the internet is fun sometimes but other times you see an AITA where someone is saying they think it's wrong for people with inheritable genetic conditions to have kids because it's cruel and selfish to bring a child into the world if you know they could suffer and while I typically would not wish harm on another person I start thinking that maybe Dorothy Golden Girls was right about some people needing to become very sick and very scared at least once in their lives so they can realize exactly what it's like to live in a world where people think you should have been killed as a baby to spare you and the people in your life the burden of having to deal with a disabled person existing near them and needing their help and also that you're a selfish monster for having kids
Like look at this shit:
[Image Text: AITA for saying I would terminate my pregnancy if the baby had a genetic condition, and now my husband is considering a divorce? A couple of weeks ago, I found out Iβm pregnant. My husband and I had been talking about starting a family for a while, so this was supposed to be an exciting moment for us. However, during a conversation about prenatal testing, I told him that if we found out the baby had a severe genetic condition, such as Down syndrome, I would choose to terminate the pregnancy. I also shared my belief that it is extremely selfish to knowingly bring a child into the world with serious medical or developmental challenges. To me, it would be unfair to the child, to myself, and to my husband. Raising a child with severe disabilities is an enormous lifelong commitment, one that affects every aspect of a familyβs life, and I donβt believe it is responsible to willingly choose that path when there is an option to prevent it, I also said that either raising a child like that or having an hereditary condition and choose to be pregnant (instead of adopting, for example) is extremely selfish as well. My husband was horrified. He said he never realized I felt this way and that he couldnβt believe I would even consider terminating a pregnancy just because the child wouldnβt be βperfect". He accused me of being cold, pro-eugenest and lacking empathy, saying that every child deserves love regardless of their challenges. He also strongly disagreed with my opinion that people with hereditary conditions should think twice before having children, calling it an extreme and disturbing mindset. Since then, things between us have been tense, and now he says he is seriously considering divorce. He told me that we have completely different values when it comes to family and that he doesnβt think he can stay married to someone who sees things this way. I was shocked that he would take it this far, but he says he doesnβt want to raise children with someone who believes in "selective" reproduction. I never expected this conversation to lead to such a massive rift in our marriage. I donβt see my stance as cruel, just practical and responsible. AITA for being honest about my beliefs, even though they are making my husband want to leave me? TL;DR: I recently found out Iβm pregnant and told my husband that I would terminate if prenatal testing showed the baby had a severe genetic condition. I believe itβs selfish to knowingly bring a child into the world who will suffer. My husband was horrified, says we have different values, and is now considering divorce. AITA? /End Text]
99.9% of the comments are ABLED PEOPLE agreeing that she's right, disabled babies shouldn't be born and disabled people shouldn't have kids, that the ones who do are selfish monsters, and INSISTING that it doesn't make them a eugenicist. Some of them even have disabled family or kids and they are just saying with their whole chest that they love them but if they'd known they would have aborted them. That's not love, and I hope none of those kids never find out the people who are supposed to love and care for them think about them that way because I know learning something like that would destroy me. I also hope her husband divorces her and gets custody of the kid, bcs while I do believe anyone should be able to get an abortion for any reason, I also think that people who can't deal with the possibility of having a kid who isn't 100% healthy and perfect are the ones who shouldn't be having kids because those kids deserve a parent who actually loves them and doesn't see them as a mistake for something completely out of their control.
God, disabled people in general deserve so much better than to have to live on a planet with people who think of us like this.
Sorry to put this screed on people's dashes again but also the thing that gets me is the whole "I believe itβs selfish to knowingly bring a child into the world who will suffer" thing 'cuz like...no one gets through life without suffering at some point?? Life isn't all sunshine and rainbows for anyone, even abled people. We all go through loss and grief and rejection, we all feel pain, we get bullied or embarrass ourselves, some of us will be abused and most of us will have relationships end in messy ways, we all have to come to terms with our own mortality no matter how scary it is, we get sick(and not just in disabled ways like broken arms and UTIs and the flu all SUCK), we all have to deal with not getting something we desperately want be it a job or acceptance into a college or an award or book deal, at some point we will simply not be enough and we just have to keep going, and like...maybe it's just me but I don't think all of that pain and discomfort negates all of the joy being alive can bring.
