Exploring Approach 2: Life is a gift

Adding to your point about cost, I don't believe it's possible for the government to provide full care for individuals with severe health problems to the point where the child and their family are no longer under a time/financial burden- even if aid was extensively funded, things will just be more difficult for these families due to having to visit a doctor regularly, parents having to take time off work, and the like. Therefore, I think that this approach will breed resentment in people who believe they had the right to terminate their pregnancy or reject some embryos, and whose children are now suffering, not only due to disabilities and/or health problems, but also due to time/financial issues caused by the need for ongoing treatment.

@Izzy , to give an insight on your point, I would suggest the government in partnership with the private sector establish a charity sort of organisation to care for a certain percentage for a disable citizen to meet health costs.

I think your point about Approach 2 forcing people to do things illegally is a good one. One of the arguments for legalising abortions is that, when they are illegal, women still have abortions, they just get them from unlicensed and unhygenic practitioners who can't do it properly. That puts the mother's life and wellbeing at risk. So, the argument goes, better to do it properly than badly.

If testing and abortions are not legal, some women will seek them out anyway, especially those who are at a high risk for passing on genetic disorders.

Making it illegal won't make it stop. It'll just mean that it happens illegally and (often) unsafely.

In relation to the religious question, I can’t help but think these issues are still an extension of existing abortion policies, which is legal in certain circumstances. Earlier testing is an enabler, as it provides more accurate information for families in these situations, independent of their eventual decision. Aligning additional policies to Approach 2 will cause tension with existing laws. Agree that we probably need to conduct a very broad-reaching survey to understand the proportionality across the four views.

Lots of good insights here, John, Jenna, Daniel and Izzy, and I'm very interested in your comments about our political processes.

This engagement process comes out of a deliberative democracy (DD) tradition and has very different assumptions and goals to traditions from representative democracy. Rather than a winner takes all approach, DD emphasises finding ways forward that most people can live with. And it doesn't assume that people know their preferences, especially with respect to complex issues, which means that simply asking people what they think in a survey or submission process isn't that helpful. DD assumes instead that people need to learn about and discuss issues with diverse others before being able to make a judgement. Under these conditions, the empirical evidence shows that normal people are often able to find broadly acceptable policies, even on issues like abortion.

The magic then is finding out how to get enough people (and deciding how much is enough) to participate in that conversation, which I guess is part of the reason we are doing this course.

Now, it goes back to how policies are created. If abortion is legalized, did policy makers involve church leaders to participate in policy making? Did they consider the religious aspects associated with abortion before coming up with the policy? Sensitive topics like dealing with life as to be dealt in such a way that it considers all aspects of life. I strongly recommend that its time there has to be a public-private partnership in place so government leaders, community leaders, church leaders and business owners need to work together in coming up with decisions and policies surrounding issue to deal with life.

The obvious conflict will be in the context of religious beliefs that every life is a gift from God and that termination of a fetus/embryo as a result of pre-birth testing is considered murder. It eliminates the value of love and respect for human life. Will a conclusion or compromise ever be reached, I doubt it.

However, through this approach of keeping life, in my opinion is that appropriate facilities and help can be made available for parents who through pre-birth testing have identified medical conditions or disabilities with their unborn child. 

But the question is will every family have access to government help and facilities, let alone pre-birth testing that will in the first place identify the issue for the mothers/parents.  Will families be able to afford the long term financial cost of caring for children born with severe medical condition and disabilities? I think there are still uncertainties that need to bee addressed.

In the context of NZ, funding won’t be an issue as it’s a developed country. We can see clearly from how the road systems, buildings, public transports and facilities are all constructed in  such a way  that disable citizens have easy access to everything.  I’m not sure if there’s a support system in place for the disabled citizen as I’m not a citizen here. But I strongly believe that if the issue is brought forward with the pros and cons surrounding the approach, the government will definitely establish a support system taking into account that life is a gift and everyone has the right to live.

