kipplekipple:

Look, if a person finds out they’re carrying a foetus who may or will be disabled, and they get pressured into aborting, that isn’t freedom of choice.

If that person is pushed towards information that ignores the lived experiences of people with those disabilities, that isn’t freedom of choice.

I am pro-choice. I believe that person should have the choice to abort. But I also believe their choice should be based on accurate, relevant information rather than the ableist bias of our society.

Stop acting like pro-choice ends at allowing abortions. Stop acting like eugenics are fine “because pro-choice.” If you’re pro-choice you need to remember that informed consent is a thing, and to acknowledge that the way abortion is pushed on parents of disabled foetuses is extremely problematic in its current incarnation.

aegipan-omnicorn:

Thank you.

As someone who is congenitally disabled (disabled from birth), I hate having my existence used as club by one side of the “debate” to beat up on the other side.

(I’m pro-choice, too, by the way).

The anti-choice people try to shame me out of my pro-choice position, by saying: If your mother had known ahead of time, and could have aborted, she would have! How do you feel about that?*

The pro-choice people (most of them  – OP excepted), paint my existence as nothing but a punishment and a burden, that anti-choice people are forcing mothers to face.

Both “sides” of this argument are Ableist A.F. Both are hateful and bigoted.

*My answer to that question is two-fold:

a) if she had aborted me, I wouldn’t have any feelings at all, because I wouldn’t exist, but I’d rather not exist at all than to be born to a mother who didn’t want me – especially since disabled children are much more likely to suffer abuse and neglect, and

b) You never knew my mother – decades after her death, I learned she had had a passel of family in the neighborhood where I grew up, and I’d never even heard her mention their names. And looking back on her last encounters with the few cousins I did know about, and how ugly and sour that turned out, I can only conclude that they tried to  pressure her into putting me in an institution (this was in the 1960s). And she wanted to protect me from their ableism.

My mother never saw me as a burden, and how dare you.

semi-sem:

It all honestly dubs down to, this is the MOTHER’S choice, no one else’s not even you as her kid can have an opinion on it.

If a mother wants to abort, then she fucking can, for any goddamn reason.

kipplekipple:

Yes. But if her reason is based on misinformation she was given to her by the society she lives in, then that reason isn’t hers.

coffiend-jackalope:

I’m congenitaly disabled too, and when it was found I would be born disabled the first thing the doc asked was if my mom wanted to abort. This was in 1991. Abortion was the first option they offered and framed as the most humane. Not info on disability resources. They’d pressure expectant parents into aborting. My view on abortion is exactly like @aegipan-omnicorn ’s (and thank you for putting it in words!). I’m pro-choice, even if it were me, but I also know that eugenics plays a heavy role in the abortion debate. Pro-life says “Abortions shouldn’t be allowed because they’re used to kill disabled babies.” and pro-choice says “You’re forcing a disabled baby on parents.”

I’m tired of being used by both sides for their nuance lacking arguments. There’s a lot more to it than just ‘force couple to have disabled child’