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Is it wrong to not have a disabled child solely to avoid forcing the child to suffer their whole life?
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this post was submitted on 11 Jan 2025
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That's an incredibly complicated question with no single answer. If you're looking to delve into this area then I'd say your interest will take you to reading philosophy and medical ethics. If you are interested, then this is one of the best podcasts for medical ethics that I've found.
As for your question, I'll try to get you started in a direction to explore. The question is probably best broken down to at least 2 initial questions:
Very poor eyesight or cataracts used to be debilitating. Now anyone with access to basic healthcare would not even consider mentioning those as health problems. Downs syndrome used to be a teerrible diagnosis, now people with Downs syndrome mostly have a good quality of life. Many deaf people would not consider themselves disabled at all. Does it matter if someone is in a wheelchair, and is happy, fulfilled and contributing to society? Is losing a part of a finger a disability? How about losing a whole finger, or 3 fingers?
Plenty of fully able people are suffering. Plenty of medically limited people are perfectly happy and fulfilled. A person who has the maximum intellectual intellectual capacity of a 2 year old and no ability to communicate, but who smiles and laughs and claps could be said to be happy and not suffering. If a pregnancy scan shows a baby is going to be born without a foot, can the parents or doctors decide that's a life not worth living? Even if someone is suffering, how much suffering is too much? If a person is in endless pain, severely limited function and unable to survive off a ventilator; then can parents or doctors decide that's NOT enough suffering to end their life? Physical suffering can also coexist with emotional happiness.
There are loads more questions that will come up. How do you even find out your child is going to be disabled? Is it reasonable for everyone to ask for genetic tests before the baby is born, and abort if they don't like the answer? Just because we have an ability to test or treat a condition, doesn't mean we should use those tools without considering why. Your question also is particularly about having a child, and you need to seperate the suffering of the child from the inconvenience, resources and suffering of the parents/family.
This is a very deep rabbit hole to go down and it ends up in all sorts of places (eugenics, euthenasia, abortion, resource allocation, the value of a life, etc). Many things in medicine aren't even this black and white...... A lot of decisions need to be made on possible likelihoods and estimated probabilities.
This is a great comment. I'll add that anyone thinking about disability ethics should read Two Arms and a Head, lest they start taking too seriously the idea that disabilities have no effect on quality of life.