I was listening to a radio program about abortion at the same time Ellie was posting.

The female's view was that when a disabled baby is born into a family without the financial and emotional resources to rear that baby then life is very painful for all involved. Babies and children that are institutionalised live a very deprived life.

The male said that if we terminated disabled people then Stephen Hawking the renowned physicist would never have lived because he was born with cerebral palsy, as it was he received a first class education and has gone on to be the pre-emininent physicist of his age.

Therein lies the crux of the debate. Stephen Hawking, according to his TV biography, was not born with cerebral palsy, he as a genetic debilitating condition that first attacked him on the night he met his wife after he had finished his undergraduate degree at Cambridge. he was a normal person who could kick a football until he was 21.

I have also seen Rosemary the woman with cerebral palsy who attained a HSC certificate. Rosemary and her devoted carer Ann were out to dinner in a restaurant. Rosemary sat in her chair and didn't eat. A health professional familiar with Rosemary said that Rosemary was so badly afflicted that she has never had a swallow reflex so her food is put in her mouth and some one has to massage hr throat to mimic the action of peristalsis.

Pro life organizations are also opposed to contraception, sex education, condoms for AIDS prevention, the HPV vaccine, childcare and even women's education: http://www.abortion.org.au/prolifeagenda.htm