* gets in an accident and is in a coma and this conditionally-loving family has to decide whether to pull the plug on the newly damaged goods. They have already shown how ruthless they are.

* Left intentionally vague. Mother or daughter.

It occurs to me that "living without shame" is almost a definition of freedom.

But there are two ways to achieve such freedom; living with total integrity, and living totally without integrity. I'm thinking that in larger groups the latter becomes predominant - as rationalization becomes more valuable than reason.

Of course if a person is not created at the point of conception ("life" is way too vague as not every life is equally valuable) then heavyweight moralizing is entirely off the mark. On the other hand 16-18th week is sufficiently late (2nd trimester) to have second thoughts -- which probably best explains the emotional condition.

For the record, I completely support her decision to abort

And it's not as if she made a bizaare or shocking decision. I have read that about 85% of women who discover that their fetuses have DS choose to abort, though how that can be determined escapes me.

I think, reading between the lines of her thoughts, that Findling is trying to acknowledge that she put herself in the position of having to make that choice. However, she is finding it difficult to actually say this. There is a perfectly descriptive word for such reluctance, but to state it would contradict the premise of the entire Ms. article.

For what it is worth, I am also pro-choice.

For the record, I completely support her decision to abort. Aborting the Down's fetus and adopting another child is in practice a strictly better decision than raising the Down's child, under all reasonable metrics I can think of.

I suspect this statement is utterly unfalsifiable, because its author will reject any metric that points towards not aborting as an unreasonable metric. In other words, I suspect there is a "no true Scotsman" fallacy lurking here.

And it's not as if she made a bizaare or shocking decision. I have read that about 85% of women who discover that their fetuses have DS choose to abort, though how that can be determined escapes me.

One should not discount the possibility that a decision may be common, and still be shocking.

Also, there is a selection effect at work. Women who have no intention of aborting a DS fetus are much less likely to have amniocentesis or other tests aimed at determine the DS status of their child.

As the parent of two special needs children (autism), I realize that if we could have detected the autism in utero, and aborted the children, my wife and I would have been spared the devastation of two diagnosis, the frustration of a medical community who can't agree on a course of action, the long hours of parent and therapist directed treatments, the average $30,000 a year in after tax, uninsured medical expenses, the bankruptcy, foreclosure, car repossessions, etc.

I also would have been spared coming home from work to two (overly) energetic, smiling boys running to the door shouting, "Daddy!" usually dressed up in Star Wars or Buzz Lightyear costumes.

For other perspectives on the "tragedy" of children with disabilities, you should check out:

The Abortion Debate No One Wants to Have

and the 'Serenity Prayer' of many parents with special needs children:

Welcome to Holland.

My wife and I look at each other at least 3 times a week and say, "Welcome to Holland."

Bob

I find it amusing the a lot of "Pro-choice" women have a double standard when it comes to extending choice/reproductive rights to men.


A man’s right to choose

Is it fair that women have reproductive rights while men have reproductive responsibilities?

Note to self: don't bother reading comments on abortion threads, they'll give you an ulcer.

Boy, it must be tough to have aborted a child with Down's Syndrome. Although ninety percent of these children are lost to abortion, there are still enough of them around that she's going to run into one now and again, for the rest of her life, and be confronted with the smiling faces of real people, children and adults, who --- if they were HER child --- she'd believe them better off dead.

Every time she sees a person with Down's Syndrome, it will get harder to maintain the fiction that she's done the right thing. Because, while children and adults with Down's syndrome have problems, it's true, it's hard to argue that their lives are unworthy of living when so many families live with and love them.

Boy, it must be tough to have aborted a child with Down's Syndrome. Although ninety percent of these children are lost to abortion, there are still enough of them around that she's going to run into one now and again, for the rest of her life, and be confronted with the smiling faces of real people, children and adults, who --- if they were HER child --- she'd believe them better off dead.

