I am 'NORMAL'

Hi ji,

Ok, I want to clear onething here. I do not want any stupid remarks here, this is to be dealt with a seriousness ji. If any of you make a dumb remark on this, it will just prove that you lack any smartness. There is a time for humor, but that humor is not needed here. If any remarks are made that are inappropriate, I'll have them deleted, and that person would be advised to be banned from this topic ji. If any of you can't follow these simple instructions, then DON'T POST. If you do make silly remarks that are inapprioprate for this topic, you'll have to face a few nasty remarks yourself.







So said that I'd like to get on to the topic. This is more like a discussion than a debate ji. In today's world more emphasis is made on how a person looks rather than inner beauty that seems very lost.To have a more 'plastic beautified' world there are many technological advancements. One such advancement is found in hosiptals ji. Nowadayz, along with finding out what gender a child is, abnormalities can be detected at an 'abortional' stage in pregnency. It is said to take the step as a parent to abort the child is hard, but many do take that step when they find out that the child has down syndrome, or another disability. But, is that a necessary step to take ji? To kill a life in an excuse of doing that child a 'favor' by not letting it come to the world and letting him/her suffer the pain others are capable of inflicting.

There are parents before who have raised kids with a certain disability with love and affection, and have tried to give a good upbringing. Even though that child has most likely suffered pains given by people outside, the child had his/her own family to turn to for affection. In such cases of disability, love is what makes these children bloom. So why are people taking a step as abortion for cases with an abnormal feteus? Is it that because people are too engulfed in beauty and the fact that are alwayz trying to fit in, that they think these children are a burden? This child should be killed because it will be saved from this harsh world. Are the parents too afraid of what this society might think of them, or are they really trying to do something good for that unborn? Some argue that it would take a toll on their married life, then is their marriage artifical like the beauty that's fought for? Some say that life is too harsh for a 'retarded' child, and that if given the chance they should avoid this ji. It might be that life is too hard on the people around this child that they want to take this option. If something like this does happen to a couple, it might be just there to test what kind of relationship they have, and to see if they have that love they tell others they do have.

It's you and I who can make this world very hard to live in ji. People give way too much importance as to how one looks, and being 'normal' with looks gets you a lot in this artifical world. We tend to set these fashion trends that is a must to follow, and people who stand out are somebody who needs to be not socialized with ji. Nowadayz, the first impression IS the last impression. There are kids who have down syndrome, and I'm pretty sure most people have seen this in their lives. But before giving out 'The Judgement' of how that child should be treated, wouldn't it be better to first get to know that child? If people can give 'normal' people that chance of interaction, then why can't this person be given a chance ji?

A child who has medical disabilities is treated sometimes with a lot of pity, and sometimes very horribly. But why do we tend to only express only those kind of emotions? As a child we all at one point watch those cartoons where everyone is shown equal ji, but the minute the many of us grow up and are spattered into the world we forget all that and start showing differination amongst children. I'm not saying all do that, but sadly there is a large number of people who tend to. People let themselves get carried away with this artificial beauty that they start doing anything which will give them the satisfaction of feeling that beauty. Peer pressure is bad, but come on, you've been given a brain to think from ji. Why should the 'give respect take respect' be different for people that are not 'normal'? Aur waise bhi, if someone is rude to the child, then it just shows what kind of up bringing that person has allowed on themselves.

My simple question is, do you think it is right to abort an abnormal feteus? Ji, if it is a 'deadly abnormality' then this thought should be considered, but what if it isn't 'deadly'? Just think if someone very close to you had some abnormailty, and with the possiblity of abortion there is now in this matter, would you still justify saying that the feteus should be aborted?

Take care,

Simran

i personally feel every person has the right to feel the world..see the world..try to live as they want...experience the nature ..the gods creation...have relations...friends...experience as much as one can in this world... like everyone else does...just being something abnormal dosent mean he/she shouldnt have right..and should be treated badly or anything....

just because u lack something dosent mean... u cant live or survive or shuld be ignored

I don't think anyone has a right to abort the fetus. One cannot speak on behalf of an abnormal fetus. One has no right to do so. If it's deadly then one may consider it, but if it is not then NO they do not have a right. Yes one has their own wishes to live their lives, but when carrying another life they cannot harm it.

