All interesting responses so far... more diverse than I expected, which is cool.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by guccilvr
I don't think it's a question of whether or not the child has a right or not, it's more about whether the child is going to be able to have a decent life or not once it's here. Part of having that decent life is making sure the parents are 100% informed and dedicated to the needs of a special needs child. Not everyone can handle or is willing to handle such a great responsibility. When that is the case, it's better to abort IMO.
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Thing is, I'm not talking about whether or not the child has a right to life, or whether their lives will be decent, etc. I mean, those are the arguments used to justify both pro-life and pro-choice.
What I am asking about is the bigger picture: the ethics of such a decision. As I said, I am pro-choice, and I truly believe the choice of whether or not to have a child, period, is based on personal morality, what one believes is right or wrong for oneself. The child you are aborting is random, you have no idea what it would turn out as, and therefore it is not necessarily affecting society or getting rid of subpopulations, etc.
But to me, the decision about whether or not to have a *less-than-perfect (whatever "perfect" means) child*, is another question altogether... one of what kind of society we want to have, what is good and right to do (e.g. getting rid of a subpopulation, over time) for the betterment of society.
I can see the devil's advocate argument, that doing this eliminates faulty genes from the pool in the "natural selection" sense... but hell, other groups of people have tried to use this as a reason in the past, and it was called eugenics, and usually is associated with what the Nazis tried to do (yes, I'm going there) by eliminating various "imperfect" subpopulations. Where does one stop? I mean... cleft palate?! What the hell?