Life Worth Living?

The following is a response evoked from me by a question posed: Who get to decide if a life is worth living. A friend of hers had just been told that she had a 50 percent chance of giving birth to a child with Downs Syndrome.

Left for itself to decide, in the overwhelming majority of the time the self will decide that life is more desirable then the most horrible life. I am reminded of an event that occurred some years back when I was taking my Mother and adopted brother for a ride in the Smoky Mountains near Chimney Rock.

The road between Asheville and Lake Lure are laid out just lovely, very, very curvy, but the curves are set such that you can traverse them at a high rate of speed by cutting across the oncoming traffic lane. This was of the time of year that the foliage had died off because of winter and you could see in time to make your decision to cut the corner or not in plenty of time to do it safely.

I was driving my mother’s car, a Chivy Capri, Mom was in the front seat, and Jim, my adopted brother,  was in the back. I was just rocking that car, just under the ability of the car and up near my ability to control it. I do not know about the rest of you folks, but for me, that is when driving becomes enjoyable, when you are at the edge of your abilities, the rest of the time it is just a chore that has to be done. When we got home that afternoon Jim told my Mother that though he had never flown before he felt that he had now. Sorry, I regress.

The point of this story is that as I did a power slid around one long slow curve a cat ran out from the side of the road. Ran right into my left front wheel! I beaked down and in my rearview mirror I could see the cat dragging it’s hindquarters off the road. I backed up to where I was near the cat, and got out of the car. It was in real bad shape, paralyzed from the waist down, an eye half out of its socket, and blood running from its eyes, nose, and mouth.

It was in my mind to put the cat out of the misery that I had put it in, and walked toward it very slowly, speaking in a low, soft tone telling it how sorry I was for the condition I had put it into as I put on the glove I had taken out of the car with me. The cat was having nothing to do with it, as I got close it started dragging its broken, pain racked (I am sure) body away from me. Before I could reach it, it took off way faster then I could run, for believe me I tried to catch up with it as it dragged its broken body away from the mercy I had in my heart. It, at first went of the road, then turned and drug itself along side the road, and found a culvert it could crawl up into, which it did.

No mater now reassuring I tried to sound, no mater now well I tried to make my intention seem, the cat was not going to deliver its life into my hands. What life it had left it was going to spend, as it deemed best, pain racked and taking each of its remaining breath through the bubbles of blood in its nose. It was not given into me the right to decide if its life was worth living or not.

When a parent makes the kind of decision that you have put before us there are more then just the life of the baby involved. If you can afford to pay for all the additional expense that you know will come along with the birth, you have every right to spend your money and time as you see fit. I do not believe that you have the right to expect someone else to pay that expense. Insurance companies have the right to set the criteria of what they will pay for, and what they will not. If you would have the government pay for it you are forcing me, the average Joe taxpayer, to pay for your decision.

Another consideration that the parent must come to terms with is the fact that a child with Downs Syndrome will most likely out live them. I have know sever people who, in their old age, had a Downs Syndrome child, though in their forties, still a child. I used to live next door to some folks in this situation, my children, five and six, played with their boy, and he, near thirties, played at their level. When his parents died, he have to go into a nursing home, his life, as he knew it, was going to change dramatically. He will never know, once they are gone, the love and comfort that they chose to give him as long as they could.

The answer to the question is that life worth living is going to depend upon who answers it.  The cat said “Hell Yes!” I said that he would be better off dead.  The mother who just conceived a child with a big chance of being born with Downs Syndrome will have to decide.  I know what the child would say if it were asked, but the mother she has to decide if she want the rest of her life to be anchored to a six year old.  I will not judge the decision for I see both sides.