First of all what is normal? What's normal to me may not be normal for others'. The only difference between "normal" children and "abnormal" children is thei mental stability. You shouldn't treat a those children or and adult any different than a normal person. Yes, they have disabilities, but that doesn't mean they're bad and should be treated differently. What have they done? That they were born with the disability or that they got it due to a crisis?

Todays world sees only the outer beauty, which is wrong. A person's true reflection is within them and not on the outside. All you have on the outside is beauty, the brain, the emotions, the feelings are within. (LOL I sounds like some aunty ji who's really spiritual) So anyways in todays world the male gnder is favoured more and seen as "the perfect" kind. By law it says males and females are equal, yet society keeps contradicting themselves. For some situations males are seen to be more dominant, for others females are seen to be more dominant. Why? If this is so then the law should not say men and women are equal.

Looks can get you many people to be apart of you, but they don't stay with you forever. People communicate with you because of how you look, yet when they find the truth about your life they go away within seconds. A person could seem normal on the outside, but once you get to know them they may have some sort of a disability. Why forget about that person just because of a disability? *touchwood* But one day any of us may gain a disability and when your so-called friends leave you then you would realise how wrong it is to discriminate aur dicourage abnormal people.


Alright Di it's 4 in the morning aur mujhe kuch samjh nahi aa raha. I shall fix this tomorrow when i'm fully awake.

i agree with simran...its not right to abort a child who's not 'normal'
every1 has a right to live...no matter how u look or whtever disabilties u've got.
if ppl are scared to face the world with a child like tht, then they have no heart for any human being and are very very very selfish.
I can understand tht u 'dont want the child to suffer in this hard world' , but like simran said:''Love is what makes these children bloom.''

You're right. Agree with you both strongly. Those who abort the youngster who are less able in life will regret it soon enough. It doesn't matter If they're are 'not normal' because like everyone knows of it, "No One Is Perfect".

dis topic makes me think of myself now

anyway i agree with what everything that been said above it true
well i always said that no matter what is wronged with someone they always have the right to come to this world and live it like us all ONLY GOD HAS THE RIGHT TO GIVE AND TAKE LIFE, and about abortion? nowadays people d it because of the fear of society, which is stupid because it your life u have your wishes but you dont have the right to harm the growing person in your body like aksha sed u cannot harm the person growin inside u
i got more to say but i need to go offline now ill finish it off anuva time

Yes, no woman has the right to abort that unborn being. When a woman becomes pregnent she has no full right over her body for 9 months ji. She has a life in her, and that does not mean she has full power of doing anything harmful to that life. Like that saying 'Do onto others, as you would have others do onto you', just think if you would want to be treated that way ji. At least you have a voice with you to yell to stop, I can feel the pain. But that feteus doesn't have a voice to stop you, but that doesn't mean you can use that to your motives of killing. When you can't give a life, why can you take it ji?

A child is God's gift, and noone has the right to insult His gift like that. In His eyes na all are equal ji. Nowadayz, I saw on a news channel that women try to stay 'slim' during their pregnency period. Trying to stay 'slim' has a bad impact on the baby, and what disability he/she didn't have at the start will have after this treatment. Then who will the parent blame? How will they justify that aborting is the best way to go because he/she won't need to suffer in this world. Then why should, a small being who had no control over this, be punished and given the sentence of death?

God forbid that any child should have any disability, but if it does happen then one should accept it as a positive aspect rather than negitive. Because any child, 'normal' or 'abnormal', is greatly affected by a parent's attitude. Like Aksha said, define normal and abnormal. People define normal as an artifical prospect that this society admires. If one has an individual thinking process they are referred to as abnormal. I've been told on several occasions to act 'normal'. That hurts a lot. If that can hurt 'normal' people without disablilities, how much will it hurt that child ji? Ab it's not that child's fault that he/she is what they are.