Every time she sees a person with Down's Syndrome, it will get harder to maintain the fiction that she's done the right thing. Because, while children and adults with Down's syndrome have problems, it's true, it's hard to argue that their lives are unworthy of living when so many families live with and love them.

Nice post Bob.

Ms. Findling was 42. She knew the risks of pregnancy. She should have anyway.

My wife was pregnant at age 37. The OB Doc told us that we had a 1 in 260 chance of conceiving a Down's Syndrome child, specifically because of my wife's age. Fortunately for us, our daughter was healthy and normal, but we knew going in that if God blessed us with a Down's Syndrome child, then we would have her/him and love our baby.

At 38, a woman has a 1 in 130 chance at a Down's child. At 39, it is 1 in 65. At 40, it is 1 in 35. At 41, it is 1 in 20. At 42, she has a 1 in 10 shot at having a Down's child. Ms. Findling shouldn't be the least bit surprised this happened to her.

---Aborting the Down's fetus and adopting another child is in practice a strictly better decision than raising the Down's child, under all reasonable metrics I can think of.

I have two issues with that: First, in this specific case, she didn't say she had decided to adopt. The quote from Jane said that she was trying to get pregnant again. What if the second child has DS as well?

Secondly, this raises the question of if there are any "bad" reasons to have an abortion. D---- asked above if it would be OK to abort a potential gay child if we get to the point of being able to detect that. Well, we can tell the sex of the child and women do decide to abort based on that decision currently. Usually that means aborting a girl because a boy was desired.

Reagan asks "Secondly, this raises the question of if there are any "bad" reasons to have an abortion."

A year or two ago there was an op-ed somewhere (NYT?) by a mother who, in a wanted pregnancy, found she had triplets. She decided to abort two of the triplets because, essentially, she thought it would be too much work.

A lifetime pro-choicer, reading this abominable woman's article came pretty close to making me pro-life.

Her reason for aborting two out of three fetuses? In her own words, because she didn't want to have to shop at Costco for mayo (no, I'm not making this up, and I don't think I'm distorting it). I would love to ask her when she is going to tell her one surviving triplet that she killed her two siblings for convenience's sake.

So, yes, there are bad reasons to have an abortion, at least as far as I'm concerned.

Paul said:

"At 38, a woman has a 1 in 130 chance at a Down's child. At 39, it is 1 in 65. At 40, it is 1 in 35. At 41, it is 1 in 20. At 42, she has a 1 in 10 shot at having a Down's child. Ms. Findling shouldn't be the least bit surprised this happened to her."

These numbers are off, the odds at age 42 are more like 1 in 60. See here.

Jane Galt said:

"As long-time readers know, I'm a conflicted pro-choicer who thanks God every day that she never had to make that kind of decision."

If you can thank God, why can't Debbie Findling blame God (or fate or whatever)?

In Canada recently a young woman was sentenced to 6 years in prison for murder after stangling her newborn baby and throwing the corpse over a fence.

Under Candian law if she had simply intervened 5 minutes earlier by watching for the head to emerge slightly, and then puncturing the skull with a screwdriver she could then have still flung the corpse over the fence but would have paid a fine for improper disposal of a corpse, and maybe another fine for practicing medicine without a license.

This bizarre--and frankly evil--state of affairs obtains because Canada has no law whatsoever against abortions of any kind. Make the mistake of waiting an extra few minutes though and BAM, you're a murderer.

Anyone who can swallow all this with equanimity is so spiritually empty that they seem only halfway human. All abortion involves the intentional taking of human life.

Zak,
You are correct. It was a New York Times Magazine article entitled, When One Is Enough

Bob

James,

I think the article you are quoting for Down's numbers, is slightly off. That was printed in 2000. My wife was pregnant in 2003. I trust the numbers I saw in the medical office more than I do that chart. I remember looking at the chart. The number I was most concerned with was the "260" number with respect to her age. Pretty much, each year older the woman is after 37, her chances of having a Down's child doubles.

