posted on Mar, 11 2012 @ 02:09 PM
First of all, I want to say that I think most of you who have responded in this thread are NOT THINKING. You are just reacting, and your reactions are
polarized to trigger words and your own ideas and concepts. Stop, take a deep breath, and THINK.
I know a lady who has Angelman syndrome. Although in her 20's, she is mentally and emotionally an infant. Literally. She is total care, nonverbal,
and mostly unable to communicate in any meaningful sense. Her paperwork says she is stuck at being about 18 months old developmentally. Would you
really condone her having a child? Heck, don't even think that far .. why should she have to have menses and hormonal urges? She can't understand
them or respond to them appropriately. Babies should not have babies, and if her parents hadn't already gotten her a complete hysterectomy, I would
sure advocate the "state" doing it.
Another lady has Cohen syndrome. In her late 30's physically, she's developmentally about 3 or 4 years old, just like her older brother. Oh yeah..
After having one kid with Cohen which made it a 50/50 chance that another child would have it, her parents still had another child. Right now she has
a badly broken ankle which required surgery, and she will have to be in a "long leg cast" (up to her thigh with a 30 degree bend at the knee) for
six weeks because she can't understand that her ankle is broken and keeps trying to walk on it. At the moment she is quite angry and
frustrated with all of her staff and medical pros because she can't understand why she has to have a cast and thinks if we would just remove the cast
she could walk. Her parents are deceased and she's a "ward of the state." She gets depo shots because, if she doesn't, she has sexual urges, gets
obsessed with men, and will propose sexual activity to any man she sees, such as the cashier at Walmart. She has chronic constipation and can't
understand why she needs to "poop" every so often. How do you think she would handle having menses? How do you think a pregnancy would affect her?
She can't even take care of her dog (therapeutic pet), let alone a baby.
Come on people, stop reacting to trigger concepts like "eugenics" and THINK. I love this lady I work with, I really do, and I do everything I can to
keep her happy, healthy, and safe. But from my perspective, THANK GOD for those depo shots and I wish she had been sterilized (hysterectomy). Without
the shots she WOULD try to be sexually active without any understanding of the potential consequences .. actually, without any understanding of
anything more than "it feels good" (and it's almost as pleasurable as eating). She'd be freaked out if she had a period, let alone a pregnancy.
But, you know, she loves babies and if you asked her if she wanted one, she'd say yes. What a nightmare that would be, especially since the baby
would have a 100% chance of being just like her.
For many, if not most, women who are severely (mentally/emotionally) disabled, pregnancy and childbirth would be an absolute nightmare, roughly
equivalent to 5 or 6 months of physical "torture" during which they wouldn't be able to comprehend what is happening to them, and no one would be
doing the resulting child any favors allowing it to be conceived and born. Even if you argued for the tiny chance that the child would not have mental
disabilities, how would you like to be that child, with a mother who isn't potty trained and can barely feed herself, or one who is more immature
than you are by the time you're 6 or 7 years old?
Allowing people with severe developmental disabilities to reproduce is not doing anyone any favors, least of all they themselves or their would-be
offspring.
You think you're being all noble and compassionate and humane and shyte trying to protect their rights, but you have no clue what you think you're
protecting and absolutely no understanding of these people or their real needs.