Noone is perfect in this world ji. You just can't see that in the majority. But in those who you can see it in are referred to as 'abnormal'. A physical beauty that happens to be today's big thing makes a person very shallow. These kind of people get too engrossed in this that they forget a lot of things that can bring them the happiness they are in search for. Children with some disabilities can see that happiness, and feel content with life. While 'normal' people seem so discontent with their lives. It's 'normal' people who have discontent and dissatisfaction from the world ji, not 'abnormal' people. So why would you want to kill that fetues who later on becomes someone who is content with this world, and can find beauty in many things?

I agree with Simran. We are all God's children. God chose us as a medium for bringing His children into this world. He is the one who decides how long one lives and where.

I agree Simran. It is incorrect to call someone "abnormal" or "unfortunate" or that they are like this because of their deeds in their previous lives. That is a load of baloney.

Beauty is skin deep. It lies in the eyes of the beholder.

God also decides when one dies Andy, before that one should live life as life comes. Agar pyar milta hai toh pyar karna chaiye ji, yeh nahi ke tukarana chaiye. Humare yahan previous lives are given importance to, so we should respect the elders who believe that. But like you said that one shouldn't be declared 'abnormal' due to that.

I absalutely agree with u simran ,
they dont have to forget ki bachche bhaghban ka roop hote hai

"..the one who decides how long one lives...." means na ki He decides when one dies? I agree with you and with Saint Augustine..."Better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all."

I don't agree with that philosopher at all ji. Some people just have wayz of making excuses of not giving love, like parents who can't come to terms with their child who may have a disability. To them it's like at least it's a feteus so they don't need to be forced to love that unborn yet ji. But when they can't abort then they are forced to love. I'm not saying the whole world is like that, but in the day and age we live in na, many people do this ji. If you want to oneday stop loving then you shouldn't love in the first place. If a couple does abort their first child, won't it haunt them? "Better to have loved and lost, than to have never loved at all." This saying na doesn't go well in this era. Aur waise bhi jab aapne pyar ko koi maar saakta hai toh woh pyar hi nahi hai. A child is a symbol of love, by killing that child one proves that their love wasn't strong ji.

I don't think St. Augestine was suggesting that one kills one's love. I think what he meant is that even if you at a risk of losing someone, you should still love that person rather than not love at all.

In the context of this topic, I think what it means is that let the child, even with severe disability, be born and be loved before dying rather than being killed in the womb.

How can a woman kill her own 'ansh'? Jis mein aapna khoon hai, jo khud ki dhadkan ban gaya hai? How can anyone lash out an innocent being? Jab koi bol nahi saakta aapne upar zulim hote hue toh upar wala bolta hai. Kids are a form of God, in their innocence a universe is hidden, how can one kill that? People are just stupid, selfish people.

I don't know but read this http://www.skepticsannotatedbible.com/contra/children.html and then tell me if it is true.

Gen.7:21-22
God drowns all children (except for Noah's) in a flood.

Gen.19:24
God kills all the children of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Gen.22:2
God tells Abraham to kill his son for a burnt offering.

Ex.12:30
God murders the Egyptian firstborn children.

Ex.21:15, Lev.20:9, Dt.21:18-21
Children who are disobedient, or who curse or strike their parents are to be killed.

Dt.20:16, Jos.10:40
God ordered the Israelites to kill all of the children in the cities that they invaded.

1 Sam.15:2-3
God orders Saul to kill all of the Amalekite children.

2 Sam.12:15, 18
To punish David for having Uriah killed, God kills David's newborn son.

2 Kg.2:23-24
God sends bears to kill 42 little boys for making fun of Elisha's bald head.

Jer.13:13-14
God will make everyone drunk and then "dash the fathers and the sons together." He vows to "not pity, nor spare, nor have mercy, but destroy them."

Jer.19:9
God will make parents eat their own children, and friends eat each other.

Ps.135:8, 136:10
God is praised for slaughtering little babies.

Ps.137:9
Happiness is smashing your little children against rocks.

Ezek.5:10
God will cause fathers to eat their sons and sons to eat their fathers.

Hos.9:16
God assures Hosea that he will "slay even the beloved fruit of the womb."

Hos.13:16
God promises to dash to pieces the infants of Samaria and "their women with child shall be ripped up."

