The Glade 4.0

It's pretty simple. If there is any possibility the child will survive and live an uncomplicated and healthy life, then any decision to abort the pregnancy save an immediate threat to the life of the mother is a wrong. And even if the threat to the mother complication, it's still a moral hazard, because you're denying an unrepresented party the option to choose.

Given the facts in the article, the woman mentioned is a monster. I hope she had her tubes tied, because she'll be in this boat again otherwise.

Aizle:

They lost two children to pre-natal complications during later stages of the pregnancy, ie similar complications. I made no specific mention of what, exactly, as I'm not privy to that information.

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I feel the same way, and hell I spent 3800 bucks over 2 days on a sick Golden Retriever.

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A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. ~ John Stuart Mill

I think the real answer is that it's easy for anyone to say what they *would* do, or what they think that others *should* do in a situation like this, but ultimately you have no idea until it happens to you.
I found myself in the hospital at 21 weeks with the amniotic sac bulging into the birth canal. I laid in a bed on my head for 2 weeks trying to keep the baby in there, but my water broke and my womb became infected and our daughter was born 1lb 8oz at 23 weeks and 3 days...too young to survive, she died in our arms less than an hour after birth.
When we first got to the hospital they told me exactly what was going to happen....that I would get an infection and our baby would die. The odds of her making it to a point where she could survive were less than 3% and the odds of her surviving AND being healthy were less than 1%.
My first reaction (after completely falling apart) was to not want either me or my daughter to suffer. The doctors were pressuring me to let them go ahead and induce labor since I was halfway there already at 5cm dilated and the baby already trying to come out. (In case you can't figure that out, she would 100% have died right then...about as close to an abortion as you can get.)
Ultimately, my husband and I made a very very very very very hard and very personal decision to let God do his thing and give this baby a chance even if it was one in a million and any possible suffering that her and I might experience was worth that tiny chance.
In the end, even knowing before hand all the agony we would experience, it was worth it for those 2 *AMAZING* weeks in the hospital where I got to feel her kicking every day and according to all the tests she was thriving (she doubled her weight in those two weeks!) and as far as we could tell, as happy as a baby in a womb could be.
That's my story, and I'm pretty sure that accurately sums up my thoughts and feelings on the OP.

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"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Jesus of Nazareth

Ya know... I agree with this completely, and I am horrified by the parents in the article... and I am pro abortion.

I kept reading this article and thinking, she was lucky enough to have one out of the 5 times she tried. Be humane... get the tubes tied so you do not have to drag yourselves and a baby through this again.

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

That's a pretty dark and twisted moral position, RangerDave. Indeed, sounds a lot like Margaret Sanger. You're effectively legitimating and agreeing with Eugenic selective breeding.

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I can't, in good conscience, call the parents in the article monstrous. They were making the right decision. No amount of black & white anti-abortion furor changes that.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Apparently deleted my last post while Khross was mid-response, but the nickel version is that I think aborting a pregnancy to spare the child a painful death or painful life (in the case of truly severe defects) is morally defensible and, in my personal view, may indeed be the right choice in some cases. The massive difference between that and Eugenics is that the former is based on answering the question, "What's best for the child?" and the latter is based on the question, "What's best for society?". In other words, the former treats the child as a person, while the latter treats the child as a means to an end.

LK and NF made a hard hard decision based on their faith. It's an awful decision no potential parent should make but in the end their decision was based in a huge way on their faith. If someone does not share their beliefs how can they be forced into the decision????

My position has nothing to do with any faith whatsoever. My position is based on the fact that this couple placed themselves and any potential offspring in this situation willingly, despite knowing beforehand the likely consequences of the endeavour.

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(12:34:06 PM) Khross: It's that she'd lost 4 prior pregnancies to the exact same problem and chose to continue attempting to reproduce
(12:34:07 PM) Khross:
(12:37:37 PM) Corolinth: That isn't monstrous.
(12:37:45 PM) Corolinth: Stupid and irresponsible, maybe, but not monstrous.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Yeah, the fact that she'd had 3 prior miscarriages is problematic in its own right, but it wasn't a factor in whether or not she had the legal right to an abortion or to the interests of the child in this pregnancy. Also, full disclosure here: I didn't read that middle part of the article, since it seemed like fluff about how they met, etc., so I wasn't aware of the 3 prior miscarriages when I posted the link.

You're looking at this through the rose colored glasses of hindsight, RangerDave. What if the baby turned out to be perfectly healthy and with no developmental complications? Would this even be news?

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So people shouldn't have the right to reproduce if they've had multiple prior miscarriages?

If the miscarriages are continually caused by a documented reproductive incompatibility, then no, they should not reproduce. Of course, nowhere have I advocated any legal positions in my opinion; I've simply stated what they should not do.

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Was that recent, Hannibal? Hope everything worked out ok.

I agree with this statement.

Aizle and Khross agree?

*looks for other signs of the Apocolypse*

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Memento Vivere

I have local knowledge.
That sandbar was not there yesterday!

I think it is a stretch to call the termination of seriously disabled/deformed/etc "slective breeding". It's a fuzzy line, to be sure, but I think of selective breeding as selection of key traits over other, normal, less desirable traits. It's all in the same field, but there's a significant difference.

It's a damn shame that there are folks who can't have kids but want to, go to great lengths to conceive. There are so many babies who need adoptive parents...

I'm just glad it wasn't me having to make a decision between a rock and a hard place.

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In time, this too shall pass.

we're biologically programmed to produce offspring and desire to reproduce. Its among the most fundamental desires.

Khross, you make quite possibly the most convincing moral argument I've ever seen on this board.

UF, I'm sorry about your dog. We lost our dog to a flipped stomach, a Golden too.

LK and Nitefox, I'm sorry about everything you two have been through, and I hope you give adoption serious thought if you have decided not to try again.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."