The point you are missing is that people with disabilities are people. They deserve to live same as you, despite the challenges. Have some empathy.
Aside: I'd love to be a fly on the wall as you try to discuss your stance with a person with one more chromosome than you
Choosing not to have a child because of you are unable to safely raise it, is one thing. (can't afford to raise a child; mother is too young; rape victims)
Choosing not to have a child because it's genetic code doesn't fit your notion of good. Is another. (Downs; autism; gender; eye color)
(Tangentially, this is a question that supporters of unconditional access to abortion do not have a good answer for. If abortion is 100% legal, without exception, does that mean it’s OK to use it for female infanticide?)
Every single 'controversial' topic comes with an unspoken invisible "at current rate" percent sign/sliding scale, for any side of any debate about society.
(political/ social/ demographic/ financial/ health )
I believe lots of obnoxious contrarian things very strongly and yet I'm honest with myself that at some fuzzy unknown hypothetical percentage, my opinion would have to flip because the entire structure of society would transform, warp, and eventually collapse.
People should stop with trolley problems and start asking about the invisible number next to every prescriptive societal claim they hold.
Most people are not that honest with themselves EVEN for the categories they themselves are in.
So, downs syndrome:
Somewhere between 0% percent, iceland, all the way to 100% of all new children born are born with downs and kept... (lets say some virus or enemy action or monsanto in the water etc) ,
move the slider along one percent at a time in your mind...
What percent leading to implosion of entire US society/alternate 'children of men' disaster that upends everything demographically, every institution and economic reality that holds the country together?
All women are doomed to give up every dream they had, be it of working or of a healthy family, they are now nanny-slaves to special needs children, who will reshape family dynamics.
Half the healthy men have to break their back to keep current society infrastructure, military crawling along while the other half must rebuild all society around the new demographic burden.
Every healthy non-downs sibling becomes neglected and bitter as the special ones suck up all oxygen and finances.
All the aging adult population must now compete for healthcare with the new generation of special needs. Maybe some take one for the team, suicides to pass along resources.
The life of every useful american adult needs to now be rerouted to a future of corralling these "good hearted" but unstable giant toddlers in adult bodies, with adult strengths and "impulses" and food and resource needs.
Ethnic resentments ramp up as some group values shift at different rates, being resource drains or having an edge on others.
At what percent (10%???) would foreign powers smell blood in the water and begin planning invasion to get first dibs at the doomed superpower?
(the effect of the small covid numbers (0.1%??? ) was sobering and has reshaped everything I think about how people and societies work, and I'm grateful for that lesson)
So, yeah, what's the highest percentage of total new births of these happy loveable people that you personally would still hold your current opinion about?
That extra chromosome doesn't just go *poof* during meiosis. For the translocation type of the syndrome, it can and does happen occasionally.
What? The rate of it occurring is about the number of people alive with the syndrome, not those conceived. They abort all of them, so there are less of them. It's not about inheritance.
Assuming tests were possible (which they might be), what would you think about an intensive government campaign to eliminate homosexual and trans people from the population?
But whatever you like to call it, I'm asking about the same kind of elimination campaign directed at other disadvantaged groups.
The difference is a personal choice versus a government campaign to influence peoples' choices with the goal of eliminate those classes of people the state has deemed "undesirable".
> Would people say it's bad if the rate of Down Syndrome decreased because mothers were younger?
Probably, if the change was due to the government trying to convince people older than 25 not to have children.
My opinion on the merits of an individual making personal choices about reproduction and medical treatment for themselves and their offspring was not offered.
And being gay doesn't cause brutal, head to toe, lifelong (albeit a short life) material suffering in the individuals, like most cases of Down Syndrome do. It's not just cognitive issues, if you're unaware.
That's fair, I was trying to frame it from the point of view of people who might disagree with it to answer OP's question. Might have come across a little strong, so we could call it a state sponsored eugenics programme, then. The systematic reduction or elimination from society a class of people deemed undesirable by the state through the funding of genetic tests and abortion services.
> And being gay doesn't cause brutal, head to toe, lifelong (albeit a short life) material suffering in the individuals, like most cases of Down Syndrome do. It's not just cognitive issues, if you're unaware.
I have known a number of people with downs syndrome who are very happy a lot of time time, and wonderful fun people too. And on the other hand, let's say trans people for example can suffer excruciating depression as well as physical suffering too. So my concern is valid.