Frightening.

bearing,

She'd best avoid WalMart and Wendy's in the future, both of which employ numbers of Downs employees.

"Aborting the Down's fetus and adopting another child"

Said as if there are lots of children available for adoption.

Well, okay, there are. If you're willing to start with a kid who already walks and talks, and has probably been emotionally scarred by neglect or tragedy.

But if you want an infant -- even an infant with Down's Syndrome or the victim of maternal drug abuse -- you're going to have to wait in line and take a baby that's already guaranteed parents, because there'll be someone standing behind you in line, too.

(Well, or you can expend significant money and effort on getting an overseas infant.)

Of course, this similarly points out that if you went and had the Down's Syndrome baby (or, say, all three triplets), you could give it up for adoption and know it's going to wind up with a loving family that knows what it's getting into to start. Of course, late-term pregnancy and giving birth is more stenuous than having an abortion.

An end to legal abortion, of course, would probably cause a surplus of adoptable infants. But at the current time, an abortion in the U.S. is not preventing an unwanted child from being born, because every infant is wanted. Just not necessarily by the person with the burden of giving birth to the child.

She made the decision to get pregnant at 42, an age at which it is known the risk of creating a child with Down's Syndrome is higher, and somehow she gets just 10% of the responsibility?

Sorry about that. 10% is far too high -- as James Shearer pointed out, the actual odds of a Down's child at age 42 are 1.5%.

The actual numbers matter, not just the fact that they're increasing. 1 in 67 is not an unreasonable risk to take, given that abortions are legal, even if it is a much greater risk than would occur at age 24.

I have two issues with that: First, in this specific case, she didn't say she had decided to adopt. The quote from Jane said that she was trying to get pregnant again. What if the second child has DS as well?

If her preference ordering is

1. Raise a probably healthy child that she makes a 50% genetic contribution to

2/3. Raise an unrelated probably healthy child

2/3. Don't raise a child

4. Raise a Down's child

Then her actions are rational, as long as the gap between #1 and #2 is large enough to cover the time investment, the costs of pregnancy and the genetic defect risk. If the second child has Down's as well, then she'll obviously forfeit her investment and abort again; the chance of that happening is low enough such that her choice may still be +EV.

Incidentally, given that the majority of Down's fetuses are aborted, this preference ordering appears to be the most common.

Seeing living evidence that someone else either (i) has different preferences than you, or (ii) made a bad decision, shouldn't be a shocking event at all. I don't see how you can make it to age 42 without seeing such things tens of thousands of times.

I suspect this statement is utterly unfalsifiable, because its author will reject any metric that points towards not aborting as an unreasonable metric. In other words, I suspect there is a "no true Scotsman" fallacy lurking here.

Okay, I'll concede that. That said, all "unreasonable metrics" people mention seem to have to reference the supernatural. While I'm not inclined to get in the way of others' supernatural beliefs, that's under the condition that they don't interfere with my lack of belief.

Every time she sees a person with Down's Syndrome, it will get harder to maintain the fiction that she's done the right thing. Because, while children and adults with Down's syndrome have problems, it's true, it's hard to argue that their lives are unworthy of living when so many families live with and love them.

Again, the proper comparison is to adoption. In both cases, you have decided not to care about propagating your own genes (you don't raise a Down's child because you're counting on them to provide you grandkids...) because you value the experience of raising a child. The difference is that practically all adopted children have enormously greater potential.

The key concept is opportunity cost. Just because you're inclined to label such thinking "inhuman" doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

Well, okay, there are. If you're willing to start with a kid who already walks and talks, and has probably been emotionally scarred by neglect or tragedy.

But if you want an infant -- even an infant with Down's Syndrome or the victim of maternal drug abuse -- you're going to have to wait in line and take a baby that's already guaranteed parents, because there'll be someone standing behind you in line, too.

(Well, or you can expend significant money and effort on getting an overseas infant.)