Like, I can't think too hard about knowing my partner will outlive me OR that I might outlive him because the thought of being without him or him being without me is absolutely devastating. I had a cancer scare in 2023 and I spent the week waiting for the test results sobbing because I felt so horrible for possibly leaving the man I love behind. But you know what I didn't do? Decide that pain meant I shouldn't be in a relationship. All of the joy completely outweighs the pain I know one of us will have to feel one day. And my fiance didn't leave me either, and I know he wouldn't give me up to avoid the pain of losing me either.
As another example, I lost my closest friend to leukemia in 2018. I have never felt pain like that before, I'd never lost anyone. And if I could go back to the day we met in High School I would never even consider deciding not to befriend him because I knew I would lose him and it would kill me. Or my dogs, they're both gone now, of cancer and old age, and I would adopt them again without a second thought, all of the joy they brought me was worth the unimaginable pain of losing them. I know my cat will die one day and I would adopt her all over again too, and one day I will adopt new pets, knowing they will die, and not caring because the time we will have together is more than enough.
There is not a single person or pet that I've lost that would make me second guess welcoming them into my life again. Hell I have NIGHTMARES about getting sent back to relive the last 15 years of my life because I would be scared to fuck up and miss out on my friends and adopting my pets and meeting the love of my life. The pain of missing those connections and having to live without ever having met them 100% outweighs the pain I will feel or have felt from losing them.
I know there are probably disabled people who are miserable enough they wish the had never been born, but overall disabled people love life more than any other group of people I've ever encountered. My illness has taken a lot from me. I can't go hiking anymore, and thus I can't fulfill my dream of doing the Rim to Rim hike at the Grand Canyon or to the peak of any of the mountains I live near. I had to quit my movie theater job even though I would have happily worked there for the rest of my life. I also can't be an ASL interpreter like I wanted because I can't stand for very long and I have dyslexia bad enough that finger spelling is basically impossible for me. I can't do yoga anymore even though I really enjoyed it. I would love to be a singer, but I was abused in ways that have given me debilitating stage freight and I truly don't know if I can ever get over it. I can't run through a field, I can't have a job, I can't drink anymore, I might never get to visit countless places on earth I'd love to go...and if I had the choice between never experiencing all of this pain and never being born I would pick the pain every single time.
Life is suffering, but it's also love, and joy, and fun, and so many other things. Even for disabled people, life is never just suffering. So who the fuck are these people to decide that we don't deserve to experience the happiness life has to offer us all because we might suffer at some point in a way an abled person wouldn't?? I don't think these people would agree that knowing neither you nor your partner will live forever means you shouldn't get married. They probably don't think knowing your pets will die one day means you shouldn't adopt them. I don't think they would not have kids because those kids will experience a breakup or losing a pet or getting sick or any of the little moments of pain we all go through.
I saw so many people in the comments insist that a disabled loved one clearly suffered constantly and never felt any joy, or if they did it "wasn't enough for it to be worth it" and so that means they should have never been born, and again I have to ask, who the fuck are you to decide that that person's life wasn't worth living? Did you ask them? Or did you just assume because you can't imagine living like that? It's not your fucking life. You don't get to decide that for someone else, and the fact that you're trying to means you do not view disabled people as people. You see them as mistakes. And I'm sorry, but I have absolutely no interest in being around someone who looks at me and people like me and sees a tragedy instead of a person.
Neanderthals and early humans cared for their disabled, they knew our lives were worth it and put in the work to make us happy and comfortable because they loved us. I won't lie and say caring for us is always easy or that modern society doesn't make it so much harder than it needs to be(I s2g the people who were like "well money tho" and I'm like that's a capitalism problem not a fucking disabled person problem), but if people who didn't even have agriculture believed our lives were worth saving I don't know why the fuck modern humans can't at the very least do the same.
(Also ngl the whole "raising a kid like that is selfish" thing kinda makes it sound like she's in favor of "mercy" killing disabled babies so like. Hope that was a fucking poor choice of words and not something she actually believes!)
