Virginia Ironside supports euthanasia and abortion for suffering children

It's nice to see someone a bit mainstream speaking out in favor of ending the lives of severely damaged infants and fetuses.
Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/04/virginia-ironside-tv-euthenasia-abortion

"If I were the mother of a suffering child – I mean a deeply suffering child – I would be the first to want to put a pillow over its face . . . If it was a child I really loved, who was in agony, I think any good mother would."

But that wasn't where her argument had begun; she had started off arguing that abortion could be a moral choice. The decision is always portrayed as being inherently irresponsible and destructive – Ironside argued that, if it prevented an unwanted child or a child being born profoundly disabled, then it was a good decision that a woman could be proud of.

One of the comments from the article that I especially liked was:

Virginia Ironside was right to voice these views and showed great courage in doing so. She deserves a medal for services to realism. It is not fashionable or comfortable but it is ultimately humane. Children are being born now and surviving for decades who would have died shortly after birth not so long ago. We must not simply assume this is 'progress'. Their quality of life, the burden they are to their carers and the burden they are to society as a whole must all be taken into account. Our resources, both emotional and material, are not infinite.

I support the general idea she's trying to stand for, but her wording is terrible and her attitude flippant. We already have way too many Little Sizzlers and such...if influential people start openly applauding post-natal abortion things are gonna get real ugly real quick.

Things are already ugly. It's time someone spoke up for preventative abortion. Then perhaps we can finally hammer home the idea of preventing abortion through birth control.

WTF? Abortion as birth control is a lousy idea. Tens of millions of abortions in the USA haven't even made a dent in the underclass.

Abortion was supposed to be a last resort for responsible adults. Abortions require trained medical personnel and equipment that would have been far better spent on something besides bailing out people who didn't get a condom memo. It cannot, of itself, stop the population bomb or prevent those unable to feed their progeny from breeding like rabbits, especially when there are hundreds of incentives for doing so. Get rid of THOSE and watch the birthrate plummet.

What a controversial topic. It's one that touches on many sensitivities.

I am not a parent. I do not want to be a parent. But if I was a parent, I wouldn't see why I'd want my son/daughter to grow up so profoundly impaired, that he/she could not ever hope to ever achieve true independence in life. And while any decision involving abortion/euthanasia would be painstakingly difficult, I would hope to take a more pragmatic approach, given the situation.

I was once asked the question, if you were to have children, would you (hypothetically) abort your child (or encourage abortion) if the child was going to be born with a disability. If the disability was severe I believe I would.

When they are babies, everyone sees them as cute, but as they age your heart will break more and more as you see them missing out on life's milestones.... elementary age, teens, twenties, thirties, etc. They miss many of life's ups and downs. And because they'll never be truly independent, you as a parent will be taking care of them forever--so forget about any future plans you may have. Ultimately if they outlive you, they will inevitably spend their remaining years very lonely. This is not an existence I'd prefer to bestow on anyone, disabled or not.

Naturally people blast me for stating this, and say to each his/her own. I personally can attest that if I were to have children, I am not mentally strong enough to withstand caring for another person 24/7 indefinitely. I can say that without equivocation. But I know that some people are strong, and if they wish to sacrifice themselves in order to care for their children with tremendous needs, I say more power to them.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/downs-syndrome-children-have-right-never-to-have-been-born-court-rules-618445.html

This one here is about that French woman(10 years ago) who was awarded compensatory damages against her doctor for not warning her that her fetus had Downs Syndrome, in which case she would have chosen to have aborted, and he was subsequently born with severe disabilities. The court ruled that he had the right to have never been born.


Then there was the Elizabeth Bouvia case back in the 80's about the woman who was paralyzed and who had other severe disabilities caused by cerebral palsy. She petitioned the court(and lost) for the right to be cared for in a hospital and given palpative care as she starved to death via refusing a feeding tube.She stated that her disabilities were so severe and so painful that she no longer wished to live and suffer. Then there was the woman in England, whose mother sued on her behalf, the OB-GYN who continued life saving efforts after she was born with horrific and disabling birth defects. In essence, that lawsuit was about her right to have not been kept alive due to her disabilities or basically another"right to have never been born" case. It was one of the first, "wrongful life" cases, but I am going on memory and haven't looked it up so I could be mistaken about parts of it. .

