Choosing Not to Abort Babies with Disabilities

[Hoovie]

Originally Posted by Margies3

I've known far too many women who were counseled to abort because they saw some sort of abnormality in the tests before the baby was due, only to carry the baby to term and find out that there was absolutely nothing wrong.

And besides that, if you gave birth to a normal child and then at age 5 they were involved in a terrible car accident which resulted in them ending up quadrapalegic (I know that's not spelled right! sorry). Would you love that child any less? Of course not!
Or suppose you raised a child to adulthood and then they developed schizophrenia. Do you love them any less? NO!!
Or say they get cancer at some point? Are they less loved?

So why would you love an unborn child less just because someone told you they weren't perfect? Do we love them because they are perfect? Or do we love them because God gave them to us to love?

No - perhaps you love them even more... based on their need for us. Yet I am afraid there are those who would answer terminating based on a poor quality of life IS the loving thing to do.

There are others who will consider divorce if a spouse becomes terminally ill or incapacitated. We live in a selfish world.

[Margies3]

Originally Posted by Stephen Hoover

No - perhaps you love them even more... based on their need for us. Yet I am afraid there are those who would answer terminating based on a poor quality of life IS the loving thing to do.

There are others who will consider divorce if a spouse becomes terminally ill or incapacitated. We live in a selfish world.

Exactly!

The sad thing is that I wonder often our SELFISH decisions cause us to miss out what could very possibly be one of the greatest blessings that would have entered into our lives. We have had 3 children in our family who were born with limitations. Two of them (twins) are now in their mid-40's. We all grew up with these cousins. We learned so much from them that we could never have learned any other way. And now my kids have a cousin who will be in a wheelchair for her entire life, completely unable to communicate. Katie is however, very very smart! She may not be able to speak words, but she certainly CAN communicate. And she is a wonderful gift to all of us, including her parents who absolutely adore her!

We could have missed out the blessings that each of these people are to us if their moms had aborted. I'm so grateful they didn't.