Culture

British soap trivializes abortion, posts poll on whether characters should abort Down syndrome baby

“The Archers” is a British radio soap opera with over five million listeners. It’s also the longest-running soap opera in the world, on radio or TV. Recently, they aired a storyline featuring a middle-aged couple who discovered that they were expecting a baby with Down syndrome. Rather than using this as an opportunity to promote the inclusion of people with Down syndrome, producers decided to trivialize both Down syndrome and abortion by posting a poll asking if the couple should abort the baby or not.

The characters, Mike and Vicky Turner, recently learned from the results of an amniocentesis that their unborn baby has the syndrome.

The programme’s official Facebook page invited listeners to vote on what the couple should do next.

A message read: “Mike and Vicky’s dilemma makes up this week’s vote: should they go through with the pregnancy?”

Listeners complained that the BBC was treating a serious issue so lightly.

After the massive outcry for the poll to be removed, the BBC capitulated and released a statement.

A BBC spokesman said: “The Archers storyline on Mike and Vicky’s pregnancy has been well-received by the audience and raises a number of important issues about Down’s Syndrome, informed by the advice and expertise of the Down’s Syndrome Association.

“However this issue is too complex and sensitive for an online poll and we regret any offense the poll may have caused.”

Not only is it too complex an issue for a simple yes/no poll – as if a child’s life is something you can throw away that cavalierly – it’s truly disappointing to see that a program that can reach so many people isn’t taking this as an opportunity to do some good toward people with Down syndrome. The majority of children with Down syndrome – those diagnosed prenatally, anyway – are aborted. That’s a fact, both in the U.S. and in the U.K. Showing a couple struggling with the diagnosis, as is normal, but refusing to kill their child and loving him/her anyway could do so much more good than having the characters just decide, “Well, our kid is broken, so let’s kill it.” And while the poll was removed, the BBC still called the news awful. Because finding out your baby with Down syndrome is, you know, awful.

When people wonder why so many babies with Down syndrome are aborted, you can find the answer right here. We’re told it’s awful, a tragedy, that the child will certainly suffer. The truth about raising a child with Down syndrome – that families tend to be happier than those who don’t have a child with Down syndrome, that people with Down syndrome are overwhelmingly happy with themselves and who they are – is never mentioned. No wonder people have such a dim view of things. That’s how it’s framed in the general public. And here the BBC has a storyline featuring a Down syndrome pregnancy, and they’re going right down the easy-to-take, expected road. Getting the diagnosis is terrible. This is horrible for them, and whatever decision they make will be awful. Blah, blah, blah.

Here they had a chance to do some good for the millions of people living with Down syndrome, and instead, they did the usual: a prenatal Down syndrome diagnosis equals abortion. Down syndrome is awful. One couldn’t possibly be happy about having a baby with Down syndrome.

Disappointing isn’t a strong enough word.

Live Action on Facebook
  • Richard

    The decision to abort is indeed, very personal.

    • PoorRichard

      Especially to the innocent baby in the womb…

      • Richard

        …and its mother. We needn’t hasten to erase the woman.

        • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

          Yours is the only side trying to erase anyone – rub out that baby, as the mob would say.

          • Richard

            Thank god you jumped in, I was getting tired of debating myself.

            The problem with the whole abortion-is-wrong-because-the-fetus-has-the-right-to-life argument is precisely because it ignores the right of the woman to not have to carry to term, give birth and subsequently become a mother. Were the woman conveniently absent from the picture, the fetus would win this argument hands down which is why she is continually being erased in pro-life arguments.

            The woman does exist, however, and as long as she does and you keep attacking her rights you can keep expecting to get your ass handed to you.

          • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

            We’re not ignoring anyone’s rights; we just don’t buy the claim that the temporary hardship of one trumps the permanent death of the other, or the idea that because someone’s in a situation he or she doesn’t like, that person therefore has no limits whatsoever on what he or she can do to alleviate the situation, no duty whatsoever to factor in how his or her actions will harm someone else.

          • Richard

            If you’re trying to say that an abortion is murder because a fetus is a human being then I’m hearing you and I disagree.

          • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

            Then you don’t understand/care what the words “murder” and/or “human being” mean. Period.

          • Richard

            I understand a “human being” to be “that which is born” and “murder” to be the “willful killing of a human being by another”.

            I believe this to be the source of our disagreement on abortion.

          • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

            Confirmed: you either don’t even know what “human being” means, or are willing to arbitrarily redefine terminology to suit your own ends.

          • PoorRichard

            This statement might shock you, Richard, but here we go: *ahem* Biologically, women carry babies! Woah… okay, now let’s breathe. You think it’s wise to bring up that poor woman carrying the baby to full term! My goodness, something women have been doing since… well the beginning of time! That’s life. That’s pregnancy. How about you focus on teaching women to be strong, confident mothers rather than encouraging them to make a decision they will regret (no matter what, they WILL regret it, even when they say they don’t).

          • Richard

            I’m saying it’s not your decision. Let the strong, confident woman make it.

            “they WILL regret it, even when they say they don’t”. Because women are always saying, y’know, stuff, like when they’re not busy making you a sandwich, or, like, squeezing out some rapist’s spawn.

          • Peter

            Oh look, it’s someone who doesn’t understand how rights work.

            Well let me explain it too you. See, the idea of rights is that they are an inherent property of a human being’s nature; which are inalienable. So it is by virtue of being a human being that you have these rights; they are a part of your nature as a human being.

            But not all rights are as important as another. For example, the right to life always has priority over any other right when two rights come into conflict; because to deny a person their right to life you are also denying them all their other rights (like right to freedom, privacy, property, etc.). Once you’re dead, you lose all your rights; so right to life is the highest of all, and only another person’s right to life can compete with it.

            So we have an unborn baby, who’s right to life is coming into conflict with it’s mother’s personal life. Carrying this baby to term and putting it up for adoption is too much work and money, or maybe she didn’t mean to have a baby and was using contracepts and they failed, or maybe she has already painted the baby’s room blue but then found out it was a girl, or maybe she already has two kids and has changed her mind, or maybe her boyfriend didn’t want to become a father coerced her to have an abortion, or maybe it has down’s syndrome, or maybe she’s being sexually assaulted by a family member who’s taken her secretly to an abortion clinic. Regardless of her reasons, (in fact in many states they don’t care what her reasons are, they don’t ask so she’s never required to tell) she wants to kill it.

            What’s that you say? What about her right to privacy? Well, that would be question begging, because right to privacy has an exception in it. See the right to privacy says that if the government has a warrant then they can investigate your private life. Why? Because in that case, right to privacy is coming in conflict with the possible violation of someone else’s rights; if there’s enough evidence to reasonably suggest that you violated someone else’s rights, then their violated rights have a higher priority over your right to privacy. This is why thieves and murderers can’t complain about the government violating their private lives when the government gets a warrant to investigate their homes for evidence of their crimes.

            So to say that making abortions illegal would violate privacy is to assume that the woman has not herself violated the rights of another individual; but that would only be the case if the unborn baby does not have any rights. But that is what you’re trying to argue is true in the first place with this “right to privacy” argument, so you’re reasoning in a circle.

            And, since the right to privacy here is only valid if the unborn baby has no rights, it would also not be relevant if the baby does have a right to life. So really on balance, if the unborn baby does have rights, then the only thing on the women’s side are personal and economical inconveniences, a large amount of which could be avoid if she choose to put it up for adoption instead.

            But what about those rare hard cases? What if it was rape, or her life was in danger. Well what of them? Even if we were to allow exceptions for certain situations, there is no logical connection between that and allowing abortion generally and unrestricted. The entire argument is centred around just how hard and exceptional the cases are, it is the fact that they are exceptional and hard that is the alleged reason for why they should be permitted; so they are completely irrelevant to cases that are not hard or exceptional.

          • Richard

            A very well thought out and reasoned response.

            One small correction, I’ve never argued that the “right to privacy” gives a woman the right to an abortion, although I do understand it to be the foundation for Roe, I’ve never fully understood the argument so don’t advance it.
            I do agree with you that the right to Life takes priority over all other rights, including the right to Privacy. And Roe does make the pro-fetus argument that as a society, we have an interest in the life of the fetus which is why States are allowed to restrict abortions in the last trimester (post viability) provided they make an exception for the right of Life of the woman.
            And I fully appreciate your consistency in arguing against a rape/incest exception, to me, anyone who argues otherwise is reserving the right to pass judgment on what is considered a “legitimate” reason for abortion and as you observed, such judgment escapes “logic”.
            My belief on the right to an abortion is that it derives from the rights of a person (1) to have control over what happens to his/her body and (2) to decide when to become a parent. Is a person allowed to commit murder in the exercising of these rights? No. So, per force, I’m also arguing that a fetus does not have the right to Life and therefore not fully human with respect to rights acquisition.

