via
https://ift.tt/2VQCKG5zorilleerrant:
scofflawsins:
scofflawsins:
I can’t believe that ‘maybe women should be forced to have babies sometimes because ableism exists’ is a real take I was just forced to witness with my own two fucking eyes
to put this in the simplest terms possible, for fear that thinking about it too long will make my brain dissolve
‘I want to abort my pregnancy partly or entirely because there’s a chance the baby would be disabled.’
‘that’s ableist. she should be encouraged to reexamine her prejudices and educate herself’ YES ✅
‘that’s ableist. she should have to endure extra scrutiny to access abortion/be barred from it entirely’ NO!!!!!!! ❌WHAT THE FUCK ❌IS WRONG WITH YOU!!!!!!!!!! ❌
that’s definitely an ableist outlook and I mostly agree with this argument, but I think there’s an issue with treating it as an individual problem. among other things, trying to get someone to reexamine prejudices and educate themselves in the middle of a traumatic event is counterproductive to both the goal of reducing ableism and the goal of ending and mitigating the damage of the traumatic event. it also puts the onus of reducing ableism specifically on pregnant people who might have disabled babies, rather than society as a whole - and it’s the system, not the individuals who make up the system, that really has to change.
it’s a pretty difficult thing to talk about, because most people want their kids to have good lives, and by the very nature of society’s ableism, disabled kids will be targeted and attacked. that’s not a myth people need to be educated about; it’s genuinely true, and society has to be fixed first before that’s something people no longer need to take into account when trying to make the best decisions for their potential children. this means that the decision may be a response to ableism, and not ableism itself.
there’s also the fact that if someone has to be unlearning ableism at the point where they’re already pregnant, there’s no way they’re going to unlearn enough of it to safely and healthily raise a disabled kid; their still extant outlooks are going to make them raise that kid in an abusive environment and not be compassionate to their difficulties. so even if they were encouraged to reexamine their prejudices, and they decided to do what they felt was morally right and have that disabled baby, the overall outcome would be bad for both parent and child.
talking about case studies or the prevalence of the phenomenon is a necessary discussion, and certainly we have to deal with education generally across all groups of people. but people’s decisions to have abortions has to be treated as purely a symptom, and not the proximal cause of ableism.
Also, unless the country they are in has robust public health care, they may not be able to afford to look after a disabled child. There is definitely a class element in this too.
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