A question of life & death

I started this blog primarily as a place to write love letters to my son, so that one day he might be able to glimpse at this time in his life through my words. And although I am going to still do that, there are times when I feel I want to say things that are not aimed at my little one, but just general thoughts and feelings. So, I am going to start using this blog as a place for me to share my own thoughts and feelings as well!

Having said that, I would choose a very controversial subject to start with!! LOL! It's just that I came across a statistic a while back that really bugged me... 91% of all people faced with a diagnosis of Down syndrome through amniocentesis will choose to abort the baby.

I have always considered myself to be Pro-Choice - y'know... it's your body, your choice. But my support of Pro-Choice was always been based on abortion due to the mother's circumstances... poverty, rape, age etc. I never really thought about it in terms of aborting for 'medical reasons' (this is the tidy, clean-conscience term used for aborting due to a scary diagnosis). And this has weighed heavily on my mind the past week or so... I look at my son, my beautiful, amazing son and I think that 91% of the people around me would have chosen to kill him. That's blunt, but its the bottom line. I look at my son, into his beautiful eyes... I look at him across the room and now he smiles back at me (bless him!)... I watch him as he's starting to master the idea of being on his tummy... as he sleeps at night, snoring softly... and then I think - 91% of people don't think he has the right to life, to love, to freedom and the persuit of happiness. And even more hurtful for me as a mother is that when he gets older, he may realise that fact as well...

At a dinner the other night, a friend of mine who has another friend who choose to abort their baby with Down syndrome told me that they live with a terrible, heavy guilt everyday of their lives... I felt compassion for them, of course! To choose to kill your child cannot be easy to do or to live with. I don't for one second think it is a choice taken lightly or without immense pain. But she said they were plagued by thoughts of 'what if their test results were wrong or mixed up and their unborn baby was actually ok'.Oh. They are not sad because they decided a life with Down syndrome IS worth living... but just in case their unborn child was in fact 'perfect' and not 'broken' as they had been told. They cry and mourn their 'perfect' child, while the reality of their little unborn child with Down syndrome is negated.

And seeing that this post is taking a very serious turn (this subject can never be light I suppose)... I wanted to ask 91% of people out there... If your doctor had a crystal ball and told you that at age 4 your child would run infront of a car and become severely handicapped as a result - would you abort now? What if your doctor could tell you that your child would nearly drown and become handicapped because of that - would you abort? Would the idea of perfection that the world has sold us, and that we have swallowed up, be that important to you that you would be willing to kill for it?

A life or death issue becomes a question of perfection... whatever that may be. All at once I am not sure that anything is perfect and then I am sure that everything is perfectly in order. I look at my son and I love him, I love him... I ache with love for him... for a child that 91% of people would choose to kill... my child...