Between these options, most if not all people who don't take certain supernatural beliefs seriously can find at least one choice that both provides them a better expected return on their parental investment and benefits society more as a whole.

I had a friend in high school who was hung up on the "peronsally pro-life, in that I would never choose to have an abortion, but what other women do is their own choice" schtick, completely oblivious to the fact that she was simply expressing the pro-choice position in a convoluted way. (As I recall, a strong Catholic upbringing was the clapper ringing this bell of cognitive dissonance.)

This piece here reads roughly the same. It seems to be a weasel-wording approach, designed to avoid confronting the fact that she doesn't fully believe what she is saying.

Anony-mouse,

As I see it, it comes down to threat. I don't care enough about most people to feel the need to pass laws to control their behavior unless they constitute a threat to me. People who kill other people might decide to kill me. People who steal from other people might decide to steal from me. But people who kill their own children for convenience are not a threat to me. Its not like there's a shortage of people in the world. They're just freeing up resources.

So I don't find any contradiction in being personally pro-life and socially pro-choice.

I am trying to find the joke in that statement Randy. Hopefully no one really believes that? And clearly there's no proof that as you say, "people who kill their own children for convenience are not a threat to me."

I'd argue that if someone is willing to kill THEIR OWN child for convienence perhaps they are the greatest threat there is...

Maybe my sarcasm detector batteries are running low.

Anyway, all talk of "super natural" beliefs aside, I'm not sure what part of your right to your body does not supercede the right of the life within you to develop. In the vast majority of all abortion cases (ie, instances where the mother and/or baby may die if the pregnancy goes to term) you're pitting selfish determination against a developing human lifeform. I truly feel sorry and disgusted for anyone who sees otherwise.

I think Randy might be trying to be sarcastic in the sense that he is explaining why there isn't as much outrage towards abortion as there should be. Nothing ever happens unless it happens to you. It is the personalization of everything in life. If someone wants to have an abortion, that is their business so long as they can't abort YOU or YOUR child. This reasoning is justified based on laziness towards making a logical argument to end the murder of 1.5 million innocent US citizens annually, or just a lack of caring so long as you can live as you see fit.

One can extraplocate Randy's logic in the war in Iraq. Saddam butchered and murdered 300,000 - 500,000 of his own people. And those who are against the war may even understand and agree with this. But to them, this doesn't justify an invasion because Saddam wasn't a threat to them, personally.

I'd argue that if someone is willing to kill THEIR OWN child for convienence perhaps they are the greatest threat there is...

Greatest threat? Quite possibly. Among those who disagree with you, the most intelligent and rational are often the most dangerous.

Anyway, all talk of "super natural" beliefs aside, I'm not sure what part of your right to your body does not supercede the right of the life within you to develop.

When we say that "the right to X" exists, that means we believe that we're better off as a group when we enforce everyone's access to X than when we don't. There are some values of X that just about everyone agrees on. These are sometimes called "natural rights", and it is reasonable to treat them as axiomatic in a moral discussion.

However, the "right of the life within you to develop" is not such an obvious right.

am not trying to debate her choice. I'm just flabbergasted by her use of hte phrase "I regret having been put in the position to have to make that choice." "Put in" generally implies an actor who did the putting.

I think she simply means - I feel bad about the fact that I had to decide between having a down sydrome baby and having an abortion. I really wish that he had been healthy.

Ok Dog of Justice,

Prove it. You're trying to be logical saying some things are "rights" and some aren't. Where did those rights come from?

What's more basic than the right to be born (or at least have chance at it) once you've been conceived? That's how every single one of us got here today.

I think I can make a better case that the right to be born (which is inherent in the creation of every single person that has ever existed throughout all time) is more pervase and important than the right to decide you don't want to be pregnant.

kentuckyliz - Now the 5 year old daughter knows her mommy's love is conditional.

