Would you abort if you were told your child had a birth defect such as cleft lip or missing an arm or anything like that? I mean like a birth defect the child could live with, not a debilitating one.

*This stems from reading a news story of a couple who was told to abort their child because of his cleft lip.*

Smurf no...

It really depends on how bad it is, can it be repaired with surgery, and will it lessen the child's life span at all.

ETA: To better explain, if it was something where the child would have a really poor quality of life, then yes. I would. If it's something where we'd have to hire an in home nurse or something to care for the child constantly, because we wouldn't be able to, then we would. But a cosmetic missing arm or a cleft lip? No, that'd be stupid to abort for that reason.

Never
That's a rediculous reason to abort

No. I wouldn't consider terminating a wanted pregnancy unless there was little to no chance of the child surviving or having a quality life.

no never.
I would never be supportive of anyone who did, either.

Wow. No.

Abortion IMO is always a person decision people abort perfectly fine babies everyday. People are born w cleft lips and pallets all the time. Theyre so easy to fix now I dont even really think they should be considered a "defect" anymore.

I can't really say I guess. I wouldn't abort for a cleft lip. But might for missing limbs. I knew someone who aborted near term for something like this. I don't judge them at all and it disgusted me what others were saying about them.

No but i would never judge someone who decided to.

My Dad was born with only 6 fingers so I am use to that type of birth defect and it is not somthing that even affects my Dads quality of life. I would NEVER abort over somthing like that because I don't think it would hurt the LO's quality of life.

I do think I would abort for a defect that would severely debilitate the Child.When I was pregnant with my LO the Drs thought he had down syndrome and a sever heart defect. So I had time to think about this when we waited for the results of our CVS(early amnio)and too get an appointment with a fetal cardiac Dr.

I decided that if my baby had the type of heart defect that they suspected that I would abort. This type of defect would mean that the baby might never be able to live outside of a hospital. For me, I felt that having a baby who would have to suffer and struggle to live every day after it was born would be wrong.

You said not debilitating, OP, but I'm unsure of the definition for this purpose. It could mean bad just not fatal, or be as mild as merely cosmetic.

I would always consider quality of life in my decision. I'm going to say if they would be in a life of pain, or the ongoing medical needs would drive my existing family into poverty or public assistance, then yeah, I would abort. If it's minor or cosmetic, like a cleft lip or some extra toes, and I wanted the baby anyway, we would fix the lip/toes and move on.

I wouldn't judge anyone for any kind of abortion, including "I simply don't want a baby." I would expect the same respect. I don't feel another person's decision is really my business at all.

Probably.

With 4 kids already living and all, I don't really have time for a kid to be born already needing special treatment. If I ever had a kid that developed a SN later on, I'd deal with it but not if it's found in utero.

Never. God makes babies perfect in his sight.

I wouldn't personally for any reason I can think of.

However - I didn't read the article & I do know one child born with such a severe cleft he had a feeding tube & had to suctioned (it affected swallowing). He had multiple major surgeries in childhood & still died in his early 20's (had lots of respiratory issues/infections as well from it. Clefts have a wide array of severity & saying "a cleft" is not even remotely enough info for me to be able to gauge what exactly they were told was the nature of this particular baby's issues & why they may have made the choice they did. I wouldn't assume they aborted because "he wouldn't be perfect" though.