Prenatal testing and reproductive rights

Eliza alerted me to the fact that there's some discussion going on at Double X about late-term abortions. It started as a series of articles about the truth behind late-term abortions; in response to the death of Dr. George Tiller, the magazine wanted to allow women who've had late-term abortions to discuss their experiences as a way of cutting through all the anti-choice hysteria. It quickly progressed, however, into a discussion of whether or not it's a good idea to abort all fetuses identified as having Down syndrome. Some quotes from the articles:

• "Do we really think aborting all future Down babies amount to 'curing' a disease?"
• "Despite our fascination with Sarah Palin, I don’t think we want to become the great American Palin family, adding Down’s sons and babies born to teenage daughters at a fearsome clip."
• "I absolutely believe that it's fine to abort a mentally retarded baby. I have no doubt in my mind that I would do the same thing again. I'd go to any legal length to defend another woman's right to do the same. But then aren't I simply saying that people with developmental disabilities are better off dead? Or, perhaps more accurately, that we as a society are better off without them?"

The answer to the last question, by the way, is yes.

Commenters have gotten all hyped up--I didn't read all the comments but skimmed through enough to see that people were all over the place. But there were a number of commenters who discussed what a huge burden disabled folks put on families and how unfair it is to the families, and the babies themselves, not to have prenatal testing and not to abort disabled fetuses.

I will have more thoughts on this, but here are three things I would like to say today:

1. The right to terminate a pregnancy is incredibly important. A woman's whole life is affected by a pregnancy and a child, and if we want women to be allowed to be fully human, we must allow them the right to abortion.
2. Many times decisions about abortion are difficult and complex, but the woman involved (with her partner, if applicable) is the best able to make that decision. Even if we might disagree with her decision, no one else--no individual, no institution, no agency--is better able to weigh all the factors and make that decision.
3. People need real information about life with a disabled child in order to make the best decision they can about whether or not to terminate a pregnancy. At this point I think what they're getting is a lot of hype, stereotype, and misinformation. If the Double X comments are any indication, people out there seem to believe that having a child with Down syndrome will be the end of life as you know it. Everything will change for the worse, and you will rue the day you didn't abort. I thought those things when we had Maybelle. My experience as her mom so far, and my far broader understanding of life with Down syndrome, shows me how wrong I was.

I'm offended by the defensiveness I see in these articles and many of the comments. I get the sense that these folks want to justify their own decisions by making sure everybody knows how awful it would be to live with a child who was intellectually and developmentally delayed. I support their right to make their own choices about their pregnancies, but when they start talking about the burden that disabled people put on families and on the state, then they are actually making the world a worse place for my daughter.