A woman's right to choose — regardless
Prenatal tests now enable the detection of foetuses with Downs syndrome and other abnormalities. Ongoing medical research is resulting in a growing number of conditions that can be detected. The growing number of terminations of abnormal foetuses is behind the claim — by a vocal minority — that this use of technology is discriminatory, and has a direct relationship to society becoming less tolerant of people with disabilities. This is the argument implicitly promoted in an emotive article by Roy Eccleston in the January 20
Australian magazine. Bandying around such phrases as "Survival of the finest, why more couples put perfection before life", "Death before deformity" and "the quest for the perfect baby", Eccleston implies that the law could be more helpful in preventing "babies" from being aborted. Do we need laws that specifically deal with the termination of foetuses? If this is seen as the path to making society more tolerant, it's logical extension is that tolerance needs to be enforced. However, laws do not necessarily change people's attitudes. On its own, a new law will not make people more tolerant. And no law is going to change the circumstances into which people with disabilities are born. Currently, society does not have the social infrastructure to adequately support disabled people. (There is the material infrastructure and medical know-how, but a lack of political will.) New laws are not going to dramatically change this. Placing restrictions on a woman's right to terminate an abnormal foetus has many reactionary implications. Most importantly, it would place even further restrictions on women's right to abortion. The right to control their own bodies is a fundamental democratic right of women which still has to be fought for. Eccleston selectively quotes from people who refer to abortion as murder. "Let's not gloss over it. I killed my baby", was one comment. "I think we should be honest and face the fact that it is killing a human being", was another. He went on to construct an argument which attacked women's right to choose to abort abnormal foetuses using "the need for tolerance" as cover. In his haste to blame supposedly selfish women, Eccleston failed to canvass the huge responsibility individual carers for disabled people have to take. A family member's disability and associated health problems can be very demanding, especially on women who still take principal responsibility for unpaid work in the home — caring for children, for the sick and elderly. This is in addition to the push towards economic rationalism which means that, with fewer and more expensive health care services, families and the women in them are being forced to take on heavier caring roles. Economic rationalism demands less social responsibility and more individual responsibility. Eccleston's emphasis on the individual supports these regressive steps. The most just and democratic solution to the question of what should be done about an abnormal foetus is to leave it as a matter of individual choice. Any attempt to introduce a law protecting the "rights" of foetuses, with or without abnormalities, would be a gross attack on the democratic rights of women. If a woman is not able to make up her own mind about if, when, and how many children she will bear, she will have little control over other aspects of her life. Regardless of her reasons, a woman must have the right to choose.
Trish Corcoran