Part 2: what if you found out their diagnosis 1 week after birth
Abortion is fine no matter what, but in particular for this case yes; Down’s syndrome isn’t the almond eyed happy somewhat simple child that Facebook memes make it out to be. They can have awful congenital heart disease, they have a much larger chance of getting leukemia, and they age seemingly twice as fast, a Down’s syndrome person in their forties is incredibly frail. They’re happy enough people and can often enjoy a good quality of life, there’s a guy who is a bartender in Buffalo at a Mexican restaurant who makes amazing drinks, for one, and there’s nothing wrong with having a child with Down’s if you want, but if you find out you are pregnant with a baby with Down’s you really should see medical genetics and have a fetal echo and maternal fetal medicine and ensure you make a decision that works for you. There are Down’s syndrome babies who never leave the hospital because of the comorbidities.
Every time you don’t want to have a kid for whatever reason is ethical to abort.
What’s not ethical is to have a child you don’t really want.
Part 1: GOD YES!!!
Part 2: And thus my long watch has begun.
Yes
This is a decision made by the pregnant person, informed by her/their doctor. I can also see her/their family having some input in informing the pregnant person’s decision, to the extent that they are not being coerced by their family.
As far as outside agents, such as ourselves, are involved, pregnancy is a medical issue. This is the only responsible way for society to handle these questions. Society is able to provide support for parents, esp those who are caretakers of children with severe disabilities, and we can improve education and access to contraceptives. But it is irresponsible and unethical to become involved in the medical decisions of others under any circumstances.
If we really care about unborn children we should care doubly about born children and the families who take on the responsibility of ensuring those disabled individuals are able to experience love and joy. Trying to collapse ethics and morals into pure individual choice is a scam.
Part 1: yes, abort
Pat 2: you’d have to be blind to not see that your child has down syndrome for a week. Not much you can do at this point outside of putting the child in the system to be abused and abandoned or murdering it so this is the point where I become stuck with a mentally challenged child.
These are always technology problems more than moral problems. The issue is our technology is too shit currently to fix the genetic disease. Same with abortion generally. If we had artificial wombs then we could even have late term abortions and birth the child to be adopted and yes there is a shortage of babies to be adopted.
and yes there is a shortage of babies to be adopted.
So adopt literally anyone besides a baby instead. The issue is that adoption is almost singularly focused on babies, while the foster system is falling apart at the seams due to being overfilled and underfunded. In the foster system, any child older than 4 is considered a “late” adoption.
The sad reality is that if a baby doesn’t already have adoptive parents waiting for them when they’re born, they likely won’t ever get adopted. Because adoptive parents are entirely focused on adopting babies. And that really says more about the adoptive parents, because it means they’re adopting for their own sake, instead of the child’s. It’s selfish to sit on an adoption list for years to get a baby, instead of simply adopting a toddler who needs a home. The sheer level of arrogance and narcissism on display is honestly astounding. Adoptive parents see a system bursting with kids who need a home, and then go “nah, make a new one just for us. We want that bun straight out of the oven.” It’s honestly disgusting.
It is, I mean unless we start forcing people to adopt kids they don’t want to adopt or something else I’m not sure that will change anytime soon. As for me in my family it’s more like accidental adoptions aka a more distant family member can’t take care of their kid whose 10 then someone else takes them in. It worked that way with family friend’s kids as well. It’s not like official legal guardianship or adoption, more so an informal familial help.
There’s very much an ethical problem here. Sure, it’s fairly clear-cut with some debilitating genetic issues. But there’s a point at which you’re veering into eugenics, and that’s sooner than people think.
Take children who are deaf due to a genetic defect. I’m sure most parents imagine being deaf a terrible lot in life that they’d like to spare their kids from.
Then listen to actual members of the deaf community. They’re proud of their identity, they have their own language, and they’re terrified of the prospect of being essentially eliminated in just a few generations by well-meaning folks that can’t imagine a happy life as a deaf person.
What if we discover a few years from now that there are genetic markers for being queer? What if we can genetically engineer people to be thinner, more muscular, have a more attractive bone structure, lighter skin? Those are all things that offer an objectively more comfortable life, which I’m sure many parents would want for their kids without much thought given to what the societal implications are.
And what if this technology becomes available to a charismatic cult leader, a narcissistic tech CEO, a fascist regime?
Such technology doesn’t just fix genetic diseases. In a hierarchical global society that measures people’s worth by their body rather than their character, it eliminates human diversity.
Yes designer babies are totally going to be a thing. The ethical discussion we had about this in college boiled down to it being ethical if and only if an individual could choose to undo and redo the changes as they desire.
I’ve run into that argument from the deaf community. It’s a tough one, should a community of people have more of a say over what health outcomes are chosen than the parents of said child?
Ultimately technology should make whatever one wills be (short of causing suffering to other minds). Anything less than this is insufficient or otherwise broken technology. Theoretically if we had sufficient technology one could take any form whatsoever they desire at any moment with any senses they desire and so on. Now it’s a quite far fetched concept short of us gaining the ability to digitize our minds or otherwise inhabit simulated realities. To achieve this in physical reality would be quite difficult.
