By Sarah Terzo
Disabled woman and activist Marsha Saxton:
The message at the heart of widespread selective abortion on the basis of prenatal diagnosis is the greatest insult: some of us are “too flawed” in our very DNA to exist; we are unworthy of being born… Fighting for this issue, our right and worthiness to be born, is the fundamental challenge to disability oppression; it underpins our most basic claim to justice and equality – we are indeed worthy of being born, worth the help and expense, and we know it!
Marsha Saxton, “Disability Rights and Selective Abortion.” Ricky Solinger, ed. Abortion Wars: A Half Century of Struggle, 1950 – 2000 (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University Of California Press, 1997) p. 391.
Editor’s note. This appeared at Clinic Quotes and is reposted with permission.