Is it Ethical to Allow a Child to Live With Severe Disabilities?
It is always heartbreaking to discover that your child has a severe disability. We all wish that children were healthy and developing normally.
But what is the alternative? There are some who believe that if you can find out about the disability soon enough, the compassionate thing is to have an abortion. Others take a step further and suggest that infanticide (now called post-natal abortion) may be the way of saving the child from living a life of disability.
Philosophers may debate these things in lecture halls or journal articles but I have a different perspective. My daughter has severe autism. She is twelve years-old but has a mental age of two. She lives in a group home.
Tonight we celebrated her birthday at a restaurant. Our family was there as well as the children (all around her developmental age) who she goes to school with. I watched her carefully. She had huge smiles and loud giggles. She enjoyed opening presents. She had fun when the serving staff marched over to sing to her. She devoured her dessert. Most of all, she loved being the centre of attention.
Who is to say that she has a bad quality of life? She has as much fun as any twelve year-old girl, perhaps more. People love her and she loves people. She is able to interact with others and have relationships with them.
It is true that there are things that she is unable to do (hence disability) but there are plenty of things I cannot do as well. Where is the line that determines the quality of life?
Is it ethical to allow a child to live with a disability? I would say that it is unethical to not allow a child to make the best of their life, with or without a disability.
