Abortion, Disability, and Coercion

Crossposted from AbortionGang.

I recently read an article on the DailyMail website which has me infuriated.
Six years ago, a woman in the UK learned she was pregnant and the fetus had Down syndrome. While the woman and her husband were confused and nervous about coping with a child with special needs (on top of caring for their other six children), they never considered having an abortion. They wanted to continue the pregnancy and give birth.

And yet the woman had an abortion.

According to the article (and we have to take the Daily Mail with a grain of salt), she and her husband were bullied by their doctors and nurses. When they went in to discuss how “to be prepared for the fact we might have a disabled child,” the nurse only counseled her on a termination. The nurse continuously pushed abortion even after the couple told her they wanted to continue the pregnancy. Eventually, with a nurse and a consultant bombarding her to terminate, the woman was in a state of shock, and began the abortion.

This is infuriating. This is disgusting. This is anti-choice.

There are actually two problems going on here. First, there is discrimination against people with special needs. As a pro-choice advocate, I support a woman’s right to choose. Without taking away that support, I also question why so many people are afraid to have a child with special needs. In recent studies, researchers have found that 79% of the responding parents “felt their outlook on life was more positive” because of having a child with Down syndrome. In fact, “only 4% said they felt sad about their life.” While more challenging at times, life with a child with special needs is not the horror story many people imagine.

The difference between the viewpoints of families with children who have Down syndrome, and the women who are considering termination because of Down syndrome is huge. It leads me to question if the pregnant women are fully informed about their decisions, or if they’re just basing their ideas on popular cultural views (I am not trying to imply that women are choosing termination lightly or ignorantly–just that people in positions of power are not giving them the full picture, and they have no way of knowing this).

The way to fix this is clear: stop discriminating against people with special needs. Instead, value those with special needs within our society. Do not just try to make them fit in, but let them excel, stand out and be leaders. In this way, we
can make having a special needs child less terrifying than it seems to be today.
If the above seems like a daunting task, we can always start smaller. Host educational seminars for OB/GYNs about how to support a family that’s going to have a special needs child. Form resource networks between doctors and Down syndrome support groups, so an pregnant woman has someone she can talk to about what to expect. These are simple steps to ensuring that women are fully informed, so they can decide the absolute best choice for their family.

The second issue at hand is the violation of this woman’s right to choose. Forcing or coercing a woman into abortion Is. Not. Pro. Choice. This is an anti-choice behavior. Any pro-choice person who sees someone trying to coerce a woman into a specific decision should immediately speak up against this action. Every pro-choice person should be just as quick to stand up for a woman’s right to continue to term as (s)he is for a woman’s right to terminate.

Anti-choicers are quick to pick up an article like this and claim it proves abortion is absolute evil. Yet it is clear that our world is not that black and white. What the article proves is wrong is coercive practices. For some women, abortion is the wrong choice, while for other women birth is the wrong choice. Neither event- abortion nor birth- is bad in and of itself. But both can be bad when forced upon the woman. This is why antipchoicers are wrong when they call us “pro-abortion” and mean that we only want women to abort. I most certainly do not want every woman to abort. I want every woman to make whichever choice is best for themselves and their families, and to have the support and access to complete that choice.

Blog for Choice: What is choice?

Today is Blog for Choice day. While there is a question that has been put out by prochoicers for us to answer, the antis have come up with what they consider a clever "come back" in which they ask "What is choice?"

Well, why not answer that straight off the bat?

Definitions of choice on the Web:

* the act of choosing or selecting; "your choice of colors was unfortunate"; "you can take your pick"

When I say I support choice, that means I support each individual woman's ability to make a decision (after being informed of risks/benefits) about how she is going to responsibly care for her pregnancy.

When she first becomes pregnant, that usually means she is choosing between having an abortion and giving birth. If she chooses to have an abortion, then she gets to make a decision whether she wants to have a medical or a surgical abortion. She gets to choose the safest clinic setting for her (I would like to see there be no Hyde amendment forcing women into clinics like Gosnell's) and has someone she trusts to provide whatever she needs (driving, food, hugs, whatever).

If she chooses to carry to term, then she gets to make a decision about whether she wants to use a midwife or an OB/GYN. She chooses between a homebirth, hospital birth and birthing center. She chooses whether to have an all natural birth, whether to use an epidural, whether to be induced.


Towards the end of the pregnancy, if she has chosen to carry to term, she must make a decision about whether she wants to keep the infant after birth or give it up for adoption. If she chooses adoption, she gets to decide if she wants an open or closed adoption. She gets to choose which adoptive family her child will become a part of. If she chooses to raise the infant herself, she gets to choose her parenting style: will she breastfeed, co-sleep or babywear?


Of course, there are also choices to be made before a woman becomes pregnant. She has to choose what type of contraceptive (and I include abstinence among them) she wants to use, for instance.





As you can see, choice is about so many different things. But in the end, it really all comes down to supporting one thing: Trusting women to make the best decisions for themselves and their families when they're fully informed of all the risks and benefits associated with the possible options. This is Choice.