For oh-so-many reasons, I don't write posts about abortion. Mostly, because I lack the finesse to write about such a sensitive topic, but there are other factors as well. However, there are less cowardly bloggers out there, and I thought I would you point you to them.
Sam Crane points us to an op-ed by Patricia Bauer. Bauer has a daughter with Downs Syndrome and responds to those who feel that children with disabilities should be aborted and that parents have the moral obligation to abort these children.
And here's one more piece of un-discussable baggage: This question is a small but nonetheless significant part of what's driving the abortion discussion in this country. I have to think that there are many pro-choicers who, while paying obeisance to the rights of people with disabilities, want at the same time to preserve their right to ensure that no one with disabilities will be born into their own families. The abortion debate is not just about a woman's right to choose whether to have a baby; it's also about a woman's right to choose which baby she wants to have.
Sam writes that we need to have a society that is more open to people with disabilities.
The question, then, is: how do we expand society's vision and understanding of disability, how do we undermine the tragedy narrative and replace it with a common humanity narrative that encourages a wider social acceptance of and (this is crucial) support for disabled people? It is not so much a problem of absolutely forbidding abortion of disabled fetuses, as it is creating a society in which disability is so warmly accepted and sustained that parents would see any child, disabled or not, as a loving, and loved, member of the family.
I know that Michael Berube has also written on this topic.
Russell Arben Fox also has an excellent post on Prop 73 in CA.
Comment at Sam's or Russell's blog, please.
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