Expert says attitudes toward disability ‘may be changing’

From the [Edinburgh] Scotsman,  Fox News, [UK] Times, UPI, [UK] Daily Mail:

Lisa Chamberlain, a 25-year-old woman from Portsmouth, England, is pregnant with conjoined twins and says she has decided to carry them to term, even as her doctors advised her to have an abortion.

Chamberlain learned last week in a prenatal scan that she was carrying a dicephalous fetus, essentially a fetus with two heads and one body, which can occur when a fertilized egg fails to split completely.

A Glasgow-based spokesman for the UK’s Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists said he has seen a subtle change in attitude toward babies with disabilities over the past decade, with more couples opting to carry them to term. The reason for the change, he said, is the better care and understanding demonstrated by society.

… “Parents recognize that there is now more opportunity for handicapped people,” [said Prof. Alan Cameron]. “They now have a better quality of life. Many Down’s Syndrome kids are going to mainstream schools. I think there has been an improvement in the health of the nation.”

See also:

Life should not be a freak show – column by Liz Hunt in the [UK] Telegraph. An excerpt:

Why any woman would choose to give birth to babies who, if carried to term, would be so deformed as to be condemned to a life of mental and physical suffering is beyond my understanding.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 at 4:10 pm and is filed under abortion, commentary, public attitudes. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.