ortunately we did the tests merely to inform ourselves of what special preparation we might need to make. Abortion for eugenic purposes is not legal here in Ireland as it is in the US.
Eugenics? Really? It's not like these people are aborting fetuses because they don't have blue eyes, or aren't going to be tall enough to play in the NBA. This is a serious health condition.
Eugenics (\yü-je-niks\) is the bio-social movement which advocates practices to improve the genetic composition of a population, usually a human population.
Eugenics needn't be about the NBA or eye color. Down syndrome tests and abortions have cleansed future generations of a particular kind of people. People who are typically gentle, loving and incapable of lying.
A child with Down Syndrome will not only be a terrible burden on their parents, it's also a child that will never have the opportunity to lead a normal life. I absolutely love my parents, and was lucky to have a great childhood under their love and care. Still, the happiest days of my life involved leaving them...
The happiest days of your life. Surely you don't believe you have the only valid kind of happiness?
Why bring someone into the world that will never be able to experience life to the fullest?
Frankly, in my position, a 1 in 40 chance would be more than enough to justify an abortion, if that was all the information that could be gotten...
What about the 1 chance in 80 of giving birth to a child with autistic spectrum disorder or 1 chance in 25 of giving birth to a child with bipolar disorder? Both of these conditions can be a more severe disability than DS But as there is no accurate per-natal test for these, wouldn't sterilization be the sensible thing be to do... for everyone?
we may all owe a debt of gratitude to people with Down Syndrome. Studying the characteristics of this syndrome may help us understand Alzheimers and studying the fact that cancer is much rarer in people Down Syndrome may help us understand and cure this terrible disease.
And we owe the holocaust for a great many medical advances, thanks to the unethical experiments done on the Jewish prisoners. It doesn't justify the suffering. Similarly, I don't think the gains you are speaking of justifies the burden on the parents or the child that has to live with Down Syndrome.
Have you ever met anyone with Down Syndrome or Mosaic Down Syndrome? Are you really saying that allowing them to live is comparable to experimenting on Jews in concentration camps? This is the sad thing about the fact that Americans have virtually cleansed future generations of a kind of person who someone decided is undesirable. Too few of these people and their loved ones are here to correct your generation's terribly negative assumptions about the value of their human lives. Yes, Down syndrome is a burden but any parent who isn't prepared to care for a child for at least 1/3rd of their lives should not have children of any sort. There are a number of disorders which are much more of a burden. In my neighborhood there are several people with Down syndrome, two of my friends were born blind as were other, another was born with MD and countless other friends have a disposition to bipolar disorders. These good people are able to think, create, love and enjoy their lives which in many cases are more independent and just as as the lives of others.
A virus-delivered multicell cure for single-gene disorders is a real possiblity given experiments with colorblindness. We should celebrate this, but I shudder to think of a world where a 1 chance in 40 of a disorder causes us to ignore the humanity of the person with the disorder.
The take no prisoners battle between the anti-life and anti-choice people have left us in a state of anti-science, anti-compassion and anti-love.
And there it is. "Anti-life"? You've started this post under the pretense of talking statistics, but I don't think this is about statistics at all. 1 in 40 isn't enough in your eyes to justify an abortion, but is there any number that would be sufficient? If you knew with 100% certainty that a child would have Down Syndrome, I suspect you would still think it's wrong to perform an abortion. So who exactly is being anti-science? And do you not lack compassion for the parents with your position?
I'm glad I used the political wordplay "newspeak" mirror image of anti-choice because it obviously made you think.
Would 100% certainty that an unborn child would have Down Syndrome be enough to justify an abortion? That is a decision I'm thankful I haven't had to make. My answer is no and while I respect another's ability to make this decision, you won't stop me from trying to make it an informed decision.