Are you, or do you know , a woman who has undergone a theapeutic /eugenic abortion?

This question arose from another thread, but it's of serious social significance. It's also a trick question. I myself know a great many women, but only one has ever confided in me that she had had an abortion, and it wasn't therapeutic. She and her boyfriend were both at uni, the birth woud have loused up both their careers, so they killed the kid. Given the statistics, it's likely that a lot of women known to me could tell similar stories, were they so minded. Certainly, Ursula Le Guin told such a story about herself, as part of her feminist agenda. When very young, she got pregnant by a boy of the WRONG RELIGION. Since, whatever else you think of her, Le Guin is mentally brilliant and physically tough, and would surely not have leapt into bed with a moronic weakling, the world was most likely deprived of a fine, strong, clever young man or woman, who would by now be a grandfather/mother of a high-quality brood.

So, when is an abortion justifiable? The absolutists would say, 'NEVER!'  It's murder, and you can never justify that! This position is easy to spporyt - broadly. But consider a very horrible case from the 60s. A woman was pregnant, and the foetus seemed abnormally large (this was before the days of ultrasound scanning) but no real problem! Forceps delivery indicated, and carried out.

The baby, once delivered, wasn't the usual sort. It was a case of conjoined twins, joined face to face - except that neither had a face. Two brains, four ears, two complete bodies - but no breathing apparatus, so as soon as the umbilicus was cut, they started to die from anoxia - and as good thing too. Yet the mother had carried them to term. Would it not surely have been better for her, could the condition of the foetus been determined then, as it surely could now, to have aborted?

Aho! Hard cases make bad law. Amniocentesis has arrived, and shows no signs of going away. Many couples, especially in southeast Asia, routinely have the foetus scanned for sex, and aborted if it's female unless they have a son already. When last I checked the figures, the ratio of live male births to female in South Korea was 114/100 - and in China, with its one-child policy, it's purported to be a lot worse, though no one knows for sure. There they don't abort, but drown surplus girls - just like poor-quality puppies.

Here in the UK, it's gone a different way. There are a number of congenital conditions which are quite easily corrected, most noticeably hare-lip and club-foot. Now, we must be realistic. The operation to correct hare-lip will leave you looking presentable, but will NOT make you into a reigning beauty. The operation to correct a club foot will leave you capable of a brisk walk, but will NOT make you into a brilliant athlete. Lord Byron, who suffered that afflicrion, played for his school in the Eton/Harrow match; but it was agreed that when he hit  the ball, a lesser boy should take his runs.

Here in the UK, ultrasound scanning and amniocentesis are readily available, and as a result the more grotesque anomalies tend not to make it to term. We don't really need a whole lot more Elephant Men, and I don't notice as many Down syndrome adults as I noticed Down syndrome children in my youth. But exactly what is happening?