What about the pregnant people who are afraid they wouldn't be decent parents to their potential disabled child if they don't have the resources or adequate social/federal support systems (long term)?
I see so many statistics and tragic reports on neglect, abuse, or outright murder of disabled children (and adults). The potential for abuse likely resides in all of us, to develop under our worst circumstances. So is it wrong to make the choice to abort if you know your child will be disabled in a particular way, and you know or strongly suspect your resources and support networks will be inadequate to foster the conditions for you to be certain you could be a decent parent?
Whether or not they should have a child at all, if they fear they could be neglectful or abusive to a disabled child under poor circumstances is a can of worms of its own, I acknowledge that. People regularly do choose to abort pregnancies that they suspect to be normal and healthy over resource and support conflicts. And, as it stands, there is no question that disabled people should get to live, but the people and circumstances they are born to have a significant impact on the potential quality (and more concerningly, overall longevity) of that life. So I am left to wonder where people stand, because it is terribly complicated at the level of individual choice/circumstances when it is your pregnancy.
Well, tbh I am of the opinion that there shouldn't be restrictions on abortion and anyone should be able to get one for any reason even if I strongly disagree with it, however given the fact that anyone can become disabled at any time if you genuinely believe that you cannot have a disabled child without fucking abusing and neglecting them then I'm sorry you should not be having children.
Edit: Just to be clear I don't think there should be laws restricting a person's ability to have kids for any reason bcs that's a slippery slope, but I think if an individual can recognize that they will ABUSE a child if it's got issues then they are not prepared to have a kid and should avoid doing so until they know they won't irreparably harm them if they aren't perfect.
My response is too long for tags so please understand that I am *spiritaully* putting this in tags.
But on that last point, I was born with a condition that is still virtually impossible to detect before birth. Certainly not beforethe final few weeks. A purely stuctural deformation of my heart caused by a slight wrror at a key part of the development in the womb (which is why my teeth are also kinda fucked, bc the heart and teeth get finished up at about the same time). This can happen to anyone, at any time. My parents were upper class and healthy and have no genetic dispositions toward heart issues (I think my grandma got a pacemaker when she was like... 50? She's now 92) and had no reason to believe at any point that they would have anything other than a healthy bouncing baby boy. Even with today's advances in testing and imaging, that would likely still be true.
In fact, I was pretty healthy at birth, but by 6 weeks I was clearly not thriving, and I was diagnosed with my heart condition at about 6 months. Without intervention (which at the time I had it, only had a 50% success rate) I would die before I was a teenager, and be incredibly unwell for years leading up to that. A "success" for the surgery could include complications that would result in me requiring multipl firther surgeries and extensive care for the rest of my life. (I met a girl about my age who had the exact same surgery as me at about the same time, but in the 10 years since that 'corrective' operation, I'd had 3 surgeries and she'd had 72)
So there was every chance, even with the best medical care in the world and every social an economic advantage available, that my parents would end up with a high-support disabled kid. And there was no way to know. Hecc, my sister is a high-risk and very clumsy child who could easily have done something foolish as a teenaer that also resulted in needing lifelong care. We live normal adult lives - including riding bikes, driving cars, walking alongside roads - that have the opportunity to cause us injury at any moment.
Now the flip side of this is that I am a respite carer. I have worked with kids and adults (not just OAPs) who need extra help with their day-to-day lives, and the families that provide most of that support. I know exactly how tough caring for someone with high support needs can be. I know exactly how financially draining it can be (which is in part why I do a lot of private care - because I can take home the same salary without people paying agency fees) as well as how emotionally and physically draining it can be. But that's not actually an excuse to not take care of someone - either directly or by asking for help (*waves* that's literally my whole job), and when you sign up to have a kid, you're signing up to *every* part of caring for them, no matter what. Even if they're depressed. Even if they need 27/4 breathing support. If they have Autism. If they want you to help then buy a mobility aid. You sign up to do your best and if you think your best is conditional on parenting being 'easy' then step the fuck back.
"You sign up to do your best and if you think your best is conditional on parenting being 'easy' then step the fuck back."
Fucking EXACTLY, thank you!!
