The families that I know that have chosen to abort a fetus with Down's syndrome have all gone on to have additional children. Although we can't say for sure, had those families chosen not to abort, those additional children may not have been conceived or born. It seems somewhat contradictory to put a huge value on the potential life of an unborn fetus with Down's while not recognizing the second-order effects on those potential lives.
The Last Children of Down Syndrome
51–60 of 142 posts
Re: The Last Children of Down Syndrome
#52> Yet a gulf seems to separate the publicly expressed attitudes and private decisions. I would be more surprised if this were not true. It's not very PC to say, but quite simply being different is not inherently a moral good. Downs Syndrome in particular is more controversial, because people who have this disorder typically are happy in their lives. I've spent a not insignificant part of my life working with teenager…
> meaningful quality of life factors. What are these?
It depends entirely on the person what sort of effects Downs Syndrome will have on their life. Some people born with Downs Syndrome have fairly mild intellectual disability and so are capable of basic life independence and holding down menial jobs, however many people will have moderate to severe intellectual disability and be completely incapable of living independently at any point in their life.
I think many people don't understand the depth of that statement, "living independently" isn't just a matter of financial independence. Certainly there is a place where society could help to fund the living expenses of the severely disabled. What I mean is that many people with Downs Syndrome are unable to perform basic tasks of life without assistance, such as maintaining their living space, cooking for themselves, being able to get to a doctor's appointment on time, being able to pay bills. Note, I don't mean forgetting to pay bills, which can be resolved through assistive technology, I mean being unable to follow the process to actually make a payment.
The life expectancy of people with Downs Syndrome has become quite good, and is around 60 years of age now, and yet for many of these people they will never know a moment of true independence and agency in their entire lives. They will need a permanent, likely live-in, caretaker from birth until death, long after their parents have passed away.
One unfortunate reality is a prenatal test can't tell you how severe the disorder might be. Your child-to-be could end up being one of the kids with Downs Syndrome who effectively has some physical abnormalities which can be accommodated and is a little slower at learning, but could otherwise graduate college and live a normal life. Or they could end up being one of the many children with Downs Syndrome that suffers from a deeper intellectual disability. IQ is one of those things that's mostly meaningless, but on the extremes it matters. The average IQ for adults with Downs Syndrome is 50, meaning that for most people with this disorder they will never get beyond the intellectual capacities of a small child. Some, unfortunately, are mostly non-verbal and unable to carry on conversation.
I don't think I should be any more specific than that, because it wouldn't be fair to the privacy of the people I've volunteered with. If you're legitimately curious, I'd encourage you to just search online. There's a lot of information about Downs Syndrome care out there.
Re: The Last Children of Down Syndrome
#53Earlier quoted context omitted.
Ah yes, the pope that as now comes to light has protected pedophiles in the church for decades. Really the authority we should all look up to.
(1) JPII was one of the great moral thinkers of the 20th century and I highly recommend that you read some of his work. Not only a thinker, he may be the single man most responsible for the fall of the USSR. (2) The human institution of the Church, especially where wealthy, is highly corrupt and I say that as a devout Catholic who believes Christ established the Catholic Church as His church (tldr the human & divine…
I'm Polish, for the entirety of my childhood and teenage years the man was revered more than Jesus himself. In Poland he's beyond Saint, you can't speak ill of him. And yes, I'm aware of his contribution to the fall of communism and fall of communism in Poland in particular - his election as a Pole was specifically designed to achieve that goal after all, communist government really didn't know what to do about it and it strengthened the Polish church to such an incredible force they became completely untouchable and yes, could be seen as the leading reason for the eventual fall of communism.
However.
Despite the early life reverence, I feel that as a grown adult I do now see him in a completely different light - as a man put into a certain role which he has played correctly, and ultimately he has protected an institution that sheltered abusers, corruption, wealth and which ultimately is a cancer spreading over Poland right now, destroying the society from within.
Also not everything is about US - look what's happening in Poland with cardinal Dziwisz, the closest confidant of the pope - I always suspected he was a piece of shit after disobeying the direct testament of JP2 and making money off of it, but now it's been confirmed he's much much worse than just profiteering off a dead pope.
Re: The Last Children of Down Syndrome
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
"modern medicine that will result in mankind accumulating more and more genetic defects." Citation needed... A lot of autosomal recessive genetic disease is a result of humans reproducing within their in-group, making the likelihood of two carriers of the same variant having offspring with that expressed variant. BRCA1 / BRCA2 in the Ashkenazi Jewish population are a common example. Nothing about medical genetic test…
I believe you misread or misunderstood my comment.
Upon second reading it appears I have misunderstood your comment. My bad!
