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Comment by war1025 | Hacker News Reader

I can't help but think of the stark contrast between this call to protect people with Down Syndrome and the fact that babies are almost universally aborted currently if their Down Syndrome test comes back positive.

I guess it's good that once they are born we care about them, but it seems that as a society we've decided we'd prefer they just not be born.

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Well I think it's a matter of "is it ethical to bring into the world a being who is more likely to have a bad life or lots of suffering?" Once the person is here we are of course obligated to treat them with compassion. BTW, I'm not saying this is my view on DS -- I have met many people with DS who seem to have rich or rewarding lives. But I think clearly some people think that way. Plus, I think parents who have a child with DS are headed down a road of having someone that needs a lot of care for the rest of their lives. I can't blame someone for not wanting to take that on.

> "is it ethical to bring into the world ... "

That's the complicated part - when does "bring into the world" begin? For the parents (at least that is how we felt), this moment is often much, much closer to conception than to birth.

at least that is how we felt Key Words. You plainly understand other people feel differently.

Indeed. I have read somewhere that until the 19th century, that moment was often months after birth. It was common to give the newborn away to a nurse if you could afford it until it had survived the first year, and only then accept it as part of the family. This way, the parents could safe themselves a bit from the excruciating pain of child loss.

Edit: This is e.g. mentioned in the German Wikipedia on Pox (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocken#16._bis_19._Jahrhundert), there is also a citation for it. I have read it several times during the last years, but don't have a better source, sorry.

Could you please provide a citation for this claim? It's fascinating if true, but I wonder which societies did this and what documentation there is for this practice. My understanding was that prior to the 20th century child mortality -- and mothers dying in childbirth -- were both common enough as to be practically mundane, or at least, as mundane as any death ever is.

Prior to 20th century? For my grandparents' generation it was common that about a third of their siblings died during their chilhood, mostly before one year old.

And I'm not so old ;)

People with Down Syndrome consistently report higher levels of satisfaction with life than the average person. It's just that we look down upon them and it makes us sad. We only care of things from our own point of view. Try to consider their perspective.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/0...

As I've said, the people I've met with Down Syndrome seemed to be genuinely happy (and just all-around delightful) people, to the best that I could determine. I've also read that parents and other family members of people with Down Syndrome also report high levels of satisfaction with life. I know what side of the line DS would fall on for me, but I can't make that decision for other people.

That’s interesting- but do think of the challenge it places on parents. Bringing up a child with Down’s syndrome is extremely tough, and they never really become independent adults.

That's my main concern about a child with a disability.

I don't mind taking care of them for the rest of my life, but who takes care of them after I'm gone?

People with down syndrome end up homeless all the time.

>the fact that babies are almost universally aborted

fetuses are being aborted, and I'm not just nitpicking here. Down Syndrome screening is done in the first trimester.

What kind of fetuses? Dogs have fetuses. Cows have fetuses.

Complicated moral territory indeed.

This is a consistent moral position to take. Treat them well if they are alive and don't bring new ones into the world. That's harm reduction.

> That's harm reduction.

More technically, that's eugenics.

After having flirted with that practice in the last century, I thought we'd decided that it was a bad idea. But I guess ideas are hard to kill.

> More technically, that's eugenics.

No it's called 'choice'. Women pregnant with babies potentially affected by that malformation are not forced by doctors or the government to abort. Big difference.

Eugenics has always been a 'choice'. The only difference is who is making the choice. As long as it's not the choice of the individual being euthanized; it's still a rebranded form of eugenics.

>choice of the individual

during the first trimester there is no individual - the fetus brain isn't even at the fish level. There is no electrical activity in the fetus brain at all until the week 6.

In response to the comment below - genetically an egg and sperm combined in the lab is different from either donor, yet it doesn't make it into individual. Or if you just take 2 (or 3, ...) DNA and recombine on computer, and actually synthesize that DNA - genetically distinct, yet definitely not an individual.

Genetically there is. There is something that is genetically human, and is a different individual from either parent.

This is not incorrect, but if countries had proper safety nets for parents with disabled children, maybe they wouldn't be aborted that often.

More technically, that's euthanasia and it's optional, not government mandated, and no one is sterilized after. Eugenics would be sterilizing any parents that have any possibility of producing unhealthy babies.

Abortion is not optional to the baby.

I was a late-life child. High risk for Down's. My mother didn't get the test, which could've introduced more problems. She believed I was already alive, because I was, and I was therefore sacred to her, and the outcome of the test would be irrelevant to her choice. Notice in all of this, I didn't have a choice.

I'm glad she didn't abort me. If I don't want to be alive now, now it's my decision.

I guess you can keep arguing that killing unborn children diagnosed with Down's isn't eugenics but my perspective is pretty heavily informed by the fact that I'm alive thanks to my mother being bothered by the idea that she might kill me in utero if I had a developmental disorder.

I'd like to see you explain the position that a baby diagnosed with Down's should be aborted to someone with Down's, frankly.

I'm not sure anyone here is saying that anyone should be aborted, but rather that people should have the choice to abort if that's what they decide.

After having two kids and watching those ultrasounds, I’m a lot less sure of this than I was when I was 18.

Abortion is a horrible thing I wish didn’t exist. Given that it does exist, it’s a horrible choice I wish upon no one. Given that choice is ever made, it’s a horrible thought to consider punishing a woman for making it.

All of that said, as a society we have a responsibility to do better than almost a million abortions a year (~20% of all pregnancies) in the US.

I think a better male contraceptive choice would go a long way to reducing that number. As usual, I believe in a technological solution to societal ills.

We know how to drastically reduce abortions. Provide free long term contraceptives to women. We've seen it work in places like Denver who cut their teen pregnancy and abortion rates in half while saving $6 in medical bills for every $1 spent on IUDs. We cannot get programs like this more broadly because half our country thinks outlawing abortion and teaching "personal responsibility" is the solution despite evidence that neither actually work.

I think roughly half the country believes that abortion should be illegal not on policy grounds but on ethical grounds.

I do think contraception is obviously a powerful tool to reducing elective abortion, as a matter of policy.

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