No good mother ever wants to see their child suffer, and no one would deny that taking care of someone with special needs can be challenging. But abortion activists often use difficult situations like these to push for the killing of unborn babies.
A disturbing new video from STAT News feeds into this modern day discrimination against people with special needs. The video features a mother named Christine Grounds whose son Nicholas was born with microcephaly nine years ago. Grounds admitted that she would have aborted her son if she had known that he had the disorder before he was born.
“We had no idea that, in utero, there was anything wrong with Nicholas,” Grounds said. “I’m pretty sure no one would have been able to say conclusively that he has microcephaly. But I would have terminated the pregnancy.”
There is heightened concern about microcephaly right now because the disorder has been linked to pregnant women who contract the Zika virus. Abortion advocates have been using the link to microcephaly as an excuse to push for more abortions on babies with disabilities. Some pro-abortion groups even have been scaring women into aborting their unborn babies without knowing if they have Zika or if their unborn baby has a disability.
Grounds said she has been watching the news and looking at photos of other moms and babies with Zika-linked microcephaly. She lamented that many families like her’s lack resources and support to care for children with special needs. Rather than offer encouragement and advocate for more support, however, Grimes painted a discouraging picture of her own family’s experiences – almost as if to imply that families would be better off aborting children with disabilities.
“Think about, at least, the pictures that I’ve seen, it’s, you know, … they all look so young, mothers, with these babies that, you know, look just like Nicholas when he was born,” she said, crying. “And I think, oh my God, what are they going to do?”
“He has, you know, behavioral issues at home. And he has temper tantrums,” she continued. “And he hits and he bites himself, and the thought of not having someone who can take over when I need a break— or when you need a break [referring to Nicholas’s father]— I can’t speak to that enough, the importance of that.”
Grounds’ comments are a stark contrast to the rest of the video’s portrait of her son’s life. Nicholas appears to be generally happy, like most children. He plays soccer on a special needs team and has fun roughhousing with his younger brother. Nicholas can walk, talk and feed himself, and he attends a special needs school.
His mother continued: “People are going to be critical of my saying I would terminate the pregnancy had I known for sure. And people are going to be critical of my saying how difficult it is to have a child with special needs. But, you know, life is hard enough. Being a parent is hard enough. And growing up is hard enough. And we are managing, and we are living our lives; but the stress and grief, and all of the things that come with it, I wouldn’t have signed up for that.”
Having a child with special needs is difficult, and families do deserve better support. Abortion is not support, however; it’s discriminatory and selfish. Children with special needs are no less valuable than children who are healthy. Just because someone is more difficult to take care of does not mean that they should be killed in abortions.
Writing for Live Action News, pro-lifer Cassy Fiano responded to the mother’s troubling admissions:
It’s incredibly difficult to hear a parent speak of their child with such contempt and disdain, and this is a clear example of where our confessional culture goes wrong. Grounds is not the first parent to publicly speak about her desire to erase her child from her life through abortion — plenty of parents have even filed wrongful birth lawsuits because they feel that they deserve money for not having the opportunity to abort their children.
Click here to sign up for pro-life news alerts from LifeNews.com
Even more pen op-eds about it— or, like this couple, make videos declaring their regret at not being able to snuff out their child’s life while it was still legal. Regardless of how one may feel about abortion, this outlook is completely disgusting. How can any loving parent look at their child and say, “I wish I had aborted you?”
Nicholas’s father, Jonathan Mir, was more compassionate and loving toward their son.
“It would surprise me if he’s able to live independently as an adult,” Mir said. “I don’t expect that to happen. … but Nicholas is here, I would never undo that. You know, our love for him is complete, like it would be for any child.”
That is what every child, no matter what their abilities, deserves to hear.
