Michael Gerson has a column in today’s Washington Post in which he proclaims that Trig Palin, Sarah Palin’s infant son with Down’s syndrome, represents a milestone for the disability rights movement. Gerson notes that 90 percent of pregnancies are aborted when prenatal testing reveals the presence of Down’s syndrome. He also writes:
This is properly called eugenic abortion — the ending of “imperfect” lives to remove the social, economic and emotional costs of their existence. And this practice cannot be separated from the broader social treatment of people who have disabilities. By eliminating less perfect humans, deformity and disability become more pronounced and less acceptable. Those who escape the net of screening are often viewed as mistakes or burdens[…]And this feeds a social Darwinism in which the stronger are regarded as better, the dependent are viewed as less valuable, and the weak must occasionally be culled.
Gerson sees abortion as a cause of disability discrimination and a betrayal of the left’s espoused communitarian values. I’m not blind to the tension Gerson points out. As someone with a significant disability, it frustrates me that many expectant parents receive biased or inaccurate information about the quality of life that can be lived with a disability. I’m also struck by the slightly awed tone of commentators from both the left and right when discussing Palin’s decision to have Trig, which should speak volumes about how both conservatives and liberals regard disability.
If a woman equipped with neutral and accurate information chooses to have a child like Trig, she should expect the rest of us to fully support her decision in both word and deed. In practice, that means we may all need to pay a few more dollars to support things like health care, education, and the other services that child will need throughout life. And if that same woman chooses not to follow that path, she should expect the rest of us to not treat her like a criminal or a child. I’m pro-choice because the alternative is to enforce a regime that substitutes its own judgment for that of the individual. And as a person with a disability who has some experience with other well-meaning people wishing to supplant my judgment for their own, I simply can’t go along with that.
