Sarah Palin, Down syndrome, and the abortion debate
Posted by Marcy Darnovsky November 7, 2008
Biopolitical Times
Here’s something for which we may want to thank Sarah Palin: sparking fruitful new contributions to the difficult discussions between advocates of reproductive rights and disability rights.
Many disability rights advocates are pro-choice, but horrified at the almost automatic choices so often made to terminate a pregnancy when a fetus with Down syndrome is identified. Many reproductive rights advocates consider themselves supporters of people with disabilities, but are reluctant to open the door to any questions about women’s motives for abortion.
But two commentaries published this week, both by women whose children have Down syndrome, paint the picture differently. In the Washington Post, Tierney Temple Fairchild, a Charlottesville education and management consultant, writes:
Trig Palin, the 5-month-old son of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, has drawn enormous public notice to Down syndrome. For that, many in the US and Canadian Down syndrome communities are grateful.
Many disability rights advocates are pro-choice, but horrified at the almost automatic choices so often made to terminate a pregnancy when a fetus with Down syndrome is identified. Many reproductive rights advocates consider themselves supporters of people with disabilities, but are reluctant to open the door to any questions about women’s motives for abortion.
But two commentaries published this week, both by women whose children have Down syndrome, paint the picture differently. In the Washington Post, Tierney Temple Fairchild, a Charlottesville education and management consultant, writes:
I had a choice, and I chose life. Does that make me pro-choice or pro-life? Our political parties tell us we can't have it both ways….Ten years ago, I made a decision to continue a pregnancy that would lead to a child born with Down syndrome….Ten years after my own choice, I find it disheartening that termination statistics may remain the same, that so many potential mothers choose not to follow Sarah Palin’s example.And in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, an essay by Renate Lindeman, a spokesperson for Down Syndrome Belongs in Nova Scotia, opens “Take Down syndrome out of the abortion debate” with this:
Trig Palin, the 5-month-old son of vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, has drawn enormous public notice to Down syndrome. For that, many in the US and Canadian Down syndrome communities are grateful.
But as the mother of 2 children with Down syndrome, it makes me very nervous. I'm not willing to see my kids used as poster children for the anti-abortion movement.
Rather, I see the attention that Sarah and Trig Palin are bringing Down syndrome as an opportunity to take the issue of prenatal screening out of the abortion debate once and for all.