Exit poll: The post referendum thread. No electioneering.

soap1978 wrote: »

put them up for adoption,if u could go back would u abort them?

Someone can talk about their struggles parenting their children with additional needs without it automatically meaning they would rather not have them or would rather abort them. Talk about jumping the gun.
The ironic thing is this very topic came up when discussion started about how little people understand the difficulties for families who have children with disabilities.
You clearly do not understand.

Also, do you have any knowledge at all about how adoption works in this country?

7aubzxk43m2sni

Fighting Tao wrote: »

I don't know what your world is and that is why I asked.

I am talking about the one poster, the one you are defending. However, you seem to be interested in all that voted no.

I voted yes, but frankly that should be totally irrelevant. There's such a massive us versus them mentality around this debate its unbelievable.

Case in point - you make the huge claim that he would like to force victims of rape to have to carry their victim's child, although I still haven't seen where he said that?

There's nuance to the discussion that is being completely ignored. Anyone who expresses a vague conservative sentiment (although that particular poster may be more convicted in his beliefs) is shot down as "anti-choice", women haters who want to control women. It doesn't help the discussion and achieves nothing but self congratulatory claps on the back of how great we all are for being so liberal.

The same way a yes voter would not like to be called "anti-life", murderers, or any of the other vile names some of the no side come up with, the yes side should afford the same decency to conservative posters.

Fighting Tao

Mavis Warm Stranger wrote: »

I voted yes, but frankly that should be totally irrelevant. There's such a massive us versus them mentality around this debate its unbelievable.

Case in point - you make the huge claim that he would like to force victims of rape to have to carry their victim's child, although I still haven't seen where he said that?

There's nuance to the discussion that is being completely ignored. Anyone who expresses a vague conservative sentiment (although that particular poster may be more convicted in his beliefs) is shot down as "anti-choice", women haters who want to control women. It doesn't help the discussion and achieves nothing but self congratulatory claps on the back of how great we all are for being so liberal.

The same way a yes voter would not like to be called "anti-life", murderers, or any of the other vile names some of the no side come up with, the yes side should afford the same decency to conservative posters.

He is anti-choice. Read his posts from the start. I don't think they were totally incoherent. He wants to control pregnant women so they can't have an abortion.

kunst nugget

eviltwin wrote: »

You don't know until a few years down the line if a child has ASD, it's not something that can be tested for during pregnancy and its not apparent at birth.

I would imagine the chances of another child being on the spectrum is high so my husband and I agree that if we are unlucky enough to have another pregnancy we will not keep it.

Our next door neighbours have two children on the spectrum. They have my everlasting respect and admiration. I had a vasectomy a couple of years and it may sound selfish to say but it played in to the decision a bit. I looked at our healthy children and I looked at our neighbours and the struggles they were facing with their children and I reckoned I was happy not to take the risk of the possibility of having a child with special needs.

7aubzxk43m2sni

nozzferrahhtoo wrote: »

Yeah we got a significant handful of people who said they were ok with abortion for rape, but not for many other reasons.

Two things struck me about those people.

1) Not one of them could describe how such a system would, or even could, work in practice. Well actually ONE tried and his proposal was..... horrific..... based around the concept of a woman having to prove herself to a panel.

2) Not one of them could explain why, if the fetus has a right to l ife, it should lose that right due to a crime committed by someone who was not it, on someone who was not it. Nor could they name any other situation where a fundamental right of X was forfeit because of an action Y did to Z.

So it came across to me as one of those "virtue signalling" things to me, where the anti abortion speakers were trying to make it look like they were tolerant and considerate.... by acknowledging abortion as the right thing to do ONLY in situations and cases where it would be entirely unworkable to actually do it.

That way they can look less hard line than they are, by giving ground to scenarios that would never become a reality anyway. Because "against all abortions except those that could not happen anyway" is functionally the same as, but sounds better than "against all abortion ever".

That's a very valid point. I agree that there's no solution to such a system in practice.

At the same time I don't think the level of thought went to it to arrive at "against all abortions except those that could not happen anyway".

SusieBlue wrote: »

Someone can talk about their struggles parenting their children with additional needs without it automatically meaning they would rather not have them or would rather abort them. Talk about jumping the gun.
The ironic thing is this very topic came up when discussion started about how little people understand the difficulties for families who have children with disabilities.
You clearly do not understand.

Also, do you have any knowledge at all about how adoption works in this country?

i have 3 kids,2 with autism,one severe but i love every min with them,so clearly i do understand,but i dont go around telling everyone how hard it is.

soap1978 wrote: »

i have 3 kids,2 with autism,one severe but i love every min with them,so clearly i do understand,but i dont go around telling everyone how hard it is.

Good for you. That doesn't mean someone else can't share their own personal experience with the matter. You don't have a monopoly on how other people deal with things.

spookwoman

soap1978 wrote: »

i have 3 kids,2 with autism,one severe but i love every min with them,so clearly i do understand,but i dont go around telling everyone how hard it is.

This isn't 1950's Ireland where you keep your disabled child locked behind closed doors and don't speak of it for fear of shaming the family.

soap1978 wrote: »

i have 3 kids,2 with autism,one severe but i love every min with them,so clearly i do understand,but i dont go around telling everyone how hard it is.

This is the other problem I find.
It is difficult.

It's okay for it to be difficult, it's ok to resent the behaviour but love your child.

I resent my own behaviours at times but there's fk all I can do about it! I manage and mitigate as best I can - after years of therapy - but sometimes it's not enough. The best I can do as an adult is to quickly walk away and get myself into a situation where I cannot damage myself or others to unleash.

