"Well, once you actually have a child and it becomes independent enough to make decisions on its own.. it's, well, an independent life form. Not some kind of "extension" of the parent. It is now a separate entity."
No. The child is an independant life form from birth, capable of making informed decisions for him/herself. A newborn will creep to his mothers breast for nourishment; if you had children you respected and listened to you might notice that newborns have very strong preferences and are quite capable of making these preferences clear. Its up to the parent or caregiver to hear the child and assist the implementation of the desired activity. That's the job of the parent. I daresay that "even" children/people (same thing) with serious brain "dysfunction" are capable of making informed choices; we just haven't discovered a way to communicate with many of them. A person I know works with children who have cerebral palsy. Until someone went and built these "communicators" ( devices that enable the kids-this is a school- to effectively talk, with a voice that is their own, by programming it or pressing on it or moving their head slightly to the left or whatever, twitching etc), many of them were probably thought to be useless vegetables (or whatever) as well. To suggest that just because a person is unable to respond in a way we can recognize, they are therefore useless or should be killed, is illogical and unscientific. Again, I say that this is an underexplored area and that our energies should be towards discovering methods of communication.
When I was pregnant with my older son the ultrasound "showed" that the umbilical cord has only 2 valves, rather than the necessary 3. These valves carry in oxygen and "food" to the fetus and carry out waste. With only 2 he was going to be either seriously disabled or die or something. They wanted me to go to a geneticist, to get an amniocentesis (where they stick a long needle into your uterus and remove some of the fluid) which in itself is a dangerous procedure, carrying a risk of spontaneous abortion. I suppose the thinking behind this was to give me the option of aborting my son should something "serious" showed up. To make a long story a little shorter, I refused all the tests and when my son was born the cord proved to have all 3 valves and he was a healthy 10lb 2oz baby. Ridiculous. It galls me to think that people are having children so casually that they would consider them an inconvenience in any way or that they could be capable of dehumanizing them to the extent of murdering them. I think that all humans are worthy of our respect, regardless of their abilities or appearance. Respect as in respecting that they know themselves best and that they should be the ones to decide their fate. Perhaps we should be concentrating our efforts in pursuit of new and more effective methods of communicating with people who are 'severely disabled' rather than coming up with new rationale for eliminating thier presence.
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"Well, once you actually have a child and it becomes independent enough to make decisions on its own.. it's, well, an independent life form. Not some kind of "extension" of the parent. It is now a separate entity."
No. The child is an independant life form from birth, capable of making informed decisions for him/herself. A newborn will creep to his mothers breast for nourishment; if you had children you respected and listened to you might notice that newborns have very strong preferences and are quite capable of making these preferences clear. Its up to the parent or caregiver to hear the child and assist the implementation of the desired activity. That's the job of the parent. I daresay that "even" children/people (same thing) with serious brain "dysfunction" are capable of making informed choices; we just haven't discovered a way to communicate with many of them.
A person I know works with children who have cerebral palsy. Until someone went and built these "communicators" ( devices that enable the kids-this is a school- to effectively talk, with a voice that is their own, by programming it or pressing on it or moving their head slightly to the left or whatever, twitching etc), many of them were probably thought to be useless vegetables (or whatever) as well. To suggest that just because a person is unable to respond in a way we can recognize, they are therefore useless or should be killed, is illogical and unscientific.
Again, I say that this is an underexplored area and that our energies should be towards discovering methods of communication.
When I was pregnant with my older son the ultrasound "showed" that the umbilical cord has only 2 valves, rather than the necessary 3. These valves carry in oxygen and "food" to the fetus and carry out waste. With only 2 he was going to be either seriously disabled or die or something. They wanted me to go to a geneticist, to get an amniocentesis (where they stick a long needle into your uterus and remove some of the fluid) which in itself is a dangerous procedure, carrying a risk of spontaneous abortion. I suppose the thinking behind this was to give me the option of aborting my son should something "serious" showed up.
To make a long story a little shorter, I refused all the tests and when my son was born the cord proved to have all 3 valves and he was a healthy 10lb 2oz baby. Ridiculous.
It galls me to think that people are having children so casually that they would consider them an inconvenience in any way or that they could be capable of dehumanizing them to the extent of murdering them.
I think that all humans are worthy of our respect, regardless of their abilities or appearance. Respect as in respecting that they know themselves best and that they should be the ones to decide their fate.
Perhaps we should be concentrating our efforts in pursuit of new and more effective methods of communicating with people who are 'severely disabled' rather than coming up with new rationale for eliminating thier presence.