This assumes that all people who see abortion as wrong also believe that abortion is equivalent to murdering a newborn. Not all people believe that.

Additionally, an action doesn't have to be emotionally wrong to be scarring.

Paul L. - Is it fair that women have reproductive rights while men have reproductive responsibilities?

The most basic argument in favor of a woman's right to choose is that a person can control their own medical choices. Should a married woman be able to legally force her husband to get a vasectomy?

If a child is born, then the rights of the child should supercede the rights of the parents.

Additionally, an action doesn't have to be emotionally wrong to be scarring.

Sorry, that should read 'morally wrong'

You're trying to be logical saying some things are "rights" and some aren't. Where did those rights come from?

An evolutionary process where societies which supported "natural rights" consistently outcompeted societies which didn't support them.

I think I can make a better case that the right to be born (which is inherent in the creation of every single person that has ever existed throughout all time) is more pervase and important than the right to decide you don't want to be pregnant.

Perhaps. But whichever way it goes, it is more like a 60/40 judgment, rather than 99/1, which is the case with many "natural rights".

Societies which allow their members to abort Down's fetuses gain at least a small competitive advantage over societies that force their members to continue to invest in them for negligible return. On the other hand, it may be the case that nobody has yet figured out a way to capture this advantage without giving up a greater advantage elsewhere. After all, people have (i) bounded rationality, and (ii) aren't always trying to act in society's interest. Indoctrinating most people with a set of lies that promote good social outcomes is often a more successful strategy than giving everyone more information and more freedom. I consider it a miracle that the US allows as much freedom as it does.

Though not a huge fan of MS, I'm tempted to read this article. I've had 2 abortions - neither scarred me in any way. I should disclose that I've always known I did not want kids, so an abortion is probably no sweat to women like me. I think getting all 4 wisdom teeth pulled is a far more traumatic procedure!

RE: Down's Syndrome. I worked in the area of vocational services for the mentally retarded for 10 years, in 3 different states. I met many delightful individuals with DS. However, I've also seen the worry on the faces of elderly parents who are worried about what will happen to their kids once they are gone (said "kid" could be 50 years old, but I rarely saw a parent address their adult child AS an adult or NOT call them a "kid"). I would certainly abort a DS fetus for the simple reason that I could not bring a person into this world that I KNEW may never be completely free of the need for support from somewhere - the State, other family members, ect. I don't think I ever met a DS individual that was truly financially independent - many work but still maintain SSI benefits (my terminology may be spotty, it has been a while). You can paint a rosy picture of how wonderful an experience this could be - but in the end - someone ELSE will have to take care of this individual once you are gone.

Further, not only did this woman spare herself the experience of raising a disabled child, she also spared her existing child the future resposibility of taking care of her younger sibling.

That "Welcome to Holland" story is interesting but doesn't really apply to the situation now under discussion. I see it as being appropriate in much milder change-of-plans situations: you want your son to go to a prestigious college, but instead he decides to learn a skilled trade and enter the workforce after high school; or, instead of taking music and dance lessons as you'd planned, you daughter decides that her real interest is playing basketball.
It is scarcely appropriate when instead of a normal child you have a mentally disabled one who'll never be able to function independently.

Dog--

You said, "Societies which allow their members to abort Down's fetuses gain at least a small competitive advantage over societies that force their members to continue to invest in them for negligible return."

The same could be said of societies that allow their members to kill their 3 month olds that contract Spinal Meningitis and have their brains cooked to a fine stew. I assume that you do not mean to imply that that would be a reasonable option.

Having children on a personal level is costly and in more ways than just financial. You have to advance the formula past "expected returns on parental investment" to justify having children. I would contend that in this day and age when I do not have to depend on the kids to keep the farm going when I am old and weak, that the decision for the missus and I to have children is the opposite of your contention in the 8:08 post. It is in society's interest, not ours. (And my thanks for forcing me to ponder the issue and clarify my position.)