If I did have an autistic child that was more or differently affected than myself I would probably hate the behaviours but I would cry with empathy afterwards because I know how it feels and how overpowering simple emotions can be. If I had the option as a female I'd think long and hard about a termination.

spookwoman wrote: »

This isn't 1950's Ireland where you keep your disabled child locked behind closed doors and don't speak of it for fear of shaming the family.

no its not,but i dont make a big deal of it,life is great for them,my 7 year old dosent care about havent autism and i havent told him either,my older child struggles but i enjoy him and he loves life.
in the future maybe they will be able to tell if a child has autism in the womb and what a horrible future it will be.

Cupcake_Crisis

bubblypop wrote: »

why does this amuse you?
I was a yes voter & an unplanned pregnancy myself. My mother made the choice to go through with the pregnancy.
My friends daughter was unplanned, in fact my friend travelled to England but changed her mind. Her daughter was a yes voter.
I don't understand why you find that amusing?

I was also an unplanned pregnancy. My mam was told not to get excited about having more children after complications with my brother. 6 years later she went to the doctor with a kidney infection and hey ho, there I was. I find her particular situation amusing because I bet she wishes I was a kidney infection at times, and it’s given me a morbid fear of kidney infections.

My point is that not all unplanned pregnancy’s are crisis pregnancy’s. My mams wasn’t, and mine wasn’t. There’s a very big difference between unplanned and unwanted.

eviltwin wrote: »

You don't know until a few years down the line if a child has ASD, it's not something that can be tested for during pregnancy and its not apparent at birth.

I would imagine the chances of another child being on the spectrum is high so my husband and I agree that if we are unlucky enough to have another pregnancy we will not keep it.

It's coming in - tests for Autism in utero
https://www.theguardian.com/science/blog/2014/may/01/prenatal-scrrening-test-autism-ethical-implications

eviltwin

soap1978 wrote: »

i have 3 kids,2 with autism,one severe but i love every min with them,so clearly i do understand,but i dont go around telling everyone how hard it is.

I love my kids too so let's not play that game. Funny I'd have thought someone with direct experience would be a bit more empathetic to other people who are faced with the possibility of having a child with a special need. It's not a bad thing to say it's not for you and make decisions on that basis.

eviltwin wrote: »

I love my kids too so let's not play that game. Funny I'd have thought someone with direct experience would be a bit more empathetic to other people who are faced with the possibility of having a child with a special need. It's not a bad thing to say it's not for you and make decisions on that basis.

its a bad thing for the child

soap1978 wrote: »

no its not,but i dont make a big deal of it,life is great for them,my 7 year old dosent care about havent autism and i havent told him either,my older child struggles but i enjoy him and he loves life.
in the future maybe they will be able to tell if a child has autism in the womb and what a horrible future it will be.

My brother is also autistic, he's mostly non verbal, has the hobbies and interests of a 6 year old despite almost being an adult, is sporadically incontinent, has no independence and relies on my mam for everything.
He also loves life and we love having him in ours.
He is a joy to have around and we are blessed to have him but other children (and adults) like him are not so lucky, they don't have parents willing or able to make the sacrifices my parents made for my brother.

There is nothing wrong with recognising the sacrifices and struggles that go hand and hand with having a child with special needs or a disability.
It would be dishonest to say its easy because it isn't, for a lot of people. And there is nothing wrong with that.

eviltwin

soap1978 wrote: »

its a bad thing for the child

The child in this case is yet to be born. People choosing a different path is not an judgement of our choice or our children. It's not about us and what we feel.

soap1978 wrote: »

its a bad thing for the child

As an autistic adult who was formerly an autistic child.... please elaborate on what would be bad for "the child".
As I was a "the child" from your analogy I can then see if it is bad or not.

EDIT: If you're referring to a foetus then that has no sentience and cannot recognise good from bad. If I was aborted as a foetus I wouldn't know the difference, I did not posess sentience or the ability to "know".

SusieBlue wrote: »

My brother is also autistic, he's mostly non verbal, has the hobbies and interests of a 6 year old despite almost being an adult, is sporadically incontinent, has no independence and relies on my mam for everything.
He also loves life and we love having him in ours.
He is a joy to have around and we are blessed to have him but other children (and adults) like him are not so lucky, they don't have parents willing or able to make the sacrifices my parents made for my brother.

There is nothing wrong with recognising the sacrifices and struggles that go hand and hand with having a child with special needs or a disability.
It would be dishonest to say its easy because it isn't, for a lot of people. And there is nothing wrong with that.

no one said it was easy,but i find it hard that in the future there maybe no kids with disabilities like the way iceland is going.

soap1978 wrote: »

no one said it was easy,but i find it hard that in the future there maybe no kids with disabilities like the way iceland is going.

As someone who has one of these disabilities.... I do not object to eradication of disabilities by proactive termination.

ELM327 wrote: »

As someone who has one of these disabilities.... I do not object to eradication of disabilities by proactive termination.

id hate to see it,eradication of kids with disabilities,but u have ur opinion and i have my.Hopefully it all works out.

eviltwin

soap1978 wrote: »

no its not,but i dont make a big deal of it,life is great for them,my 7 year old dosent care about havent autism and i havent told him either,my older child struggles but i enjoy him and he loves life.
in the future maybe they will be able to tell if a child has autism in the womb and what a horrible future it will be.

I'm a glass half full person who prefers to focus on the can rather than the can't in life. I'm confident my kids will find their path in life despite their issues.

At the same time, it would be wrong to ignore the impact the condition has. Elm has described its impact on his life, my son struggles with even the most basic self care and probably always will, he has mild Tourettes which will be more embarrassing for him as he gets older, my daughter has extreme OCD currently managed by medication but on a bad day can severely impact her life.

This is the reality of their condition. We have accommodated ASD pretty well and day to day it's not something we consciously think about but life is far from normal. I'm not going to lie about it or gloss over it, it is what it is.