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The Last Children of Down Syndrome

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Re: The Last Children of Down Syndrome

#71

Post by RHSeeger »

xupybd wrote: post #43
tristor wrote: post #14

> 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…

> choosing who gets to live and who doesn't

It's worth noting that, to many people, someone that isn't born yet isn't a "who" at all yet. That is, in my opinion, why we see such a large gap in opinion between "pro life" and "pro choice"; (many of) the former think of it as killing, (many of) the later don't see the unborn as a distinct life, just another part of the mother. That disconnect leads to a lot of talking past each other.

Re: The Last Children of Down Syndrome

#72

Post by GordonS »

mmastrac wrote: post #12

Having a child is terrifying enough. Some folks might be up for the challenge of supporting a child with special needs for their entire life (or a good chunk of it), but I'm not afraid to say that it was a huge relief to know that my son had no known genetic abnormalities before he was born. There's nothing to be ashamed of here.

I have a daughter with Down's (we didn't know during pregnancy - actually, we didn't find out until she was almost 2!!), and my wife got NIPT tests on subsequent pregnancies. I don't know what we'd have done had either of them been positive, but at the very least we wanted to know beforehand.

Like you said, there's nothing to be ashamed of here.

Re: The Last Children of Down Syndrome

#73

Post by Fumtumi »

scop wrote: post #34
gambiting wrote: post #5

Earlier 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…

And still the church contains pedophiles and homophobes.

We have to see it as a whole thing and as a whole is negative.

Re: The Last Children of Down Syndrome

#74

Post by scop »

gambiting wrote: post #53
scop wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(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 an…

I appreciate your reply and testimony!

The "image" of JPII is a conundrum. On the one hand, he was extremely charismatic and gave many, many people a very real hope and a sense of purpose during a desolate century. However, he was and is not Jesus and the "media Pope" is a problem the Church has been dealing with since. The Pope must travel and must smile, etc etc whereas we know a Pope certainly has his work cut out for him just in the Vatican. The Church has never taught that every image and utterance of the Pope is divinely wrought, but media has twisted us into an odd place. "You wouldn't dare criticize the Pope, would you? Look how holy and beautiful he is!". (By media and "us" I am referring to believing Catholics; obviously secular media has no problem criticizing the Pope). In the US there has been a marked shift since McCarrick in the laity for holding the bishops more accountable, which albeit it is proceeding at a much slower pace than any of us would like. But a dam has broken, thank God.

Regarding the US, I mentioned the American church & McCarrick as an example of still-living Vatican power-players shifting blame and it was not my intention to say such problems are unique to America. Indeed, Dziwisz and other players boil my blood like little else.

Re: The Last Children of Down Syndrome

#75

Post by lotu »

xupybd wrote: post #43
tristor wrote: post #14

> 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…

I think there is a pretty clear distinction, in that wide spread sex selective abortion results in a skewed gender population which causes obvious negative long term problems. It is very reasonable for a person to look at a society and say “we need increase the number of girls born”. We might have to discuss what is the best way to reach that goal but it is a reasonable goal to have. While I think saying “we need increase the number of people born with Down Syndrome” is never a morally defensible position.

Re: The Last Children of Down Syndrome

#76

Post by mmastrac »

inglor_cz wrote: post #59

This 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.

Same here. And nothing wrong with that choice at all. Others are free to plan their families as they please.

Re: The Last Children of Down Syndrome

#77

Post by mmastrac »

GordonS wrote: post #72
mmastrac wrote: post #12

Having a child is terrifying enough. Some folks might be up for the challenge of supporting a child with special needs for their entire life (or a good chunk of it), but I'm not afraid to say that it was a huge relief to know that my son had no known genetic abnormalities before he was born. There's nothing to be ashamed of here.

I have a daughter with Down's (we didn't know during pregnancy - actually, we didn't find out until she was almost 2!!), and my wife got NIPT tests on subsequent pregnancies. I don't know what we'd have done had either of them been positive, but at the very least we wanted to know beforehand. Like you said, there's nothing to be ashamed of here.

> actually, we didn't find out until she was almost 2

I'm curious about this. I didn't realize that the condition could go undiagnosed long after birth!

Re: The Last Children of Down Syndrome

#78

Post by chub500 »

My parents were manipulated into having prenatal disability tests because of my mom's low amniotic fluid during my sister's pregnancy. Tests came back positive and the doctors recommended abortion. My parents were horrified, being pro-life. They endured a traumatic next few months and a premature delivery. That was 1989. My sister was fine but it left my parents with enduring resentment of doctors to this day.

My abortion "policy" has been that it should be illegal to knowingly put an unborn fetus in jeopardy (unless the mother's life is at risk of course) as soon as the pregnancy is known beyond reasonable doubt. I can't imagine any other policy that doesn't dance with eugenics.

I think that the government's prerogative should be facilitating adoption for the baby and mitigating the "unavoidable" inequity to the mother biology has put upon her.

I understand many disagree with the above, I only ask that you keep an open mind as I also try to do about one of the trickiest moral quandaries in the present age.

Re: The Last Children of Down Syndrome

#79

Post by Fumtumi »

bennettfeely wrote: post #64

They mention it in the article but we should really be calling this what it really is, 21st century eugenics. It's not "changing who gets born and who doesn’t", it's killing the weak, the unwanted, the vulnerable. It's saying that our lives have meaning and worth and dignity only so long as we are wanted and not a burden to others. Few minds and opinions change on HN but I encourage anyone viewing this as a positive…

'killed'. Abortion is not killing.

Our society defines it as okay. You apparently don't agree with this but you are not the majority here.

No human aborts a fetus for fun.

My wife and i lost our 'fetus' on the 3 month mark. There have been a lot of thoughts about this experience and lots of emotions. And i would probably abort a fetus with Down Syndrom.

No one is doing an abortion easy. It is never easy for whatever reason and its not your place to criticize it when its not your responsibility.

You have to understand one thing: People are able to seperate the wish of not having a kid with down syndrom from other human beings who have down syndrom.

Re: The Last Children of Down Syndrome

#80

Post by jlokier »

xupybd wrote: post #16
alangibson wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I hope I'm not following the argument, because it sounds like he thinks we should have other people around 'suffering with serious disabilities' so we can be reminded how precious life is. If so, that's cruel to the point of perversity.

It's saying that if we terminate base on a disability we are preventing that person from a chance a life based on the assumption that it would be better not to exist rather than have the disability in question. Those born with these disabilities might disagree and they might see such an action as a judgement against their own existence. This further adds to their suffering.

This other comment throws up an interesting twist on that:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25140048

Once we are talking about counterfactuals, that is things like "would haves" about people who don't exist but could have, it opens the door to considering other people who don't exist but could have.

Under the assumption that a family who proceeds with the Downs foetus to birth has fewer children afterwards, ought we not to consider the later children who might not exist as part of this moral equation too?

What if a family who proceeds with the Downs foetus to birth is likely to have multiple fewer children after than they would have had?

Some people born with disabilities might disagree - and have every right to disagree - and see the action of abortion as a judgement against their own existence. But in doing so, are they not identifying themselves more with the counterfactual Downs foetus than with the counterfactual non-Downs foetus?

If so, does that not suggest people who think that way identify themselves with the disability to some degree ("In that world I would have been aborted"), rather than identifying themselves as people independent of a physical characteristic ("In that world I would have been guaranteed my body would not have this disability")?

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