Month: September 2012

“Through the gradual introduction of new forms of technology and testing, the medical establishment and the public health sector have been developing subtle quality-of-life standards and not-so-subtle ways of discouraging the birth of those who do not measure up.”

Elizabeth Kristol. “Picture Perfect: the Politics of Prenatal Testing” First Things 32 (April 1993): 22

Quoted in Paige Comstock Cunningham, Esq. “The Supreme Court and the creation of the two-dimensional woman” Erika Bachiochi. The Cost of “Choice”: Women Evaluate the Impact of Abortion” (San Francisco, CA: Encounter Books, 2004)

Read an example of such coercion here. 

Author Pearl S Buck said, in a book, of her child who was born mentally handicapped as a result of the metabolic condition called PKU:

 “[by] this most sorrowful way I was compelled to tread, I learned respect and reverence for every human mind. It was my child who taught me to understand so clearly that all people are equal in their humanity and that all have the same human rights. None is to be considered less, as a human being, than any other, and each must be given his place and a safety in the world. I might never have learned this in any other way. I might’ve gone on in the arrogance of my own intolerance for those less able than myself. My child taught me humanity.”

Pearl S Buck, The Child Who Never Grew, 2nd edition (Bethesda, Md: Woodbine House, 1992) 70

Buck’s attitude and her love for her child standing contrast to the self-centeredness and misguided “compassion” of mothers who abort their handicapped children.

From Elizabeth R Schlitz. “Living in the Shadow of Monchberg: Prenatal Testing and Genetic Abortion” in the book Erika Bachiochi. The Cost of “Choice”: Women Evaluate the Impact of Abortion” (San Francisco, CA: Encounter Books, 2004) p 48

Disability rights activists maintain that “most people with disabilities rate their quality of life as much higher than other people think. People make the decision [to reject embryos] based on a prejudice that having a disability means having a low quality of life.”

Aaron Zitner, “A Girl or Boy, You Pick” Los Angeles Times, July 23, 2012:  A 1 quoting Deborah Kaplan, Executive Director of the World Institute on Disability in Oakland, California

The article Elizabeth R Schlitz. “Living in the Shadow of Monchberg: Prenatal Testing and Genetic Abortion” in the book Erika Bachiochi. The Cost of “Choice”: Women Evaluate the Impact of Abortion” (San Francisco, CA: Encounter Books, 2004) tells the  story of a woman whose prenatal test showed that her baby would have cystic fibrosis and who opted not to have an abortion.

The HMO initially denied medical coverage because the baby had “a pre-existing condition.” They eventually reversed the decision but they told the woman in essence: you knew about this condition before the baby was born. You could’ve prevented this baby from being born. You chose not to. Since you made that decision, you can find a way to pay for it.

Larry Thompson, “the Price of Knowledge: Genetic Tests That Predict Dire Conditions Become a Two-Edged Sword,” Washington Post, October 10, 1989. Z07