Atheism apologist Dawkins: Down Syndrome abortions are moral

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Based on what principal of your morality ? I am not trying to argue with you, but you have said is "it is immoral" with no apparent explanation.

Not sure if the stats equate "to the vast majority", but certainly a majority opt for abortion, which I agree with. The issue here though is it immoral not to abort. and this is where it gets tricky. Sometimes I see kids that are alive only because of extreme medical intervention, and at face value they do not seem to be having a decent quality of life, am I going to suggest they should be left to die, of course not, do I think they should not have been brought into this world, most likely. But here I am talking about EXTREME cases, NOT DOWNS. I think it is immoral for anyone to judge or pressure parents for their decision either way regarding a downs kid or for that matter any foetus, and in this I include Dawkins. As to the extreme cases where the parents know that if the foetus goes full term it is going to result in an terribly deformed and suffering baby, I still don't think they should be guilted into an abortion, I would only hope they put aside their emotions and do what I feel would be the "humane" thing.

As to abortion in general I fully support it, I find the argument "but what if you had been aborted' incredible spurious, as the answer is simple. I would have known nothing about it.

I just don't think people with Down's should be aborted because they have Down's. I find it immoral because it deprives the person so conceived of life. Depriving a person of life for some eugenically-derived reason is immoral. Even if the embryo/fetus "doesn't feel it."

I imagine what would have happened if someone determined I had "something wrong" with me genetically, and advocated aborting ME. It's very simple: I wouldn't be here, and I wouldn't have experienced the joys (and the slings and arrows) of life.

I find the concept of myself never having been born because of some arbitrary decision abhorrent, frankly.

By the way, I'm squarely in the agnostic/atheist camp as far as my conception of "religion" is concerned.

Yes, according to a recent Gallup Poll http://www.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx 47 percent of U.S. respondents called themselves pro-choice while 46 percent called themselves pro-life (May 8-11, 2014). However, 56 percent called themselves pro-life while 33 percent called themselves pro-choice nine years ago (September 22-24, 1995) showing that the number of respondents who call themselves pro-choice has decreased by 10 percent, while the number who call themselves pro-life has increased by 14 percent.

What people say they believe does not always correspond to how they act. If 46% claim to be pro-life, then why is the abortion rate of DS children around 90%? These people don't practice what they preach.

The fact is, there are perfectly happy people with Down's Syndrome - are they to be told that it would have been kinder and more humane if they hadn't been born? On top of that, many parents of kids with Down's absolutely love their children, and would never want to trade them for anyone else, let alone wish they had been aborted.

Strawman, you only know about your life because you are alive. If you had never been born you would not miss a thing. I have always found the what if I had been aborted argument rather silly.


But you have no issue with the arbitrary nature of your existence? Of course you find the idea of being aborted abhorrent, and again this is because you are alive. What next is someone going to roll out the "you just aborted Mozart" canard.

Just musing on this concept of never having been born... just think how many sperm cells are "wasted" and how many female eggs are simply lost. Zillions of potential lives never even conceived; which is perhaps just as well or we'd be stacked up to the moon with people by now. Billions of Mozarts, Einsteins... and Hitlers who never were. The odds of being born as oneself is but a fleeting snowflake in a lottery in hell. I'm not making any moral judgements, just musing on the ideas raised.

^ not forgetting the literally countless zygotes, foetuses that spontaneously abort during pregnancy and then the stillborns etc etc.

Back to Dawkins, in regard to the desire to survive ones death, I like his statement ( I am paraphrasing here) "considering the astronomical improbability of your life, why would you want more"

I am thinking subjectively---of my own existence.

I'm also thinking of the arbitrary nature of a decision to abort a fetus based upon a genetic condition which does not necessarily render the person a total burden upon his/her family and society. I could understand the decision when the embryo/fetus is known to have Tay-Sachs (death occurs, usually, at about 4 years of age in this condition).

I'm not radical in this sense; I do believe people should have a "choice" whether or not to terminate a pregnancy--but not after embryo becomes a fetus.

Forget about 2nd trimester abortions--that's murder.

I don't see myself as being a "straw man." I think people, sometimes, have a tendency to be overly logical in their deductions, not taking into account factors other than "logic."

Actually, Downs Syndrome (trisomy 21) can now reliably (98+ percent) be detected by screening in the 1st trimester of pregnancy.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23744609
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23744626

The first study was actually done as early as 10 weeks of gestation and achieved a 100 percent detection rate combined with a 0.1 percent false positive rate when using DNA testing only, suggesting that early screening for Downs Syndrome with the most recent technology is extremely accurate.

Here is a popular description of both studies:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/20 ... 085203.htm

Morality is always a subjective issue based on each person's reality of life and the culture they live in.

In nature and human history and yes even now, in some cultures infanticide is a common practice and considered a moral one depending
on the mores of the culture in question.

Not all people are able to care for their children they have and disabled ones too, nor do they have the resources to do as such, as applicable
to so called normal children as well.

Depends on whose shoes one walks in on what is the moral thing to do.