Zech.13:3
A prophet must be killed by his own parents by "thrusting him through when he prophesieth."

One question, do you think I'm Christian? Because as far as I know, I'm not ji. And without actually being one I have no right to comment on this. Aur waise bhi, everything has a deeper meaning than what the eye can see ji.

What I can comment on is on the religion I have been taught. And from what I have been taught, God never kills, He only betterments. Life is given by Him, and taken by Him. When He has given the care for His children, then why question His acts on giving life ji? If someone is what they are it's His will, so why temper with His ways?

And from what I have been taught, God never kills, He only betterments. Life is given by Him, and taken by Him. When He has given the care for His children, then why question His acts on giving life ji? If someone is what they are it's His will, so why temper with His ways?

man i mentioned something very similar in my essay for English

No Simran..I never implied that you are a Christian or whether what was stated there is correct or not. I just wondered whether you knew if it was accurate or not. I did not think so. But this was from a published site. So was just curious.

I still believe that God doesn no harm to His children. So why should a human give harm to another human ji?

Who decides what others can and can not have...the ones that already have it.Who decides who can die or live..the ones that already live life.
Fear alwayz takes controle but if you just put your fear aside-the fear of how you will have to give up so many things for that 'abnormal' child ,the fear of ppl looking weird at you- then you will see that whatever you had to give up and the weird looks you received..the moment your child smiles back at you,you will know it was all worth it.
Think of how much love you can give him how much attention and time..if your not willing to give your child that then to whom are you willing to give?
You can't say my Faith,or The Creator ,cause if you love your child ,God loves you.

aii Raelaaaa :>:>
i agreeeeee

Ofcourse you do:9:

No mother has a right to abort a child who cannot speak for itself and who has not been brought into this world yet. It is wrong. You're no less than a normal criminal then na.

Has anyone read Aborting abnormal fetuses: the parental perspective by CE Harris?

Here is another interesting article:

Building a Better Baby
The dark side of universal prenatal screening.
by Agnes R. Howard
04/05/2004, Volume 009, Issue 29

WE MAY NOT YET have mastered a way to insure perfect babies, but researchers are hard at work improving methods to eliminate imperfect ones.

This winter brought news that specialists are pioneering FASTER (First and Second-Trimester Evaluation of Risk), a combination of maternal blood tests and ultrasounds to detect Down syndrome at 10-13 weeks. Screening pregnant women this way could reduce the use of the more invasive amniocentesis, normally performed at 15 to 18 weeks. And it would have a further advantage: A woman who failed a FASTER test could terminate her pregnancy before it showed.

While some obstetricians are exploring alternatives to amnio, however, another group of doctors is calling for broadened access to it. In the January 24 issue of the British medical journal the Lancet, Ryan A. Harris, A. Eugene Washington, Robert F. Nease Jr., and Miriam Kuppermann maintain that all pregnant women--not just those over 35--should be able to choose either amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling (CVS), since all would benefit from knowing whether a fetus were abnormal.

By whatever means it is obtained, of course, this knowledge is provided not just to satisfy idle curiosity. About 90 percent of women who discover their baby has a chromosomal disorder abort it. While the FASTER camp, who call for early screening, and the Harris camp, who stress universal access to genetic diagnosis, advocate different kinds of prenatal testing, they have a common aim. Under the guise of extending opportunity to women by giving all "informed choice," they would, in

practice, burden every mother with the expectation that she bring to birth only a healthy baby.

The Lancet article is particularly troubling for the way it makes its case. Entitled "Cost utility of prenatal diagnosis and the risk-based threshold," it reports the findings of a survey of 534 women of diverse backgrounds, aged 16-47, who were asked about the "time-tradeoff utility" of having a child born with a chromosomal abnormality. The authors analyzed the respondents' preferences alongside published case studies and trials of prenatal testing, abortion rates, and cost data. Harris et al. argue that the familiar age threshold for prenatal diagnosis should be abandoned. It rests, they say, on a misjudgment about the way women weigh the risks of miscarriage caused by anmiocentesis against the risks of Down syndrome. At present, prenatal diagnosis is mostly used with higher-risk patients, particularly those past 35, the age when the probability of Down syndrome begins to overtake the probability of procedure-related miscarriage. The working assumption has been that women would be unwilling to incur the risk of miscarriage unless the risk of having an abnormal child were greater.

