I know I don’t get too serious on here, usually its all my ramblings, random thoughts, and the occasional rant, but sometimes its more.

I just saw the headline to this article and wasn’t surprised.  It’s not a judgment, it’s just that I wasn’t suprised at all.  This has happened in other countries before, why would the US be any different.

Down Syndrome births are declining, when technically they should be going up.  The availability of early testing for chromosomal defects is often followed by a decline in children born with those defects.

It brings up so many questions.

It’s obvious why this is the case.  The earlier the detection, the easier it is to decide weather or not to terminate a pregnancy.

I’ve known several people who have gotten these early tests.  I only got the later ones, which caused enough turmoil for me. The tests are good, but not 100%, none of them are, so the decisions made around them are always difficult.  The questions are hard.  It’s a lesser of evils in a way, a whats worse type scenario.  These are tests that shake your morals, your logic, your faith to the core, because it comes down to the hard questions.

Is it right to bring a child into a hard world when their life can be more difficult than anothers?

Are you capable, basically, financially, and emotionally of caring for a child that may need more than average?

In your mind is every life equal, in every stage?

Is the 2% chance that everything is normal enough?

What an amazingly difficult thing choice is.

As I said, I put this link up on Facebook.  Only two people commented.  One was of the same mindset I was, the other basically said that insurance is a buisness and it’s their choice to insure or not.

Her argument was well thought out to her I’m sure.  She didn’t seem heated or angry.  She was very clear on what she believed and why she believed insurance companies have every right to deny whomever they like.

I wasn’t surprised by her opinion.  She is in my view incredibly conservative, very much on the right wing of every issue I can even think of.  This is where I found some issues.

Here is a woman that is adamantly anti-choice from what I understand.  No abortion for any reason what-so-ever.  Every combination of sperm and egg is an unborn child and deserves life.  She is fairly adamant about government staying out of your “lives”, taxes being too high and not wanting to pay for anything that she deems “not the buisness of the government.”

These views seem as if they would be at odds with her standing by this particular decision.  If a child of 6weeks old in the womb deserves to be protected and cared for why doesn’t the one that is 4 months old?  If it would be wrong to abort a fetus that shows signs of severe birth defects why is it right to treat him so differently in the world of insurance?

I wonder if in her “government stay out of my buisness” life she takes the taxes credits that her four children get her.  Does she take the health-care deduction for the costs of her child with special needs?  Has she relied on charities that get government help? Or in medical research that was paid for by government grants? Or how about using Dr.‘s that had help from the government in getting their education?

She made the point in her argument that you wouldn’t expect a car insurance company to insure a driver that had accidents or drank.  She talked about how if you had 30 days to live you couldn’t expect to have a life insurance company sell you a policy. Pre-exisiting conditions are the same to her, no matter what the condition.  Insurance is a buisness and they can make their rules…well…so is prostitution, pornography, tobacco, and alcohol.  All businesses, but all businesses that I’m pretty sure she would feel need a lot of regulation and supervision.

That’s not what this is about though.  It’s about basic care.  She may have been able to care for her child’s non-covered illness.  That’s wonderful.  But what if he doesn’t have the military salary in the future.  What if he doesn’t have the same kind of support or opportunities.  I wonder if she would be so quick to defend the insurance companies about not covering her grandchild who is in the 96th% for weight.