Those are just three that I had remembered, but I am certain that there are many more. To me, the most compelling cases FOR the right to never have been born are the ones who are mentally competent adults who have been living and suffering because of a societal belief that EVERYONE should be born. The bad thing is that once they are here, NO ONE will help them end their lives or legally allow them or anyone else to assist them. That is REALLY fucked up. IMO.

I went searching and this is a good article that mentions several other "wrongful life" or "wrongful birth" suits, which were all lost or still ongoing, regarding doctors failing to mention horrific birth defects while they are pregnant and giving the mothers a chance to abort:


http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,48198,00.html

"...In "wrongful birth," the parents of a disabled child initiate a lawsuit, typically against a doctor who is accused of not performing proper genetic screening or not adequately counseling prospective parents. The essence of wrongful birth is that the defendant's negligence resulted in the birth of a disabled child whom the mother would have aborted had she received adequate medical information.

In "wrongful life," the disabled child � or those acting on the child's behalf � sues for being alive. Sometimes, the parents become defendants. In essence, the child claims he/she was damaged by being born and should be compensated.

The difference between wrongful birth and wrongful life is largely that, in the latter, the money is awarded directly to the child, not the parents, thus providing for his or her future needs..."

"...Should the court system legally devalue the life of a disabled person? An English court rejected a wrongful life case (McKay v. Essex Area Health Authority, 1982) on the grounds that recognizing the claim would "mean regarding the life of a handicapped child as not only less valuable than the life of a normal child, but so much less valuable that it was not worth preserving."



There appears to be lots of varying degrees of legal precedence, but very few people are winning the cases. This is essentially a moral and personal matter at this point than a valid legal claim it seems. It's my opinion that severely mentally retarded should be aborted, but severely physically handicapped should be born and then decide for themselves when they are old enough if they want to continue living. If not, then they should be able to ask for and get legally euthanized. I think that anyone(of legal age) should be able to get legally euthanized with medical assistance, but there needs to be strict guidelines in place for a variety of reasons.

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If YOU are the "exception" to what I am saying, then why does my commentary bother you so much?
I don't hate your kids, I HATE YOU!

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kidlesskim

There appears to be lots of varying degrees of legal precedence, but very few people are winning the cases. This is essentially a moral and personal matter at this point than a valid legal claim it seems. It's my opinion that severely mentally retarded should be aborted, but severely physically handicapped should be born and then decide for themselves when they are old enough if they want to continue living. If not, then they should be able to ask for and get legally euthanized. I think that anyone(of legal age) should be able to get legally euthanized with medical assistance, but there needs to be strict guidelines in place for a variety of reasons.

I'm going to throw legalities out the window, in favor of basic ethics and morality.

If a person does not want to live (barring a mental illness/insanity case where the individual has lost command of his/her thought processes) there is no ETHICAL reason why another human being should be able to force them into living and remaining in pain.

Doing the "moral" thing and forcing someone to live and remain in pain is ASS-BACKWARDS and decidedly immoral.

I'm quite glad to live in a country where people who have terminal diseases and are in pain can be euthanized on request. There are also babies being put to sleep, and yet somehow we haven't started down the slippery slope to mass murder. I think there's also discussion of extending it to people who are not terminally ill, but who are either quite old and feel they've lived enough, or people who have non-terminal but chronic diseases.

Can we start with ToiletSushi? Now there's a sped who should have eaten a pillow her first week.

Yurble,I was born with CP,I have a big problem with the idea of someone offing me without my consent,such as when I was a baby.

Laura, I do not know what CP is, but of course you're entitled to your own opinion on the subject. Just remember that this is a hardcore board, and some of us have opinions which aren't generally voiced in polite company.

