Charlotte Moore on Prenatal Autism Testing

Would you?

Say there was----as mentioned recently by Simon Baron-Cohen---a prenatal test for autism, and you were an expecting mother, or your wife/partner/girlfriend was expecting, and you found out that the baby had "whatever" meant having autism: What would you do?

I'd have the baby. Charlotte Moore---mother of three sons, two of whom, George and Sam, are autistic and whom she's written a book about---is of the same view, as she notes in today's Guardian:

My first pregnancy ended in a termination. A mid-term scan showed the baby had no limbs. Such a child, I thought, would have no option but to be a hero. I considered this an unfair burden, and I ended his life, with great sorrow but without regret.

It would seem logical, then, that I would have made the same decision about an autistic foetus, that I would have chosen to sidestep a lifetime of dependency of a different kind. And yet there is no part of me that wishes away my sons' lives, or the life I have with them.

How would a prenatal test be able to "distinguish between severe autism and the "high-functioning" kind," Moore asks. While noting that both George and Sam will remain very much dependent on her for the rest of their lives (and of hers)----my son Charlie is the same---Moore also points out that "in any case it's a mistake to think that life is easier for the more able," and this point needs to be seconded a couple of times over, plus. "In any case it's a mistake to think that life is easier for the more able."

Moore is pragmatic and wary about saying that's what's right for her must apply to others.

When the prenatal test is introduced, it will make no sense to decree that a mother can choose to terminate, say, a Down's baby, but is obliged to keep a potentially autistic one. It's inevitable that many will be terminated.

Autism often means sleeplessness, eating problems, self-harming, aggression, destructiveness, bizarre behaviour of all kinds. It can destroy marriages, and it certainly doesn't help your finances. I would never condemn a mother who decided that she couldn't cope with these possibilities.

Any mention of prenatal testing always takes me back to the office of the St. Louis OB-GYN who delivered Charlie. I was sitting on the exam table listening to her explain about testing for Down Syndrome and without skipping a beat, I said that we'd be having the baby-who-would-be-Charlie, regardless. I am a liberal, I will note---it'd been long since that I'd felt little flutters in me; felt movements, kicks. I knew we'd love Charlie, "even if" he had "something."

And that's a sentiment that's never going to change.

Image by Abodemac.