Budgeting for disability

This is the economic rationalist - even eugenic - view of human life which sees those who are “imperfect” as a drain on communal resources.

How are people with disabilities supposed to feel included when they're being told how much governments can save if they didn't exist?

Just picture it: our elected officials, sweating over budgets, adding up “units of handicap prevented”.

It's true, there aren't enough resources and systems of care for people with disabilities; a shortage of supported accommodation, lack of respite care, lack of employment and educational opportunities. In so many ways we make things harder.

There's a lot of support to terminate, but little if you don't. The message sent is: the state shouldn't be expected to help you because you should have been aborted.

In my book Defiant Birth, I interviewed women who were told they were "carrying a monster" or that their baby would "only ever be a pet".

They were made to feel guilty and ashamed for bringing a disabled baby into the world. "Don't you know that kind of thing is preventable now?" they were asked.

One woman named Brenda said: "You have to justify why you've brought a disabled child into the world.”

Leisa Whittaker who is short statured, as is her husband and their four children, wrote about how they felt society didn't want them, when they learned of the baby terminated at 32-weeks gestation, for suspected dwarfism. Dr Lachlan de Crespigny administered an injection of potassium chloride into the baby girl's heart before labour was induced and the dead baby delivered. (Dr de Crespigny also appeared before the Senate Committee inquiry last week. Syringes of poison were routine for dealing with babies post 24-weeks, he said.)

Any of us could become disabled at any time. We all need to stick together and look after each other.

Kicking out a desperately needed doctor because his son has a disability; refusing family reunion because a daughter has an illness; promoting termination over living because it looks better on a balance sheet. These are things politicians should be fighting against, not supporting.