My opinions which I stated on an old thread ^
I agree that not everyone with a disability will live a miserable life. But it's similar to how not everyone born will live a miserable life. You probably think that's not a good basis to birth a child without their consent. I agree with antinatalism. Does disability make someone's life better? Maybe dwarfism made it easier to find the love of their life that shared the condition. Maybe being paralyzed got someone out of a war. But in terms of probabilities it's definitely more like that a life is made worse with a disability.
I agree. What do you think about this ^
Right and what even is perfect anyway. I have no physical disabilities. How could they have tested for my mental disabilities? I've had npd and anger issues and hurt people. The regret is a major reason for being suicidal. Was someone going to test for that? Aborting me would have been a much better decision than someone kind, with something like downs.
In a world without amputees, lacking one finger could be treated as big of a taboo and disability. But eh not really. Objectively the latter is a lighter disability. A less of a disability. I never said perfect or clones. You're strawmaning me a little here. It's about known certain disabilities that have no behenfits. Not that there's no benefit with that person existing, but no benefit in a person having the disability. Like dwarfism can be useful in acting and getting in tight places without doing child labor or robots. But a lot of neurodivergencies. Is there any benefit? It seems cruel to not ensure as close to perfection as possible if you are going to have a child. Like harm reduction. I also understand really ugly people not wanting kids. That's pretty good. Kid might find love who knows but it's just really cruel. You're doing bad anyways so it's less bad if you're making sure the child isn't disabled.
I should've clarified. It's just a thought experiment. I don't know about how a lot of this actually works medically. Just saying "if" you could predict all disabilities including mental ones.
Ironically, since NPD comes from trauma, this in itself shows how important abortion is. Don't willingly have children that might be born into an abusive or traumatic environment/family. It will be worse for everyone.
This is correct. In my case anyway. My parents messed up.
Same my dude
Same my dude
Honestly to expand on my thoughts here... it's a complicated topic.
I see a lot of "aborting disabled fetuses avoids suffering!" and "disabilities are differences :)" type talking points, and as a severely physically/mentally disabled person, those are two extremes that lead us nowhere.
Disability is complicated and nuanced. Many people don't even realize that simple neurodivergencies like ADHD, LSN Autism, and depression, are disabling.
Others don't understand that stigmatized neurodivergencies like NPD, ASPD, and DID, are disabling. And these in particular are disorders that you can be born with predisposition to, but must experience trauma to actually develop.
Saying that giving birth to a disabled child is bad is a selfish mindset and ignore the variance in existence for all disabled people. Where is the line? What's the percentage? If a family shares a disability (let's say autism), and then give birth to a kid who ends up experiencing the condition differently, needing higher support needs, etc, should that family have aborted the kid? Just from the possibility that their experience would have been "more severe"?
If you live in a family that has good access to healthcare, specialists, physical therapy, and more, there are plenty of disabilities that someone can live a wonderful life with.
Keep in mind that this website is literally a safe haven for those who are suffering—the sample size of happy disabled people here is bound to be low.
I definitely think that giving birth to disabled babies should be considered in the context of the current social climate, though. I will always stand by the fact that purposely birthing a disabled child, no matter how "mild" the disability, into an abusive or traumatizing environment with NO FAILSAFE to make sure they make it out unscathed is selfish and cruel. Potentially moreso than a nondisabled kid.
I was born disabled. Mentally and physically. But I would have made it out okay without the abuse and neglect that destroyed my mind and body. Life would be more worth living if my chronic pain hadn't been ignored by my dad until my body started to fall apart. It would be more worth living if my trauma hadn't been left to fester, guided from traumatic environment to traumatic environment with no time to process until our brain split thousands of alters.
But even if that never happened... I'd still be disabled. I was born privileged enough that I could have had access to specialists, proper therapy and schooling. It was the fucked up abusers that kept it from me, not my disability.
Aborting a disabled fetus should always be on a case-by-case basis. This isn't something you can simplify into a math formula.
I agree from a societal perspective that its wrong to start essentially selective breeding. But from a personal perspective? I dont want to be life's variety. I dont want to make things more interesting with my neurodivergence and the resulting struggles that come from it. And I certainly have no interest in living a whole lifetime of suffering and struggle just so my parents or the government or the world can feel they had some moral high ground of not snuffing out my existence for the dozens of known and likely issues that I would have in life. And to be transparent I did not have any test results that would have indicated any problems, but my parents certainly didnt have any factors in their lives that suggested they could raise a child. And they did keep me alive long enough for me to keep myself alive (which started when I could walk), and they did do better than their circumstances would have suggested (as evidenced by my slightly less horrific childhood trauma than their similarly qualified friends' kids). But it was suggested to my mom that maybe it would be better to wait and have kids later and she refused, not out of any love of me but because she thought I'd be a great tool to keep my dad around, which arguably worked. But my unique perspectives and experiences dont to me make up for all the bad. So selfishly I kind of wish there was some checklist somewhere. My parents would have failed, I would have never had to suffer, and a boring world where no one suffers or struggles because of things they were born with doesnt sound bad at all. But to wrap around to my starting point, if you've gotten this far and have likely gotten a little lost in my ramble, I do believe people with all sorts of disabilities have so much worth and goodness to share with the world and I dont trust any government to decide who should and shouldnt be allowed a chance at their life.
It bothers me when people are against an improvement of the human condition because it makes life boring or too easy. Like wtf. It's the ultimate cognitive dissonance of I admit you're right and I'm evil but evil is necessary. I say better is better. Do all things better while extinction hasn't completed yet. After that there are no problems until evolution does it again.
Who are you to decide what is "better" though? You are assuming all "disabilities" are harmful and bad, and you are deciding what you believe are disabilities.
Parents have the moral obligation to ensure the best life for a child, given that they're having a child. So chosing which child is like step 0. When you know this baby's going to have schizophrenia (you probably can't tell, again, just a thought experiment), what good reason do you have to continue. How does schizophrenia raise QOL. If you as a fetus could chose which disability to have, why would you chose any. That's my point. So how dare the parents knowingly give their children disabilities. How is having a fetus that didn't develop legs any different from having a normal fetus and immediately cutting their legs off after birth. I think logical thing to do is abort, try again, and have a child when the magical machine says it won't have schizophrenia. Everyone has the right to live. But for some people with shitty lives, it's abundantly clear what the culprit is.
You need to put "in my opinion" on everything here... because you're arguing theory and not facts. Assuming there was a machine that could predict 100% accurately "defects" and that we all as a society agreed on what constitutes a "defect." I say again, who should be deciding not to allow life based on that?