On the other hand, religious aspects, moral values and cultural aspects surrounding this approach (Life is a Gift) will have tensions when individuals give their own views. If religious aspects is to be considered, we’ll have strong debates surround this approach. As mentioned by Jenna, abortion is legal in certain circumstance which means a woman can terminate a healthy baby if the mother has health issues for instance. I would agree with that. But, what about teenagers and young couples who terminates pregnancy because they realise they’re not ready to take care of the child? Where will we draw lines in such circumstance if we are to see life as a gift?

There will be a moral breakdown in the society. There won’t be compassion, generosity, respect and love for each other in the society. Religious citizens will value life while those that are not religious wont value life. Personally, I see this as a sensitive issue as we a dealing with life which is far more precious.  It now falls back to the government, community and churches leaders to deliberate more on the issue to come up with a decision that will go hand in hand when considering all aspects surrounding the issue.

I think you make some excellent points Lillian.

There is one point thought that I don't agree with though. You mention that if there are more options to terminate pregnancy that there will be a moral breakdown in society and that religious citizens will value life and those who are not religious will not value life.

As a non-religious person I disagree. I think that non-religious people do value life. In fact, I think we put a very high value on life. But I think we look at it in a nuanced way, because (many of us) believe that we have to balance that with other values as well. For example, we need to balance everyone's right to life with women's right to have control over their bodies and parents' right to chose whether or not they have to make personal and family sacrifices to raise a child that will need more help and attention than most people expect.

There are no easy answers to those dilemmas. Many non-religious people believe that both are important. Which is why this is so difficult. There are no easy answers.

Thanks Jenny. Religion in the context of this issue is individuals seeing life as God-given and has value. Whether you are faithful in attending church and more religious or not, as long as you belief and know that life is valuable and is only given by God.

Exactly, there are no easy answers to this and I support your view.

Let's finish up our exploration of Approach 2 now

Thanks everyone for the quality of your communication and for covering so much ground so quickly - we spent 2 days exploring this approach, something that took 6 days when this process was run with the public.

Going fast does have some advantages - lots of posts in a short time create energy and momentum, and the rapid sharing of ideas and perspectives can help form supportive relationships between participants - yes, this can happen online! A disadvantage however is that there is less time for people to reflect on what's being said, on what they think about it and what they're going to say next. When the balance between speed and reflection is right, the discussions are very rich and innovative thinking can occur.

I would normally write a summary of your day's work to close it off but I'm not going too as I don't think it's necessary for the purposes of this simulation. I'll start a new thread for the next stage of the process - starting the search for common ground - shortly.

Hey everyone, I deeply apologise for being late. I have just been a little bit recover from cold. I wish to contribute some ideas to the group as well. First of all, I agree with @Sylviani Leku @Izzy that religions, morality and norms can influence future parents' decisions on abortion because some people might feel bad after abortion. This bad feelings can be a memory which some might decide to keep embryos.
Also, I have seen some videos recently talk about word "disability" with people who are born with down syndrome. Those videos explain that down syndrome is not disability, it is the unique genes. The down syndrome people have their unique skills including dancing and performance.

Therefore, personally, the approach 2 not only focuses on social perspectives but also economic perspectives that some embryos should not aborted based on the pre-testing birth since those children also have their own unique skills.

Regarding unintentional outcomes, if the government encourage people to abort the embryos because of disability, this could be seen as the immorality and influence on people's decisions. To me, if do so, it might not far different from clone DNA because people started to select the preferred embryos. However, pre-testing birth does not mean it is a bad idea but the government should be aware of their power-influence on people's decision. To sum up, it is good to have pre-testing birth but the government should not tell people to keep or abort particular types of embryos.
In terms of cost benefit analyse, there must be supports from the government to all children. But for those children who live with physical disability or down syndrome, the government might need to invest more. However, the benefit of doing this can contribute to promoting morality and diversity of people and skills.