But what I do find amusing is the relative value put on an actual Down's child as opposed to a non-Down's child and how this relates
to many other individuals with conditions associated with intellectual disability.

In earlier life, while I was busily solving everyone's problems in the work place, there were intellectually disabled janitor folks cracking simple
jokes of laughter and making the customer service audience very happy.

Yes, in reality I had the personality of a brick then, and the so called intellectually disabled folks were spreading love and joy everywhere they went.

Yeah, solving problems is cool.

But at the end of the day, love is truly what counts.

Standard IQ tests do no measure for that.

It is beyond measure of any calculated equation like formula, for true value to the spread of true humanity of love, more valuable
than any other credential in life; real life.

So in effect Dawkins appears to be 'ret*d' when it comes to:

Real life and what Humanity at its best can be, when given the chance.

But no, I am not going to call for his extermination.

I'll just pray that he becomes a human being soon, with love, the stuff of what true humanity can be, if given the chance.

Imo, this is the most relevant question: how high is the suicide rate of people with down syndrome? It's probably not all that high, is it? Sure it could be higher than average. But even if we grant that, it means that there are a lot of people with down syndrome who feel they lead meaningful lives, that they have the right to live. Should we be able to decide that for them?

Murder is the unlawful killing of persons.

A 2nd trimester abortion is neither unlawful nor the killing of a person.

To equate abortion to murder devalues conscious life and lessens the evil of actual murder.

I agree Aspie Utah - I reacted to his comments in a very similar way to You when I read it (i.e. so should AS babies be aborted too!?) before I saw this particular aticle You post.
In some ways the thing he says about enhanced abilities and contributing is even worse, because that suggests that instead of caring about the baby's future quality of life (a reason which in and of itself is flawed because Downs syndrome persons does not automatically mean bad quality of life) but whether they conform to expextaitons of what an individual should do in life. And how narrow minded to conflate contributing solely with abilities - what about emotional love a person provides for a family is that not a contribution?
Then again Of course, in Dawkin's ammoral theory, that is too "irrational". according to Rod Preece, the neanthertal is the role-model of humans because altruism should not be applauded since it is against humans' genetic self interest.

What I'll also add that I find disturbing about this Dawkins saga is that he later defended comments by tweeting that ?a majority of Down Syndrome fetuses in Europe and USA are aborted. What I recommended is not outlandish but the norm." Since when do Professors go by something just because it's the norm? It just reminds me of my favourite Mark Twain quote that "whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."


PS Sort of off topic but funny how he writes that thing about being vegan - because actually it is because of veganism that I became vegetarian there was this debate lecture called "should meat be off the menu" and there was this man who said eating meat is a choice. One audience member countered by asking: but when did the animals choose to get killed and be eaten? Which is very true. Human carnivoreism is easy to just call a choice because we are the ones who have the power and top position in our our hierarchy TO have control over them ? but the animals; the low-hiearchy ones here do not get a say in their own fate, and the selection of the word choice -well I coundn't help but see parallels to pro-choice because there is also an imbalance of power.

While I don't reject the idea of using genetic to increase population imtelligence, some things in this interview worry me.


What reason do he give to increase populations intelligence? Bringing the populations to care for things more deep and meaningful in culture and making Call of Duty and Micheal Bay bankrout? No! (Also, finally bringing that Star Trek 2009 is stupid as the dominant opinion... )
http://www.laughingatchaos.com/guest-post-christine-fonseca-and-dies-irae/#comment-5273


Do they care about that it could make the population more compasionate, care more about social issues and more likelly to resolve issues without violence? No!(A tendency with intellectually gifted individuals. Maybe Geoffrey Miller was like that, before something warped his mind. (Maybe economic orthodoxy.))

Do they care that it could bring innovations that would allow humanity to more easily face the challenges of 21th century, like innovating in energy storage? While the interview do bring out innovations, it's more see as a way to boosting economy that saving the world... So...No! It seem only economy is considered important...



It would make more sense to only care about standardized tests, as even if they not perfect, it's still a better measure of intelligence that CV, publications and selection of colleges. And why only peoples of Chinesse and European descent? Why is there no blacks? And why no other asian populations, are they afraid of selecting japanesse genes? It reek of racism...


Because of course China is such a shining example on issues like polution control, economic equality or human rights... They may be better to not give lessons on economic stability either, not with what may be the most massive estate bubble in history ready to burst.

Raising the intelligence of populations through genetic testing or enginering may be a good thing to do, but I don't trust those guys with it. Bad things could happen, like selecting for making sociopaths. (Those are successful peoples after all, and their behaviors is "boosting" this sick economy.) This is also under a dictatorial government, which mean there will be all those genius kids indoctrinated to see things the way the party tell them to see. Maybe those kids will be smart and wise enough to see through the party lies and revolt against it to bring democracy in China, with a little hope. Or maybe, they will be indoctrinated in following those sick institutions of modern civilisation based around neo-liberal economy, like so many intellectually gifted and smart peoples before.