A hypothetical situation....

[DizBelle]

Suppose every woman in your family - your mother, your sisters, your aunts, your grandmothers, your great-grandmothers, possibly more - all had and possibly died from breast cancer. Do you decide to have children even though it is extremely likely that if you had a girl, she would get breast cancer too?

This isn't a question about breast cancer but rather a question of whether you would have children even though it is almost a foregone conclusion that they will have some disease they will have to deal with at some point in their lives. Is this something that would factor into your decision on whether or not to have children?

 

[GoodFairies]

For me, yes it would.

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

Hmm.

I don't think it would prevent me from having a child, but it might. It is hard to say unless you are ACTUALLY in that situation.

I have heard stories of women who have passed on conditions that I would NOT have risked passing on. The news anchor Bree Walker comes to mind.

 

[emma'smom]

If it is a condition/disease where early detection, prevention, and/or strides in treatment are occurring, then I would still have children. With breast cancer, a woman who knows she is highly at-risk can start with early-detection very early and even take more drastic surgical measure is she thinks it is appropriate. Also, by the time that child (born today) is facing these decisions, medical treatment may be at a place where these situations can be more easily treated/addressed than they are today.

For something that could impact the quality of life from the onset, I might think differently.

 

[kaytieeldr]

Yeah, everything emma'smom said - plus, just for the record, breast cancer isn't restricted to women.

 

[Ember]

Yes, it would influence my choice to have children. People like to go on and on about how selfless parents are... But to bring a child into the world when you know full well their life will be one of suffering is nothing but selfish. The "desire to be a parent" at that point is outweighing any consideration of that child at all. How is that anything but self centered?

 

[VillageMama]

I would hypothetically ask a woman with breast cancer... would you prefer having a life that includes cancer or would you prefer not to have been born at all.

I suspect that most would find life such a wonderful thing that it is worth it, even if illness enters in.

So yes, I would still have children even if there was a likelihood that they might face cancer at some point in their adult life. I've had five children, knowing that they will die someday. After all, we all do.

 

[Piecey]

No, it wouldn't influence my decision to have kids.


I have a friend who is set against having kids. Her mother has Lupus. If I remember correctly, Lupus skips a generation in her family... so while my friend and her sister are safe, my friend refuses to have kids because of the chance they could get Lupus.
Her sister had kids, though, and she was pretty upset about it.

 

[lillygator]

Yes, it would influence my choice to have children. People like to go on and on about how selfless parents are... But to bring a child into the world when you know full well their life will be one of suffering is nothing but selfish. The "desire to be a parent" at that point is outweighing any consideration of that child at all. How is that anything but self centered?

how in the world is the "possibility of breast cancer" a life of suffering?

 

[kpm76]

Yes, it would influence my choice to have children. People like to go on and on about how selfless parents are... But to bring a child into the world when you know full well their life will be one of suffering is nothing but selfish. The "desire to be a parent" at that point is outweighing any consideration of that child at all. How is that anything but self centered?

For many people, faith plays a significant role in deciding to have children. According to my faith, there is no way I would know beforehand that "their life would be one of suffering" because the creation of the child I am given is in God's hands. And while none of us parents want our kids to suffer, how do we know that the contributions they will make during their life will not compensate for the suffering they may or may not endure?

 

[Becky2005]

That would be an impossible one to answer because even though as much as we know about genetics we don't know everything!

I mean, what were the chances of me having a blonde headed kid when NO ONE in my family is blonde? It happened. Now, that's not remotely close to the same realm of diseases but if it's all based on genetics -- same principal applies.

My DH has scoliosis -- they have no clue what really causes it, they assume there is a genetic link. He has it, his dad has it & his grandfather has it. Scoliosis usually affects girls more than boys. DH's sister does NOT have it -- yet our DD did get scoliosis and so far our 3 boys who you would think based on the genetic boy line pattern would be at risk, do not appear to have it. Who the heck knows, obviously we choose to have kids and chance it.

My nephew had Wilm's tumor when he was a baby, we don't know a single other person on our side of the family or SIL's side of the family that had it. It just was.

 

[The Mystery Machine]

Suppose every woman in your family - your mother, your sisters, your aunts, your grandmothers, your great-grandmothers, possibly more - all had and possibly died from breast cancer. Do you decide to have children even though it is extremely likely that if you had a girl, she would get breast cancer too?