        • PoorRichard

          Interesting that you use the term “mother” when referring to the baby in the womb.

          • Richard

            My bad. I’ve been spending too much time on pro-life websites.

    • Violet Black

      All decisions directly relating to the well-being of your kin are pretty personal, but that doesn’t make every outcome equally valid…

  • http://www.facebook.com/beverly.harlton Beverly Harlton

    These people have no idea… My sister is 22, has Down’s Syndrome, and she LOVES her life and brings so much joy to everyone she meets. It sickens me to hear people talk about murdering those like her just because they’re conveniently still in utero, to hear them DARE to call that murder a personal “choice.” A former friend of mine backed up that “choice” even though he has an aunt with Down’s! We live in such a vile world. People with Down’s can bring so much joy and beauty into it, yet we’re killing them left and right because they’re not “good enough.”

    • https://www.facebook.com/ProLifePagans Pro Life Pagans

      The idea that Down’s Syndrome children are unhappy is a rationalization. It’s the parents and the doctors who are unhappy with the prospect of caring for a DS child.

  • Pingback: British Soap Trivializes Abortion; Posts Poll on Whether Characters Should Abort Down Syndrome Baby

  • http://twitter.com/MarauderTheSN Marauder

    I’d rather have a kind, loving kid with Down syndrome than a genius child who was a selfish and mean-spirited person. Part of what bothers me so much about people who are willing to abort children with health problems is, if they were to find out their child had health problems when the kid was, say, three years old, would they wish they’d known sooner so they could have aborted him/her? Probably not – they’d probably be knocking themselves out trying to do everything for their child.

  • Pingback: British Soap Trivializes Abortion, Posts Poll on Whether Characters Should Abort Down Syndrome Baby | Live Action News | A mí, háblame en Cristiano

  • Amy

    I read a wonderful novel once about a graduate student who was pregnant with a Down’s Syndrome baby and everyone told her to abort and finish her degree. She kept it because she felt soooo connected with it. The child was born and brought so much love and happiness into her life, her life was fuller than shecould have imagined. I think more people need to get this message. You never know when your child might come down with some disease or mental condition; will you end its life then? No, then why would you kill it before it is born? The 90%figure is one of the great tragedies of our time.

  • Amy

    Forgot to write the title of the book “Expecting Adam” but cannot recall the author.

  • Richard

    I know what decision I would make but I don’t pretend to make it for anyone else. Y’all would be wise to do the same.

    • http://www.facebook.com/beverly.harlton Beverly Harlton

      Richard, what do you think a woman does when she has an abortion? She’s making the final decision in her child’s life. Like it or not, that fetus is an “anyone else” just as much as the mother is. Is it so abhorrent that she give up her child for adoption? No one is advocating forcing a woman to raise the child. All we ask is that she not murder it in utero.

      • Richard

        The phrase you’re looking for is “womb-slave.” That is what you’re asking of her. To become your womb-slave. Well she’s not, and you should stop asking. If you like babies, fine, go hang out in labor and delivery where you’ll find them aplenty. But please stop pretending that a fetus is a human being and keep your distance from reproductive organs that are not your own.

        • http://twitter.com/CalFreiburger Calvin Freiburger

          I get that for you baby-murder apologists, making up increasingly hyperbolic and juvenile names for what you dislike is a defense mechanism that helps you paper over the foulness of what you’ve chosen to embrace. But it doesn’t impress anyone, and it won’t truly heal your conscience in the long run. It just adds confirmation to what a laughingstock you are.

          • Richard

            I get that for you womb-enslaving apologists, making up increasingly hyperbolic and juvenile names for what you dislike is a defense mechanism that helps you paper over the foulness of what you’ve chosen to embrace. But it doesn’t impress anyone, and it won’t truly heal your conscience in the long run. It just adds confirmation to what a laughingstock you are.

        • http://www.facebook.com/beverly.harlton Beverly Harlton

          How on earth could I make a woman my “womb slave”? I am a woman myself, and am incapable of getting another woman pregnant naturally. I am not asking any woman to enslave herself to her own child, either. Since when is enslavement the opposite of murder? A fetus *is* a human being, despite your bizarre claim, and aborting one still kills it. What on earth is a fetus if it isn’t a human being? No life form suddenly switches species when born.