Harris et al. turn that assumption on its head. They contend that women are much more worried about having a Down syndrome baby than they are about losing a normal baby to miscarriage after the test. The costs of the test, they argue, are amply repaid by either the reassurance that the baby is normal or the ability to avoid the difficulties of having a Down syndrome child: "The more reassurance women desire, the more cost effective is the testing." This boils down to a judgment that women would rather forfeit a healthy baby than brook the possibility of raising an abnormal one.

How did we get here? Many elements have helped bring us to a point where it could seem prudent to screen all fetuses in order to reduce Down syndrome births, and a considerable part of the problem rests with two faulty assumptions about pregnancy.

The first is our contemporary treatment of childbearing as a medical process. Fetal quality controls would fit right in alongside the many other tests a pregnant woman undergoes. Depending on the sensibilities of her obstetrician, bad test results may transform somebody's baby into a biological complication to be remedied by a medical procedure. Rayna Rapp, an anthropologist who studies prenatal testing, writes of a woman who received an unhappy diagnosis and entered her doctor's office in tears, only to be scolded (comforted?) this way: "That isn't a baby. . . . It's a collection of cells that made a mistake."

In a culture where choosing the test is roughly equivalent to choosing abortion for an abnormal fetus, a decision to make the test a routine part of prenatal care would lend to ensuing abortions an air of inevitability, even medical necessity. To institutionalize these tests may damage the way women perceive pregnancy. As Barbara Katz Rothman argued in her important 1986 book, The Tentative Pregnancy, the use of amniocentesis and CVS may make a woman reluctant to acknowledge she is going to have a baby until a favorable test result has signaled it is safe to keep the child--sometimes well into the second trimester, after she has started to

feel the baby kick. Although Rothman supports abortion, including in Down syndrome cases, she regrets the consequences of the tests.

The second cultural problem is the assumption that pregnancy is essentially a matter of choice. A woman starting prenatal care can expect to be asked, "Is this a wanted pregnancy?" Already we act as though what gives moral standing to pregnancy is the choosing of it, preferably in advance, if necessary after the fact, but always the conscious determination to continue rather than end it. This pattern of thought makes it easier to hazard a healthy fetus in order to prevent having a defective one, without admitting to ourselves that this is our calculation. We can act as though, until the test is done with good results, the pregnancy isn't quite real. To universalize genetic diagnosis is to entrench even more deeply than we already have the idea that a baby becomes a baby only when we choose to grant that status--if and when it passes genetic muster.

To admit this is not to place a sinister cast on the issue. The effort of Harris et al. to weigh in economic terms the danger of having a Down syndrome baby is already sinister enough. The authors calculate that having the test and aborting an abnormal child can gain a woman nearly $15,000 per year in improved quality of life (QALY). The two commentators whose remarks accompany the Lancet article express some reservations about this. "In any prenatal diagnostic intervention," they note, "there are ethical questions not directly addressed by economic analysis." True enough. After all, one could make the case that all children impose a cost in quality of life, even entirely healthy, normal ones. It is grotesque to measure children's worth primarily in QALY terms.

The work of Barbara Katz Rothman once again provides a cautionary tale. Examining the introduction of fetal screening in the Netherlands in the late 1980s, Rothman found that midwives, who presided over most deliveries there, resisted the tests. Explaining their decision not to recommend screening to their patients, some midwives asked: "Why spoil the pregnancy?" That is, there is a human good that is fostered by allowing pregnancy to be a hopeful time, a worthwhile stage of motherhood. To press pregnant women to learn about genetic disorders is to reinforce the notion that it is permissible to give birth only to normal babies. Granted, wide-scale testing would offer reassurance to many, but at the high cost of further degrading the way we bear ourselves toward the children we bear.


Agnes R. Howard teaches at Gordon College in Wenham, Massachusetts.

OMG...the way they use the words "abnormal" and "imperfect"...hellooo...who's normal? and who's perfect?....no-one!

That article is so upsetting.