I support eugenics. I'm not talking about the mass-murdering Hitler interpretation, nor the extremely racist 1930s implementation that affected may western countries. Rather, I believe that it is not in our best interests, as a species, to perpetuate defective genes. I support the following: (1) aborting fetuses with obvious defects, (2) not providing medical treatment to children in the first year of life, (3) preventing people who carry hereditary disorders from reproducing, (4) banning IVF, and (5) infanticide of any children who clearly exhibit severe mental or physical abnormalities in the first year of life. I do not, however, support killing older children or adults, who are in the position to be self-aware and fearful of death.

It's a fairly modern development to attempt to keep alive people who require extensive medical treatment from birth, and those who are severely retarded. The Romans, for instance, didn't have any such qualms, since personhood began with self-awareness, not birth. Because we live in a period of artificial surplus, propped up by the use of fossil fuels, we tend not to see this for the luxury that it is. But make no mistake about it, every resource that is allocated toward keeping alive someone who cannot survive without modern medicine, or someone who is too mentally handicapped to live independently, is a resource which can't be allocated in another way. Is it really ethical to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars giving an infant--which is too young to have a sense of self and a fear of death--numerous heart operations, while at the same time allowing thousands of older children and adults to die of hunger or treatable diseases? Is it really ethical to pillage nature and destroy wildlife habitat for the resources to feed, house, and clothe someone for 40 years, when that person is less intelligent than and belongs to a species significantly less endangered than the gorilla who is being displaced? It is my personal belief that extensive medical treatment is driven by the sort of ethics that focuses on the individual, not the sort of ethics that looks at the big picture.

Of course overpopulation is a major contributing factor in all of this as well. We, as a species, should certainly stop having so many children, and I support this being enforced at the loss of personal freedom, for the good of all. I do not think that personal freedom is more important than the survival of our species, and the other species on this planet. If we try to reduce our population to 1/3 of the present number, which is estimated to be what the planet can support, we should make sure that those few children born have every advantage. They should be healthy. They should be intelligent. They should be born to parents who are emotionally stable and can raise them well.

Our unwillingness to take responsibility for both the quality and quantity of our breeding means that the choice will soon be taken from us. Post-oil, a good number of people will die off from starvation or violence, because the planet cannot support our current numbers. Yet in modern democracies it is taboo to suggest curbing population growth so that vast numbers of people won't suffer horribly in the future. That's the quantity part of it. The quality part is that those of us, like myself, who require modern medicine in order to continue to stay alive, are going to be among the first to die. Whether it's a pandemic, the slower spread of antibiotic-resistant disease, or simply the lack of medicines like insulin due to a collapse of the oil economy does not matter so much. We will still die, because natural selection would have killed us ages ago had we not been bypassing the system.

That's not a kindness. If I had never been born I would not now be in the position of fearing death because I appreciate being alive, and of being afraid of what the future holds for someone like myself. I would never have known what I'd be missing. You, likewise, would never have been in the position to have an opinion on your continued existence. It's an entirely moot point what these fetuses or infants would think, just as it is irrelevant to consider the views of my hypothetical children which I'm never going to have.

I'm not an anti-natalist. I do think there might be some parts about the ride that are worth the conclusion. But I do think we should avoid creating people who are going to suffer more than most, and wasting limited resources on them.

I have cerebral palsey.

CFTeen, I read ShimmyMuse's comment of "preventing abortion through birth control" as using birth control to prevent pregnancy--which prevents abortion because there would be no pregnancy to abort.

If I have it right, I'm all for that.

Moooomies who choose to have defective kids, act like they are saints to be worshipped, and demand special benefits for themselves and their retards make me barf!

Keep working more hours, CF people! Millions of breeders depend on us.

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catmeow


Moooomies who choose to have defective kids, act like they are saints to be worshipped, and demand special benefits for themselves and their retards make me barf!

I'm very sensitive to adults with disabilities. I think we need to do our best to do the ethical thing, and take care of them as a society.

But I also think that society will become less and less tolerant of disabilities that can be prevented in the 21st century via genetic modification and genetic counseling--and more and more so as the technology develops and improves.

