Perspectives on Abortion: Number Two

My father's cousin and his wife are expecting a baby. Near the beginning of my Christmas break, my family learned that an abnormality had shown up on the ultrasound. My family waited and prayed for days, waiting for the results of tests on the fetus. The results revealed that the fetus has Down Syndrome. We also learned that the wife's side of the family was pressuring for the couple to abort the fetus.

My parents, quintessential southern Republicans, are staunchly pro-life. This has, at times, been a point of contention between us. Not in any ugly sense, of course, but I think there is a sometimes obvious disapproval of each other's views.

When my mom called to give me the news, she sounded so heartbroken. She explained to me that she and my dad had talked, and that if the couple decided to abort the fetus, she and my father wanted to offer to adopt the child if it was taken to full term.

I'm not saying that this would have been a feasible solution, and I'm not saying that it would have been the best solution--but at that moment, when she told me about that theoretical baby sister, the Down Syndrome child that had a 0.1% chance of belonging to my parents, to my siblings and me, my heart felt like it was expanding to encompass the possibility of that turn of events. I had a visceral human reaction, and I knew immediately that I could [and would] love that child, and that I would one million times rather she belonged to us than be lost to the world. My emotions totally overpowered all sense of rationality I had. In that minute, even, one could have described me as staunchly pro-life.

As tests for anything other than a "perfectly healthy" child continue to be developed, tested, and introduced into the clinical setting, situations like this will become increasingly prevalent. Statistics now show that 90% of expectant parents who discover that the fetus has Down Syndrome choose to abort. But here's the somewhat hairy problem: people with Down Syndrome are generally considered to have a high quality of life. The congenital heart defects common amongst them are now easily corrected with surgery. Though they exhibit mild to moderate mental retardation, they are integrated into public schools, and are known for their amicability. They can hold down jobs; in fact, my ticket-tearer at the movie theater the other night had Down Syndrome, and she pointed me in the right direction, politely wishing me well, making eye contact and displaying excellent social skills. But their community is shrinking, a fact that frightens many parents who do have children with Down Syndrome. They fear that the rich community will dwindle, taking with it the power to inspire legislature, to make the world richer for these children.

I am not saying that I am not in support of people who abort fetuses who will have a markedly decreased quality of life. One of the diseases that most intrigues me is Tay Sachs disease. A look at the Jewish community is a look into a group of people who have put considerable thought into the abortion debate, a group of people that supports the expectant parents who chose to abort fetuses with Tay Sachs. As this disease has its highest prevalence in the Ashkenazi Jewish population, it is understandable that this disease carried a high emotional toll for this community. Rabbis put their support between behind the expectant mothers and fathers who terminate a Tay Sachs pregnancy, based on the "acute psychic pain" that stems from knowing the the child "is doomed to such a brief, miserable life."

But, this reasoning is a certain slippery slope. At what point do we draw the "misery line"? At what point do we say, "it is reasonable for this fetus to be aborted, but not for this one"? At what singular disorder do we call it quits, and what are the implications of this for the medical field, and for all humanity.

This is a tough debate, no doubt, and I am entirely on the fence, but not in a static way. My position is dynamic, and I think about it almost every day. At what point is it mercy, and at what point is it eugenics?

At what point must we say that logic can no longer proceed? What about those visceral human reactions? And what about that little girl who somehow managed to bury herself in my heart?