2. REASONS FOR ABANDONING AND DUMPING OF CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES
2.1. INTRODUCTION
2.2.3. LIFE EXPECTANCY AND PROGNOSIS OF CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES IN THE
there was almost no success to date.314 The situation in the country is critical, in the sense that infants who are born with physical and mental disabilities are dumped in inhuman conditions.315 Society in general seems to invest very little in the process of administering justice to the perpetrators of child abuse of this nature.316 Health institutions which take care of the abandoned and abused children with disabilities have the obligation to report such cases of child abuse to the related institutions for legal procedures to be carried out.317 The research work will limit itself to the question of the morality of the acts of abandoning, dumping and killing of children with disabilities in this region.
2.2.3. LIFE EXPECTANCY AND PROGNOSIS OF CHILDREN WITH DISABILITIES IN
emotional, physical and mental disabilities which might be draining taking into account the fact that they have to live with such disabilities for life.321
The determination of someone’s life expectancy is also crucial. Certainly, there is minimal hope for a better long life and to practically determine it, is rather difficult on the part of the medical profession.322 Children with disabilities who are in that state may require special palliative medical care to prolong their life. Societal attitudes may compound heavily on the physicians, parents and mothers who are confronted with the reality of how they can best address the situation, make moral choices that best suit their interests and the best interests of the child.323 This can be regarded as one of the most difficult situations in their life. The parents’ desires might conflict with the moral parental obligation, considering the various factors that come into the whole process of decision-making. Many scholars on this debate regarding the mother’s negative feelings about physical and mental disabilities are streaming from a wide range of factors.324 One of the scholars in Tubbs, stated that the mother’s concern is that they would be incapable of giving the infant the care and affection the child would require and expect from the mother.325 When confronted with such a reality, some thinkers in the medical field have used the theory called ‘State of Necessity’.326 This concept is invoked by someone who finds himself or herself in a situation of conflict of duties, in
321 Ibid.
322 This is because there are limited medical facilities in the area making such a prognosis difficult for medical professionals as well as parents or care-givers. This is in the context of cases that have been referred to medical professionals but in cases where parents have no access to medical facilities, there are obviously limited chances for the child with disabilities to survive. This could be the point where some parents resort to child homicide or abandoning the child or dumping the child in places where the child may not survive if not discovered.
323 Department of Social Development, (2009), The Right to Belong and Participate: Integrated National Strategy on Support Services to Children with Disabilities, Pretoria: Inter-Departmental Working Group, 16.
In this document, there is the acknowledgement of societal attitudes whereby children with disabilities remain mostly marginalised and practically vulnerable due negative attitudes that constitutes rejection, exclusion, and violence against children with disabilities. Therefore, choices that are made in this regard may not necessarily be serving the best interest of the child. This is what is crucial to this discussion.
324 Chandramuki, Shastry, I.V.K., and Vranda, M.N., (2012), Attitudes of Parents Towards Children with Specific Learning Disabilities, in http://www.dcidj.org/doi10.5463/DCID.v23i1.47 Volume 23, No.1. 63-64.
Posted on November 30, 12:45 GMT. In this article, the authors stated that children are a perfect extension and expression of the couple’s love. The emotional preparation for expectant parents is usually shaped by glamorous image of the baby. The discrepancy between the perfect baby of their phantasy and the real child born with physical and mental disabilities may be the cause for negative attitudes and parental stress. This reaction of parents towards the child with disabilities may range from denial of the child, sense of guilt, blame, frustration, anger, and despair may sweep through parent’s emotional reaction. The emotional preparation for a perfect child is totally wounded hence the negative reaction towards the baby.
325 James B. Tubbs Jr., (1996), Christian Theology and Medical Ethics, Detroit: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 152.