I think that ALL advocacy groups of all political stripes need to begin understanding that our resources are not infinite. In fact, this Great Recession has shown us that our resources are extremely limited. Sympathies can only go so far for any disadvantaged group. At some point, resentment will surface. I'm not saying this is right, but I am saying that it is what it is. People who are struggling to make ends meet or struggling to stay in the middle class may harbor anger toward the fact that significant sums of their tax dollars are going toward the care of people who will never be self-sufficient. And for what reason? Because 20+ years ago somebody reeeeeally wanted to be a mother and didn't care how much long-term pain and suffering she'd inflict on her offspring. Eventually people will vocalize these opinions in western societies as wages and the standard of living declines and evens out throughout the world.

I do not support eugenics, but I often have visions of a future dystopia in my country (USA) due to a myriad of factors. Scary thoughts.

StudioFiftyFour, I can't stand anyone who demands special rights, and many of those who choose to have kids with special needs do so.

From what I see now, breeders practice eugenics--in reverse.

Keep working more hours, CF people! Millions of breeders depend on us.

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Miss_Hannigan
Can we start with ToiletSushi? Now there's a sped who should have eaten a pillow her first week.

why did i know this would come up?

you are evyl....

CP would fall under a physical disability (and non progressive- non terminal disability) and therefore I don't believe that embryos with CP should be aborted. although it's generally impossible to accurately diagnose until after delivery anyway because it isn't hereditary and happens during gestation or at or during birth. What CAN be done to prevent it though is to prevent breeder-types of pregnancies in the first place. While I don't claim to be a birth defect expert, it's common knowledge that the risks of developing CP are greatly enhanced with low birth weights, premature births, and multiple births. Those types of births are commonly associated with IVF births and in addition to those issues, there's the extended risk of oxygen deprivation due to so damned many baybees being crammed in too small of a space.

It's my opinion too that the human part of us all exists in our brain, so if the BRAIN is intact, then the person's life has value to himself and others. I am WELL aware that this is an especially unpopular viewpoint due to all of the wailing and mooing and lowing that I have heard over the years like, "He's here for a purpose and only God knows what it might be", or " I KNOW that he's IN there, I just KNOW it! Only a mother could understand!!!!!",etc.......This is purely emotional rhetoric and it's quite painful to witness because it IS very sad. It's especially sad to see someone overcome with emotion and not thinking rationally when a loved one has been injured or through an illness or disease becomes brain dead, for all intents and purposes, and it's up to them to "pull the plug".

Generally,THIS is when all of the "miraculous" anecdotal cases come forward about the man who "slept for 17 years" who "came back to life and was normal" and that allegedly Terry Schiavo was "responsive", which of course is/was FAR from the truth! Contrary to popular television movies and shows like "50 First Dates" and "The Dead Zone" when people come out of actual comas, they are NEVER "just the same" or "okay", ever. Even IF they "come back" to a certain extent, they are NOT the same and they never will be. 99% of the time they are completely unaware of who they are and they certainly don't comprehend their surroundings. In these cases, after it is medically ascertained that they have NO meaningful brain activity over a period of time, I am "for" euthanasia.

Also, it wouldn't be necessary for the families to make the decision if everyone was thoughtful and selfless enough to have DNR orders in place and/or living wills. That, and if we didn't have a broad societal belief that EVERYONE needs to be born and/or continue living when they have no functioning brain or can't comprehend shit that's going on around them and NEVER will. Voluntary and medically assisted euthanasia should be a human right when the circumstances call for it. I believe that there is a CLEAR line between euthanasia for the terminally ill and assisted suicide for the otherwise healthy but temporarily depressed, but then I am not a religious fundamentalist. Fundies are largely responsible for this "pro-life" platform at all costs and for any and all reasons, except of course for the death penalty. They're generally all over that like white on rice with "FRY THE BASTARD" picket signs.:iws

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If YOU are the "exception" to what I am saying, then why does my commentary bother you so much?
I don't hate your kids, I HATE YOU!