If people with downs cross some certain threshold dreamed up by state bureaucrats that others do not, that does not give me much comfort. Where exactly are these arbitrary lines drawn, who decides them, how might they change? Pretty concerning if you ask me, and I'm not anti-abortion nor even anti-abortion for this reason.
Giving people information and freedom is one thing. Having the state encourage the abortion of classes of people it considers "undesirable" is quite another, IMO.
Second of all, there just isn't, and can't be, a right to be born. The hypothetical person who would turn out of if a fertilized egg is carried to term has no innate rights until they actually do get born (or, well, somewhere near - not trying to justify late term abortions or anything). At least, this is the case if you believe a right to voluntary abortion should exist at all.
Theoretically, I don't see anything unethical about aborting a fetus with some hypothetical gay gene, nor do I see anything unethical about aborting a fetus with a gene for black hair instead of blond.
In practice though, assuming the screening is not happening very early in the pregnancy, it would seem strange for expecting parents to throw away their excitement after a month of pregnancy because of such shallow reasons. I don't think the same strangeness applies though for more life-impacting conditions, like Down syndrome (or like severe non-verbal autism, if it could be screened for).
The fact that the born child would be a precious life that no one would have the right to attack or judge for their illnesses in no way reflects back in time to before they were a child.
This is all pretty subjective and arbitrary. Are you saying it's just a matter of degree, and if it happens to be the case for one set of "experts" or bureaucrats then fine. What happens when the next set decide a different group of undesirables is over the line?
What I'm saying has nothing to do with a right to be born, or an individual's right to personally make choices about their own reproductive and medical issues. It is purely about a state eugenics campaign to systematically eliminate undesirable classes of people from society.
We can probably all agree that screening for certain high-fatality conditions and terminating the pregnancy if they are found is generally better - say, Tay-Sachs disease. We can also agree that screening for other genetic traits and terminating the pregnancy if they are found is unnecessary at best and harmful to society at worst - say, aborting all female genotype fetuses.
Between such extremes lies the realm of the subjective and the messy, where some will agree and some won't. A democratic state may morally/ethically encourage or discourage opinions on these matters, ideally based on the best outcomes for all its citizens.
I didn't say I believe it or not. This isn't going to be some gotcha about my beliefs, I was explaining to the OP why this kind of thing is controversial.
> what is wrong with a state eugenics program, as long as it is not coercive or manipulative (that is, as long as it is done with the free consent of the parents)?
Well coercive or manipulative are not black-and-white, and there is concern that the line is over stepped. But leaving that aside, I go back to my first post.
Would you have any concerns with a government eugenics program to eliminate trans people from society using genetic screening and abortion counseling informing expectant parents about the horrible disadvantage, discrimination, and horrific physical and mental suffering that they go through at extremely high rates, and assuring them that abortions are a good treatment?
You skipped the question really. It's not where exactly you draw the line with disadvantage and difficulty, and it's not about an individual making their own personal choices. I'm asking about a government eugenics program with such a goal.
Well I don't want this to be a gotcha about your beliefs either, so I don't really need you to answer, the question is more to get people thinking about why the whole issue is not as simple as it seems.
On to the topic itself - I think it depends a lot on the specifics of such a program, and other social context. If it's used in a coercive or manipulative way, and it is also seen as an excuse not to improve things for trans people who are already living, obviously it would be controversial. If it's more informative and optional, and it comes paired with clear proof that the government isn't simply trying to kill the undesirables (such as Healthcare coverage for trans people, protection from discrimination etc), then I believe few would be against it.
Now, could it still be controversial? Sure, apparently casting a black person to play an elf is controversial.
If you are not willing to kill babies and adults with Down Syndrome then your argument is incoherent.
Saying it's controversial allows lines, like killing adults with Downs would also hurt a lot of people around them who love them.
Abortion of course is controversial, the are thousands of different rules and time limits in different jurisdictions because it's so hard to understand. One assumes this is excluded from your argument since it's so obviously controversial.
Also this is not 'Iceland' this is the world where people are rich enough to care for the health of their babies. In these place most people chose to abort.
You also have other Sophies choice questions since the first test has a very high false positive you have to test properly with a 1 in 200 chance of miscarrying a fetus that is healthy.
To explain why I think you're being downvoted:
Imagine someone saying "I think all children should be born with at least two loving parents.". Would you say this implies they want to kill every bastard?