Ryan,

As of 2000 in the state of Ohio, a woman could not force a man to get a vasectomy but she could force a man not to. That is, I had to get my wife's approval in order for me to get one. That is way more control over my reproductive rights than I have over hers.

All,

I am mostly pro-life. This is based on scientific reasons, not my belief in the supernatural. Am I the Lone Ranger out here?

Just curious, that's all.

Paul,

Re; "This reasoning is justified based on laziness towards making a logical argument to end the murder of 1.5 million innocent US citizens annually, or just a lack of caring so long as you can live as you see fit."

Honestly, I don't think the default is that I have an obligation to interfere in other people's lives. I think the default is that my primary obligation is to leave people the hell alone.

Further, there are seven billion people in the world - three hundred million in the US. I haven't got the time or energy to really care about more than a few dozen of them. And my concern for the rest is simply that they do not pose a threat to me or to those I do care about.

I started this by saying I was personally pro-life and socially pro-choice, but I realize now that I am neither. Both terms, as generally applied, assume that it is necessary for me to take a position on matters concerning people I don't care about. I don't think that is ever necessary. I would go so far as to say that people who claim to care about things they have no business caring about are themselves a bigger threat than the issues they claim to care about.

Dog of Justice writes,

The key concept is opportunity cost. Just because you're inclined to label such thinking "inhuman" doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

Oh, I don't label this thinking inhuman at all. Wrong-headed thinking and selfish decisions are a hallmark of humanity.

I'm sure it was devastating to her to have the abortion. Really, I do. How could it not be? I'm just sad --- very sad --- that she, and most other parents of unborn children with Down's syndrome, think it would be more devastating to love and care for such a child, or to give birth to one and let someone else do the "caring for" part.

I suppose I'm even sadder that she believes that the differential level of her own "devastation" is so important that it trumps the life of a person who, in all probability, would have a good and happy life if he or she were raised in love. A life with medical problems; a life that is not her vision of "normal." But a good and happy one.

The problem with abortions is, where do you draw the line? Many female fetuses are aborted in countries like India because a raising a girl is a (financial) liability compared to raising a boy. As a result, its illegal for doctors to disclose gender of the fetus to the parents. Why is aborting for a gender preference (for all its social and financial implications) illegal and aborting a person with DS is not? In both cases parents are making a decision to abort because they don't want the responsibility.

Randy,

I'm going to make a fairly modest assumption here and presume that you aren't Chinese based on your name. If I'm wrong, please forgive me. I mean no offense. Simply substitute Chinese in my comments for some other group of which you aren't a part. Now, disclaimer aside, lets assume that some sort of new anti-Chinese group comparable to, say, the KKK were to come up. Based on your comments, I'd assume you'd view the entire affair with indifference and would oppose much in the way of acting to stop them. I mean, after all, they're hardly a threat to you, are they?

Bill,

Re; "I'd assume you'd view the entire affair with indifference and would oppose much in the way of acting to stop them."

Good question. As I do recognize the potential of hate groups (or other criminal types) to cause a level of disorder which might bring harm to myself or those I care about, or the potential that they might expand their direct focus to me or those I care about, I have no problem with contributing to laws and police with which to stop such activity. But I see no existing or potential threat to me or mine from those who want to destroy their own children. Indeed, I see a great possibility of benefit - again, there is no shortage of people in the world. As for those who do actively oppose the right to abortion, they're no threat to me either. Of course if anyone starts getting violent about it, if they become a threat to me or mine, then I'm all for applying the power of law to keep them under control.

There is a fundamental disconnect in my mind between a person who can support/practice abortion, while at the same time considering it one of the biggest decisions of their life. If it's a "woman's choice" and the embryo is not a person, what's the big damn deal!? The big deal is that she knows its a person, and she's killing it because it's inconvenient. I can't believe how fundamentalist this sounds, but I've never understood how people/women can have it both ways.