The issue you’re really getting at is the unequal spread of technology and our current technological limitations. Minds should be maximally free to experience whatever they desire short of causing other minds suffering.
Killing your unborn baby is still killing. If the child can grow up, live a live, see parents, have friends and laugh, then it is unethical to abort.
If it’s ethical to abort just because you don’t want the kid (and it is), then it’s ethical to abort for any reason.
Also, it’s no one’s business why people choose to abort.
In my country it is legal to abort just because you don’t want the kid, but illegal to abort for a certain specific reason (the parents not wanting a girl). This is because people might abort daughters if they are poor and think that girls are less likely to get jobs.
I feel that the Down’s Syndrome case is similar. There are people with Down’s Syndrome who lead happy lives, and genetically ‘normal’ people who lead miserable lives. So of course a mother has the right to abort a foetus. But I fear that if we normalise aborting children on genetic grounds, that could lead to eugenics.
it’s no one’s business why people choose to abort.
This. The only answer to “why” is “fuck off”, and for so many reasons. It’d suck to agonize over the decision, and once it’s made to then be second-guessed by some rando.
I mean more like “is a life of suffering worth living and would a parent want that for their kid” rather than the ethics of abortion
Preventing incurable pain and suffering to a conscious being is ethical. There is dignity in both life and death.
It’s kinda besides the point. If a woman wants an abortion she should get an abortion. Downs syndrome or not, it doesn’t matter.
I don’t mean in a her body her choice kinda way, I mean is it more ethical to let them live their natural life knowing that they would possibly suffer immensely vs not letting them live a life at all
Personally I think having children as a whole is unethical 🤷♂️
So you’re asking should all prior with special needs be terminated so they don’t suffer? Should all poor people?
Kinda slippery slope there tbh…
I think that anyone who isn’t ready to be a parent should have that option not to. Special needs or not. Forced birth and zero support after is terrible.
I think it’s ethical to abort if your fetus is perfectly healthy.
I don’t know about the ethics, but forcing people to carry to term a baby with a significant developmental disability is unconscionable to me. It is very likely to ruin their marriage, finances, sanity, life, but the people that manage to do it are saints.
Can’t really say for part 1 but for part 2 it’s definitely not abortion anymore after birth so that is unethical in my opinion.
Have you guys spent much time around people with Down’s syndrome? It’s typically not a uniform “life of suffering” like what many comments seem to be assuming.
It’s fair enough to try to imagine how you would feel if you had a certain disability, but never assume you’re right about that, you might be surprised. Especially with intellectual differences, I don’t think you can really know what it would be like to be that person.
My SO brother doesn’t have downs but was severe brain damaged at at young age. His whole family doesnt hate him they just wish he was better. After grandma died he lost the last person that really loved him for who he is. Everyone dreads is presence and dealing with his backpack of medication or fits of dangerous rage due to frustration understanding things from a bloke 2x their size (literally 2 meters tall).
I spoke to him enough to know he is not happy in state care but no one can handle him when things go wrong. He is a effectively 5 year old child stuck and unable to grow and alone with only his handlers. No one should have that fate if its preventable.
Yes, in my experience, aquired brain injury is one of the hardest things for people (and their families) to adapt to, but that’s a whole different kettle of fish than Down’s syndrome.
The post talks about the ethics of pre-emptively aborting a fetus that has a high likelihood of "severe downs syndrome ", and this is something many people face irl ask the time. my point is (mainly) that people with Down’s syndrome can have a lot of joy in their lives, and bring a lot of joy to those around them, despite the fact that they will face certain struggles (as so many of us do, in our own ways). And (secondly), although it’s outside the scope of the hypothetical situation in the op, foetal tests for Down’s syndrome are notoriously unreliable.
I’m just saying don’t be afraid. Most new parents want to avoid any chance of anything ‘wrong’ with their child, but nearly everyone has something…
Source: have worked with children and adults with a variety of physical and intellectual disabilities, and in my own friends and family know (and care for) a multitude of neurodiverse people and those with chronic mental illness or addictions.
I guess I dont see the difference since in the end they both result in humans being alone and dependent on a system to take care of them.
In this case, the brother’s care was nail in coffin facturing his family, then add in the psychology pain my SO had growing up with him, and the stress my partner feels thinking about being responsible for him after parents die when he calls regularly and just talks about how unhappy he is every time, its impossible for me to accept letting anything similar occur when you could just not let it happen.
I guess my point is if its preventable, stop your fellow humans from a life of suffering because its not just 1 person suffering but the people around them.
As fucked up as it sounds, if it’s early enough that there isn’t any chance of it being considered alive, I’d let the family decide whether or not to do it on their own because not every family is capable of that type of constant care and/or affording the bill to pay someone to help.
As for a week after birth, as fucked up as it sounds, if you truly cannot afford the constant care, then probably putting them up for adoption to a family that can afford the care is better, IMO, than not being able to afford to care for said child and having potentially seeing them die from lack of care you cannot afford.
Sometimes you need to make hard decisions to keep afloat financially.
