A few years ago I watched a TV show called THE COMMISH in which a police commissioner and his wife are soon to have a baby. They had a test done and found that there was a higher than usual chance that their baby might be born mentally handicapped; they might have a child who wouldn't be normal. They were afraid their child might have a life that would be too painful or sad to be worth living. The doctor who did the test urged them to consider aborting the baby. In case they did decide to have an abortion, the doctor wouldn't tell them the sex of their baby.
I really believe that disabled persons enjoy life as much as persons who aren't handicapped do. I am autistic and, until I was thirteen years old, people thought that I was very mentally disabled. I am unable to talk and couldn't tell anyone that I'm not mentally handicapped. They couldn't know that I liked my life and had chosen to live each day as a gift from God.
They also couldn't know that I was able to follow and enjoy intellectually challenging conversations, television shows, movies and dissertations. I believe that many other people thought to be mentally disabled are as I am; not mentally impaired at all, although their physical appearance might suggest otherwise. They are quite seriously handicapped but are mentally sound. I believe that they too can intellectually understand our world and that they, like me, enjoy living and live each day having happiness and sadness and love and joy.
I have good friends who love me now and who loved me even when they thought I was retarded. Being loved unconditionally makes life worth living. No degree of impairment that they saw in me kept them from loving me. My feelings of self worth grew from their acceptance of me.
I believe that even if a person is mentally handicapped, their life can be good. I spent years in a severely mentally and physically handicapped classroom and also spent time in a moderately mentally handicapped classroom. Many of my friends and classmates were mentally handicapped. They had a wonderful time each day in school. Each one entered into life needing extra care and depended on others for even the simplest things. They know how to love unconditionally and I never forget their friendship. Not only do they like living; they make others' lives brighter for having known them.
In the show, the commissioner and his wife decided to have their baby. I was glad to see them make that choice. However, I felt quite sad that they were even given the option to think of having an abortion. They might have ended the life of their child without knowing the truth about their child's love of life. Whether their child was handicapped or not shouldn't have mattered. At the time that I watched this program, I wondered, "Why do we give people the right to abort their kids?"
That was a few years ago. The proponents of abortion call their position pro-choice. When I first heard that term, I thought it was a choice meant for the welfare of the child. After listening to the debate on abortion, it is clear to me that it is usually the welfare of the mother that is being chosen over the life of the child. Those choices I can't understand or address.
If the commissioner and his wife feared an impaired child would disrupt their lives, their fears were not groundless. I might as well admit that I drive my family crazy at times. I could only tell the commissioner and his wife that their child would love them more than they could ever guess.
If they actually feared for their child's welfare, then I could say with confidence that only one choice makes any sense; have the baby. Nobody in the world would have wanted to be denied life because they might have had a bad life. Disabled people want their chance at life as much as anyone does.
To the producers of THE COMMISH, I would say that their effort to face this issue was well motivated, but not so well carried out. When the doctor tried to insulate the commissioner and his wife from their baby by not telling them the sex of the baby to make the choice of abortion easier, that just said it all. To think of a baby as human makes an abortion seem very wrong and makes a choice a non-choice. This program tried to suggest otherwise. They gave their viewers the idea that normal kids are ok, but that handicapped kids may not be ok. They were wrong. All kids deserve their chance at life.
Ian Wetherbee 9/15/97