(no subject)

[maevele]

I've figured out why the fawning over Palin having a downs baby bugs me. The implication, nay, full on saying, that she went ahead and had this baby knowing it was disabled because she's so damn prolife, implies that only those who believed abortion was WRONGO would ever have a disabled baby. That just seems really devaluing and horrible. I'm prochoice as hell, but if I found out during a wanted pregnancy that the baby was "imperfect" that wouldn't change it to an unwanted pregnancy.


I just get a vibe like "Look! I'm so prolife I'll even have a *disabled baby*!! You prochoicers would have killed him!@" which pisses me off,

then again, I'm just rging pissed off in general due to the bullshit in MN, and my shoulder having gone out again, so I can't use my left arm, or move my head.

so, I got some anger, but thanks to the crazy pills, it stays directed where it should, not at those around me.

Comments

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

The implication, nay, full on saying, that she went ahead and had this baby knowing it was disabled because she's so damn prolife, implies that only those who believed abortion was WRONGO would ever have a disabled baby.

Bingo. I already lost my shit at the TV coverage once over this.

[miriam-heddy.livejournal.com]

90-93% of women who find out their fetus has Downs Syndrome do choose an abortion.

I found this out when I, as a pro-choice woman who got pregnant in her late thirties, went in for an amnio which found some "markers."

My son did not turn out to have Downs, and I did decide to keep him regardless. But most don't.

It's a separate but related issue--and one that pro-choice people have, as a group, some trouble confronting, because we do advocate "for any reason" to prevent the Religious Right from narrowing down by reason, even as we do live in a deeply ableist culture in which the diagnosis of something like Downs is still treated as a horror.

[pantryslut.livejournal.com]

I found this out when I, as a pro-choice woman who got pregnant in her late thirties, went in for an amnio which found some "markers."

Me, too. (Well, no amnio, but other tests.)

And I don't think we'll ever challenge the ableist paradigm if we assume, and reinforce, that only pro-life women would carry a Down's child to term -- that anyone else of course would choose an abortion. Statistics or no statistics -- one in ten choose to carry a Down's child to term, and that's not a small number when you get down to it -- and I sincerely doubt *all* those women are pro-life.

(Heck, I was told had a one in 20 chance of conceiving twins if I took Clomid -- and guess what I'm carrying right now?)

Which is why I lost my shit.

(Also b/c she's being treated like a martyr/hero just for not being a hypocrite.)

[tupelo-lights.livejournal.com]

It's a pretty nauseating combination of sexism and ableism, toting around her baby's diagnosis as token proof that she's a Virgin, not a Whore.

[bifemmefatale.livejournal.com]

Fwiw, feministing.com did the same thing, pointing out her pro-life (or "forced-birth" as they put it) politics in the same sentence with "just had her 5th child, who has Down's Syndrome". I thought it was tasteless, ableist and irrelevant of them.

[unwoman.livejournal.com]

I'm pissed that she got pregnant while in office. I'm sure she'd do it again as VP if she could, too.

[shana-etel.livejournal.com]

Dude, read Belleweather's most recent entry. You will lose your shit even more than you already have. It sounds, and this is rumor, like she is actually the child's grandmother and that she is shielding her teenage daughter from embarrassment. It kind of stinks.