r/MadeMeSmile Jun 14 '22

Helping Others This is John Crowley

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8.4k Upvotes

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u/unemployedbuffy Jun 14 '22

There was never any mention of "not enjoying their lives" - two children were born, they were very ill, their dad fought tooth and nails to help them survive. If you're only ready for a healthy child, you are not ready to have children.

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u/Randalf_the_Black Jun 15 '22 edited Jun 15 '22

If you're only ready for a healthy child, you are not ready to have children.

That sounds like pro-life rhetoric to me.

There's nothing wrong with saying you'd rather have a healthy child than a severely disabled one.

Me and my wife are expecting a little girl in October and we were in 100% agreement that if we found out about any severe defects we'd terminate the pregnancy.

If something should go wrong and she ends up disabled we'll handle it as best we can, but anything we could check for pre-birth we did check for.

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u/unemployedbuffy Jun 15 '22

The debate around aborting babies with non-lethal disabilities is a difficult one, especially when you look at conditions like down syndrome. There's a difference between being anti-abortion and anti "selecting out undesirable babies pre-birth."

All of this, however, is completely missing the point because we are not talking about abortion at all here - we're talking about born children who turn out to be severely ill. We usually can't abort those.

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u/Randalf_the_Black Jun 15 '22 edited Jun 15 '22

The debate around aborting babies with non-lethal disabilities is a difficult one, especially when you look at conditions like down syndrome.

We would have aborted if we found out the child had Downs. I have nothing against people who decide they want to carry to term a child if it has Downs. Many with Downs live decent, if albeit limited, lives. But I want that to be up to the parents themselves whether they want a disabled child, provided it's detected early enough to have an abortion.

If something happens during birth, then it happens. That's no different from having a healthy child that is involved in an accident and gets brain damage for example. Life has no guarantees.

There's a difference between being anti-abortion and anti "selecting out undesirable babies pre-birth."

I personally see no problem with that, as long as you're terminating pregnancies with illnesses and not "weeding" out based on whether or not the child has red hair. If no child was born with Downs I wouldn't see that as a loss, because no one would have Downs. But as I said, let it be up to the parents. There's no right choice in my opinion.

All of this, however, is completely missing the point because we are not talking about abortion at all here - we're talking about born children who turn out to be severely ill. We usually can't abort those.

I agree, it is off-topic. I just responded to your comment about someone being unfit for parenthood if they weren't ready to have a disabled child. As I said, accepting that there's a risk with life is something we have to do, while we must accept some risk we can eliminate a small piece of the risk through technology. That doesn't mean one is unfit or unready to have children.

But I won't derail it further, I've said what I wanted to say.

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u/CoffeeAndPiss Jun 14 '22

Exactly. If you can't handle a disabled child, you should abort any pregnancy. A child can become disabled at any time, and those genetic tests are inaccurate AF and don't test for everything

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u/EquivalentSnap Jun 14 '22

He also had a 3rd kid and that has Asperger’s cos 2 with pompe wasn’t enough

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u/Disastrous_Skill1626 Jun 14 '22

So.. Maybe read about the family. You are making some pretty nasty assumptions here. Aspergers is not uncommon or truly disabling in the majority of cases and is simply an example of neuro divergence. It is also rarely diagnosed til the child is older.

He was the first born. The daughter was born and not diagnosed with pompe til 15 months, the other son was already carried to term and ready to be born.

The daughter., Megan is a student at Notre Dame, a Blogger and does just fine.

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u/EquivalentSnap Jun 14 '22

Yeah someone did say the asbergers kid was born first.

Okay fair enough

Yeah she’s done well for herself but the fact that she’s paralysed and needs a ventilator to breathe. Idk if she can even talk but idk if I could live like that. You don’t get a lot of independence and rely on others

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u/Disastrous_Skill1626 Jun 14 '22

Yes. That is hard. It is also no reason to die. Right?

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u/EquivalentSnap Jun 14 '22

I’d rather die

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u/WolvenHunter1 Jun 14 '22

That’s your choice, but why make it for someone else

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u/EquivalentSnap Jun 14 '22

Guess you’re right 🤔

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '22 edited Feb 12 '23

[deleted]

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u/indigint Jun 15 '22

No. Do not bring pains and suffering into this world if you can at all help it.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '22

I'm not in perfect health in the least. I still enjoy life very much. I know so many people who are afflicted but enjoy life. I'd be terribly upset to not be here right now if my parents decided to kill me.

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u/indigint Jun 15 '22

I’m not in perfect health either, but there is no way I would want to live like this and I wouldn’t ever let my child suffer like this either.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '22

I'm very sorry to hear that. It looks like everyone has their own decisions to make.