if i heard that a woman aborted a fetus because prenatal screening had revealed a disability that i shared, i would simply not shame her
RIP to people who think bodily autonomy is conditional but im different
iâve been getting a lot of comments/questions about this post. some is good, some is bad. iâve decided not to respond individually and instead say:
i said what i said. i wasnât confused about saying it.
if i found out a woman had aborted a fetus because she found out that fetus had a disability that i haveâdisabilities that i have firsthand knowledge of being painful, difficult to live with, and often resource-intensiveâi would not be angry with her. i would not feel like she doesnât think people like me should not be alive (unless she actually said so).
fetuses are not little potential âyouâs. projecting your own anxieties onto a womanâs abortion (âi wouldnât have wanted to be abortedâ is common reasoning in plenty of pro-life circles; itâs not better here) is invasive and nonsensical.
bodily autonomy isnât conditional. you donât know a womanâs exact reason for abortion and you donât need to. womenâs rights to abortion need to be protected, even if you feel icky about some potential reasoning behind an abortion, which you arenât even fully privy to in the first place.
disabled people should always be in the care of people who have the resources and desire to take care of them. insisting that disabled children be born simply to ease your own moral qualms with abortion is frankly unethical in my opinion, resources are often very slim for disabled people. not to mention our quality of life is often just lower in general. you can argue all you want in the notes about âmildâ disabilities but you arenât the arbiter of what constitutes a mild enough disability to make an abortion terrible and immoral and shame-worthy.Â
women arenât vessels. regardless of how morally pure you feel your crusade is, they simply arenât.
speaking as a disabled person, energy is literally always better spent on changing societyâby increasing resources for caretakers and disabled people alike, speaking frankly about quality of life, correcting notions about what disabled peopleâs lives are like, punishing mistreatment of actual disabled people [not potential ones], and putting research into easing the pain/suffering of people as much as possibleâthan it is on getting mad about women getting abortions. and it isnât just better spent that way, itâs just immoral to do the latter.
in conclusion: RIP to people who think bodily autonomy is conditional but im different.
