“Ask” thread done:
Hope it’s a more open conversation and doesn’t sound confrontational or judgmental on my part.
Again, you’re comparing unlike things. You can be vulnerable to things like drug addiction, but it’s in part a consequence of your own actions. A congenital disease is not like that. Nobody’s saying “I’d rather have a child who is a drug addict than a child with Down syndrome.” Nobody would say that because it doesn’t make any sense since the causes of those two problems have nothing in common.
Saying someone else gave up easily is pretty judgmental, isn’t it?
When you’re talking about yourself, yes. But when you’re talking about being a parent, it’s the same thing - a problem with a child to be dealt with.
It has nothing to do with the cause. You don’t want either problem because they are problems.
Maybe. I should have used better words.
Here’s how I think about this. If there was a pregnancy I didn’t intend and didn’t want, that’s one thing. But when my wife got pregnant, we wanted the baby from the start. I couldn’t change my mind about that - even before she was born. Once I wanted her, I had a connection to her in the womb, and I wasn’t going to give up on my child even if it was possible for me to do so easily at the time. I’m all in on parenthood, from the beginning. That’s just how I feel about my situation.
That’s true. And some problems can be prevented and others can’t. That isn’t a moral issue or a judgment on which problems are the worst, it’s a fact based on the different natures of the problems. You can be the best parent possible in terms of living a clean life and keeping your kids away from trouble, but at some point they’ll be in charge of their own lives and they may end up on drugs or ensconced in loser-dom. It’s less likely to happen if they have great parents, but it happens anyway. Diseases like Down syndrome aren’t like that. (The fact that it’s a disease is a hint.) You can know ahead of time if it exists, and if it doesn’t, you essentially don’t have to worry about it anymore. We make decisions like that all the time.
Of course not. But you can know with almost total certainty if you are going to have a child with Down syndrome. You can’t know pre-birth if your child might end up a criminal or a drug addict. That’s why I’m saying they are not really comparable problems.
And I think your commitment is to be applauded. I can see it’s already getting a good number of responses.
Well, that’s partly true - but even what will happen with a positive diagnosis of DS isn’t entirely predictable. There’s a wide variation in what can result. It’s not a disease, actually - it’s a syndrome, which means it’s a condition that can cause many diseases or problems, or none of them.
They’re perfectly comparable, except that one you know about before birth and the rest you don’t. That’s the only difference, which is obvious. I’m the one who brought up that difference.
But the fact that it’s Down syndrome is predictable.
That and the different causes and outcomes. Which is why there’s this issue with prenatal testing for Down syndrome and not for being a loser. 
Yes. But, again, that doesn’t tell you that much.
The causes and outcomes are irrelevant though. They are all problems you can have with your kid.
It tells you whether or not the condition is present, which is a very significant fact. That’s all I am saying here.
Nobody disagrees with that. They’re entirely different kinds of problems that happen for different reasons and are handled differently.
Absolutely.
I’m just stressing that DS can result in a wide variety of problems, many or few.
I don’t think you understood me. I’m saying that doctors should be held to a higher standard than the average Joe. While Joe shouldn’t be sued if he did his job perfectly, a doctor should be able to be sued even if the problem was not their fault.
Both doctors and builders would be responsible for shoddy work.
As for the costs issue–that’s why I want healthcare reform.
Why should they be liable for something that isn’t their fault?
Well, no, that’s exactly wrong. Nobody should be liable for something that isn’t their fault.