The same could be said of societies that allow their members to kill their 3 month olds that contract Spinal Meningitis and have their brains cooked to a fine stew. I assume that you do not mean to imply that that would be a reasonable option.

This is one case where my statement "it may be the case that nobody has yet figured out a way to capture this advantage without giving up a greater advantage elsewhere" almost certainly applies. Endorse that kind of behavior and you open a big can of worms that just about everyone agrees we're better off not dealing with.

I suppose I'm even sadder that she believes that the differential level of her own "devastation" is so important that it trumps the life of a person who, in all probability, would have a good and happy life if he or she were raised in love. A life with medical problems; a life that is not her vision of "normal." But a good and happy one.

So the life of this Down's child is somehow more important than the lives of the two or more additional children on the margin that are born (since parental attention, not babies, is the scarce resource right now, and the attention required to raise one Down's child is most likely sufficient to raise two normal children)?

Opportunity cost.

There is a fundamental disconnect in my mind between a person who can support/practice abortion, while at the same time considering it one of the biggest decisions of their life. If it's a "woman's choice" and the embryo is not a person, what's the big damn deal!?

Regardless of whether the embryo is a person or not, the consequences of the decision are enormous for her -- if she chooses not to abort, and not to give her child up for adoption, she's taking on an 18-year commitment. So even from a secular perspective, it is legitimate to call it one of the biggest decisions of her life.

If it's a "woman's choice" and the embryo is not a person, what's the big damn deal!? The big deal is that she knows its a person, and she's killing it because it's inconvenient. I can't believe how fundamentalist this sounds, but I've never understood how people/women can have it both ways.

Of course you can understand it.

When you have had it beat into your head for over 3 decades by every special interest group under the sun, that it is your 'CHOICE' and anyone denying you that 'CHOICE' is just some 'MAN' with his grimy, greasy hands on 'YOUR' body, you would be in this moral vacuum right along with them.

Men have a hard time understanding this because we don't typically get stuck in moral vacuums. We are more results oriented. If there is a problem we typically want to fix the problem. Fixing this particular problem is making abortion illegal. That is a viable solution. But not enough people care anymore, so it wont get fixed.

Did you ever watch the movie "As Good as it Gets?" Jack won an Oscar for his role in that movie as a brilliant writter who was OCD. Classic scene in that movie was the young female secretary looking up at Jack all googly-eyed telling him that he writes just like a woman. She asks him how he can accomplish this.

I quote: "I write like a man. Then I take away all reason and accountability."

That character Jack was playing was an @sshole. Women are accountable and they do tend to be very reasonable (more reasonable than men.) But you have to throw reason and accountablity out the window on this abortion matter because too many women have personalized it, making the issue ALL of what they are.

Taking abortion 'choices' from women to solve this problem would be to them, like women taking sports away from men to solve the "you need to spend more time involved in this family and less time in front of the tube" problem. It is not going to happen. Too many identities are wrapped up here in this issues (and making money off of them.) And they have done a damn good job making sure that these things don't go away...

So the life of this Down's child is somehow more important than the lives of the two or more additional children on the margin that are born (since parental attention, not babies, is the scarce resource right now, and the attention required to raise one Down's child is most likely sufficient to raise two normal children)?

Opportunity cost.

Indeed, the child's mother may have thought in terms of opportunity cost, though I doubt she weighed one child with DS against two without; at her age, it was probably one child with DS against (one child without DS plus some other imagined good that the DS, in her mind, excluded.)

However, this "opportunity cost" is an illusion, because she could not actually make this choice; it has always been beyond her control. She couldn't choose not to carry a child with DS; she could only choose to end the life of the child she was carrying, or not. She can't choose to conceive a "normal" child even now; she can only choose to try.

The choice she had to make was between (1) aborting this child + having the chance to try for another child; and (2) giving birth to the child she already carried.

She thinks (1) is better maybe. I think it's sad that she thinks that. That's all.

I like to ride on bike then read this, and you? :)
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