This isn't a question about breast cancer but rather a question of whether you would have children even though it is almost a foregone conclusion that they will have some disease they will have to deal with at some point in their lives. Is this something that would factor into your decision on whether or not to have children?

My older dd was born with a heart defect. My younger dd had a growth deficiency defect. My MIL is paranoid schizophrenic. I could go on and list a host of genetic and mental ailments that plague my family history.

You cannot live your life looking in the past.

 

[wdwfan16]

I would not bring a child into the world if I knew they would end up with a deadly disease. I would choose to adopt.

 

[krcit]

Yes, it would influence my choice to have children. People like to go on and on about how selfless parents are... But to bring a child into the world when you know full well their life will be one of suffering is nothing but selfish. The "desire to be a parent" at that point is outweighing any consideration of that child at all. How is that anything but self centered?

I have 3 very close friends who have had breast cancer. I can guarantee that they are thrilled to have been born despite the suffering they went through as they fought and won the battle against breast cancer.

 

[lspst8]

Not quite the same scenario as the OP suggested, but my father has had prostate cancer, his father died of prostate cancer when he was in his 80s, his mother died of breast cancer in the 1970s before I was even born. On my mother's side, while my mother and grandmother have not had breast cancer, 4 of my grandmother's 5 sisters have had breast cancer. There is a lot of cancer in my family obviously.

I don't have children yet, but my husband and I are going to start trying within the coming year. We didn't even give it a second thought. There a some truly devastating genetic diseases I would not want to pass on to children, but a predisposition to cancer is not going to stop me. Yes, cancer is awful, but I don't equate it with a "life full of suffering." Treatment and detection are so much better now than they were in the 1970s, so I can only imagine how much more advanced it will be 50 years from now when any future children of mine will be worried about cancer.

 

[pearlieq]

Several points:

1.) Everyone is going to die of something. Almost all of us are eventually going to have to deal with some kind of health problem.

2.) These people obviously lived long and well enough to at least have children (if not grandchildren or great grandchildren).

3.) Life is what you make of it. I'm sure if I walked around my mom's cancer center and polled, everyone there would think that their life was worth something.

4.) Many medical conditions aren't what they used to be. Some cancers can be managed as chronic conditions for 10+ years. Heart Disease isn't an instant death sentence.

5.) People speak of adoption as if you can just pop over to "Babies R Us" and pick up a few. Reality is nothing like that.

 

[Ember]

how in the world is the "possibility of breast cancer" a life of suffering?

I was answering the point of the question asked. Cancer has an increased rick factor, getting is not a forgone conclusion.

This isn't a question about breast cancer but rather a question of whether you would have children even though it is almost a foregone conclusion that they will have some disease they will have to deal with at some point in their lives. Is this something that would factor into your decision on whether or not to have children?

There are always chances that a child will contract a disease. However, knowing full well that a child will get it is a very different thing.

I never thought my opinion would be popular, but I do hold to it. If someone chooses to have children, knowing beyond reasonable doubt that they will suffer, then it is a selfish choice.

I've seen it first hand, only it was a rare genetic bone disease. The woman wanted desperately to experience being a mother. She knew her child would have the same debilitating disease she has, she knew it would suffer the same pain from a young age. Her desires out weighed any concern for her future child and she did it anyway. Sure enough, the child is now growing up in hospitals and suffers terribly. Do I begrudge the child its life? Of course not. But I do think the mother was terribly selfish to knowing put a child though such agony.

 

[Avalon_toon]

Yes. We faced this decision when my first husband was diagnosed with colon cancer. When we first found out, we thought it was a huge fluke (he was only 25 at the time, and colon cancer is an older man's disease.) We decided to have a child right away, so that he could experience being a parent, and so that a part of him could live on, in case the worst happened and he was to die. Then we found out that his maternal grandmother and both great aunts had died of the same thing, and his mother had had pre-cancerous cells removed. He had not known this previously. Once we knew, we realized he had inherited a genetic predisposition to colon cancer, and that given his family track record, a child would have a really big chance of getting it too. We chose not to have children under those circumstances. Neither of us could bear the thought of watching our child die from something we knew going in might kill them. He passed away a year later, and I believe we made the right choice, even though for many years afterwards, I thought it meant that I would never have children.

 

[LuvCuteBoys]

No, not at all. We're all going to die in some way at some point.

 

[DVC~OKW~96]

Depends on the illness and the statistical probability of the child's contracting it, and dying from it. Tay-Sachs comes to mind. I'd choose no children if that were the case.