Re: The Last Children of Down Syndrome
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
> will result in mankind accumulating more and more genetic defects Why? Unless the Down Syndrome patients themselves have children, then there wouldn't be an evolutionary impact.
Are you planning to make laws that will make it illegal for people with genetic defects to procreate? Seriously?
You are probably not aware of the fact that majority of Down sufferers cannot procreate. There is only a few recorded instances of Down sufferers having children.
That said, you can have mosaic aneuploidy (just some cells are affected), in that case, your life is likely to be more typical.
Re: The Last Children of Down Syndrome
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
> will result in mankind accumulating more and more genetic defects Why? Unless the Down Syndrome patients themselves have children, then there wouldn't be an evolutionary impact.
Why wouldn’t the Down Syndrome patients themselves have children?
I believe most would choose not to take that step because they are well and truly cognisant of the level of responsibility and care required to raise a child with the same, or more extensive, needs as they themselves had. No one would know better than they would, and I have yet to meet a person with Downs that was stupid despite any manifest intellectual deficit.
That said, it is definitely immoral to forcibly prevent another human from having a child. Any debate on morality must focus on the decision the individual themselves must make.
Re: The Last Children of Down Syndrome
#57This is not a new philosophical problem. We already know what the inherent tension is here. Do we value the sanctity of a human life over the greater social order?
Of course both answers to that question have very far reaching implications, and to answer one way or another almost always reveals oneself to be a hypocrite in some way. But instead of actually engaging with these hard questions we equivocate and try to build logical defenses that allow us to have our cake and eat it too.
Unfortunately with modern science and medicine we will be forced to reckon with the consequences of these unspoken choices soon or later. I don't pretend to know what is correct here, and I don't necessarily pass judgement on those who would answer these questions differently than I, but I do have large amounts of contempt for anyone who tries to ignore the realities of their positions and even more contempt for those who think the answer is obvious and self explanatory.
Re: The Last Children of Down Syndrome
#58Prenatal testing is one of the few solutions to this "post-darwinian" world (not in the usual sense of the word) with its modern medicine that will result in mankind accumulating more and more genetic defects. Though slightly more ethical from my point of view would be gene-editing to remove those defects, instead of just terminating the fetus. Edit: Also I'm not talking about down syndrome specifically. There's a lo…
"modern medicine that will result in mankind accumulating more and more genetic defects." Citation needed... A lot of autosomal recessive genetic disease is a result of humans reproducing within their in-group, making the likelihood of two carriers of the same variant having offspring with that expressed variant. BRCA1 / BRCA2 in the Ashkenazi Jewish population are a common example. Nothing about medical genetic test…
The problem is that every generation has new de novo mutations. Mostly they don't do anything, very rarely they're positive, but some are bad. It used to be that only half of children survived to adulthood which produced enough selective pressure to remove new deleterious mutations, but that thankfully doesn't happen anymore. This isn't a problem in the short term but if we don't introduce something like pre-natal selection we'll eventually wind up back in a situation where half of children don't survive to adulthood despite modern medicine.
Re: The Last Children of Down Syndrome
#59This is personal for me, we are just undergoing IVF treatment. We opted to have all embryos biopsied and checked for aneuploidies (Down Syndrome is a form of aneuploidy). Sure enough, some were aneuploid, though almost certainly non-viable.
I could not, in good faith, deliberately bring a child with Down syndrome to this world. Just could not.
Re: The Last Children of Down Syndrome
#60> Yet a gulf seems to separate the publicly expressed attitudes and private decisions. I would be more surprised if this were not true. It's not very PC to say, but quite simply being different is not inherently a moral good. Downs Syndrome in particular is more controversial, because people who have this disorder typically are happy in their lives. I've spent a not insignificant part of my life working with teenager…
The difficulty I have with this is we are now actively choosing who gets to live and who doesn't. Yes it's at a very early stage of pregnancy but it may have a profound impact on the future of all human societies. The morality of such actions should be examined thoroughly. This is far from a cure to genetic diseases it is removal of diseased individuals from the population. Any selective removal can be dangerous. If…
And we are not doing this with a lot of other factors?
Why would this be different than planed parenthood?
I'm also not following that we should draw the line here just because it can be missused when you draw the line further away.
I would even argue, that it is our duty to do tests as we have the means and therefore the responsibility to do so. We do know that nature is not perfect. We can't control everything before like the pill and everything while it grows (supplements, no work etc.) and after birth by helping babies which came out to early or operations etc.
Why would we control everything but not this specific aspect?
The general notion quite globally is, that an abortion before 3month is ethical okay for us as a society and this timeframe was not choosen through some random events. It probably evolved.