326 Kelly, S.E., (2002), Bioethics and Rural Health: Theorizing Place, Space and Subject, in a Journal of Social Science and Medicine, New York: Science Direct Publishers, Volume 56, Issue 11, May 30, 2277-2288. The field of bioethics has been criticised for its universalizing tendencies, attributed in a large part to its foundations in moral philosophy and the level of abstractions of much bioethical discourse. Efforts to particularize bioethics have included the turn towards casuistry i.e. the emergence of feminists and disability rights critiques of mainstream bioethics and ethnographic contributions that examine the situatedness of ethical acts, practices, and meanings in local contexts.
which he or she prefers a value that, from an objective point of view, is more important, even though this means doing something that is forbidden.327 In this case, his or her conduct might be legally justified in the context of the duty to protect someone’s life and the obligation to relieve pain and suffering of the child through the mercy killing of the child.328 An ethical response to such a situation would be to safeguard human life of the child with disabilities at all cost, while at the same time finding other means of dealing with the best options available that could be in the best interest of the child in question.
From a medical viewpoint, the process of prognosis may reach its final stage, which may simply be to put the child on terminal medical care until natural death occurs.329 Physical and mental disabilities may not necessarily require the admission of medical treatment rather in some cases they may need ordinary social services through the provision of certain medical facilities that befit their situation which cannot be provided for if the child is in the home of his or her parents.330 Otherwise there is no other option to make the child get healed of his or her disabilities because in some cases, physical and mental disability is not a disease rather it is just a condition that a person is born with.331 In the case of the hopelessness and loss of meaning in putting the child on further medical options, some physicians, guided by the child’s parents, may opt to make use of the State of Necessity theory by simply putting the child to death through what is known as “assisted suicide”332. This act is the result of the expectation that the child has no chance of survival.333 The child with disabilities who constitutes other medical complications may be subjected to continuous pain and suffering, which would be traumatic to the rest of the family and it would lead parents to the difficult
327 Ibid. In this context, having weighed various aspects in relation to the keeping of the child with disabilities, someone may know that serving and caring of the life of the child is essential and important but considering the weightiness of caring for the child in the contexts of a rural setting where medical and social facilities are non-existent, mothers or care-givers may resort to this theory of state of necessity meaning to say that someone finds it necessary to forgo the life of a child with disabilities than to keep the child and shoulder the consequences single-handedly.
328 Williams, G., (1957), The Sanctity of Life and the Criminal Law, New York: Knopf Publishers, 322.
329 Department of Social Development, (2009), The Right to Belong and Participate: Integrated National Strategy on Support Services to Children with Disabilities, Pretoria: Inter-Departmental Working Group, 16.
330 Ibid.
331 Ibid.
332 Medical Brief, (2016), SCA Hearing on the Right to Die Starts, in on-line Journal, http://www.medicalbrief.co.za/archives/sca-hearing-right-die-starts, Johannesburg: Africa’s Medical Media Digest, Supreme Court of Appeal hearing arguments in the government and Health Professions Council of SA Appeal against High Ruling Granting a Terminary Ill Patient the Right to Die. In this court hearing, one of the defence lawyers for pro-life activism raised concerns stating that legalizing euthanasia would put many vulnerable people at risk. She says it may be abused by people who are legal guardians of elderly, disabled or seriously ill patients and who may take it upon themselves to decide what kind of life is a life worth living.
People living with disabilities are vulnerable because other people (may) look at their lives and think (they have) a poor quality of life and decide for assisted suicide for them. This is in view of the incidents that take place in some other quarters that have raised concerns.
333 Ibid.
judgement if that is the occasion or not to terminate the life of the child334. The situation of certain families who have been confronted with the birth of a child with disabilities might be like what has been described above. Certain families who experience similar situation may opt to abandon, dump or kill their children with disabilities having sentiments that the quality of life of their child with disabilities is not worthy living. Within the context of our local cultures, some people may have similar attitudes towards children with disabilities and unknowingly adopt the theory of state of necessity as discussed above. For instance, secretive cultural practices conducted by traditional midwives may constitute infanticide.335 Unfortunately there are limited existing legal or traditional documentation to back up the reality facing children in society especially children who are born with mental and physical disabilities in the region.336
2.3. SOCIO-CULTURAL BELIEFS AND TENDENCIES THAT ENTICE COUPLES TO