The "Disappearance" of Down Syndrome Kids

Great Debates
121

[QUOTE=Yeticus Rex]
I have clients with DS in better health than employees who are out on medical leave because of illnesses, disease, etc.
[/quote]
And you’ll note that I said average healthy human.

[QUOTE=Yeticus Rex]
Then what do you mean by “can do everything they can and more”?
[/quote]
Everything that people do, of course.

[QUOTE=Yeticus Rex]
Good luck with that ideal. Didn’t work out for some guy back in the 1st half of the 20th century.
[/quote]
Yes, because there’s no difference at all between a woman choosing to have an abortion, and men with guns killing her and shoving her corpse into an oven. :rolleyes:

[QUOTE=Yeticus Rex]
You’d also be surprised that you’re advocating eradication of 3 to 4 percent of all live births in this world. Link.
[/quote]
Try 100%, once genetic engineering becomes practical. I want modern humanity to be replaced with something better, not just a few percent. Abortion can’t do that, but genetic engineering can, potentially.

[QUOTE=Yeticus Rex]
Trying to engineering them out would also sound like you are not advocating choice for women either.
[/quote]
So you think no woman would give her child an advantage at birth ? Not from what I’ve seen.

Besides, once GE becomes practical on a large scale, natural humans won’t be able to compete; anyone who wants their child to accomplish anything of note, or for their child to not grow up hating them will opt for the engineering route, if possible.

[QUOTE=Yeticus Rex]
The thing is that we can still function with it with now, but may cut our life or functioning ability earlier than expected, such as Alzheimer’s, diabetes, etc. Those can be seen as defects as well, but not the type of defects that should be remedied by terminating pregnancies.
[/quote]
By your standards, not mine. Especially Alzheimer’s; if there was a pre-birth test for it, I’d certainally recommend aborting that fetus.

[QUOTE=Yeticus Rex]
Maybe outlawing first cousin marriages in some third world countries would be a better choice than forced engineering.
[/QUOTE]
And who except you is talking about forced engineering ?

122

[QUOTE=levdrakon]
Thanks mom, you just guaranteed my not coming out for another ten years.
[/QUOTE]
While I can understand you identifying with the fetus, I ask you make an effort to identify with the woman. She’s (usually) a fully functioning adult, too.

123

[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers]
While I can understand you identifying with the fetus, I ask you make an effort to identify with the woman. She’s (usually) a fully functioning adult, too.
[/QUOTE]
I think I am identifying with the woman.

Am I pregnant or not? Woman’s right.

Do I want to be pregnant? Woman’s right.

Is this potential human being I’m gestating going to be healthy? Woman’s right.

Is it going to be gay? A lawyer? 5’ 11" and blond? Sorry, should have taken care of that back in the petri dish. None of your business. Wait and find out.

124

[QUOTE=levdrakon]
Is this potential human being I’m gestating going to be healthy? Woman’s right.

Is it going to be gay? A lawyer? 5’ 11" and blond? Sorry, should have taken care of that back in the petri dish. None of your business. Wait and find out.
[/QUOTE]

So you’re saying you wouldn’t mind testing sperm and eggs in a petri dish to see whether they’ll produce gay fetuses, and only combining the ones that’ll produce straight fetuses?

How is that any different in effect from simply aborting the gay fetuses (at an early, shapeless-blob-of-cells stage)?

125

[QUOTE=Mr2001]
So you’re saying you wouldn’t mind testing sperm and eggs in a petri dish to see whether they’ll produce gay fetuses, and only combining the ones that’ll produce straight fetuses?
[/quote]
Yes, that’s what I’m saying. I’m not anti designer baby making if that’s what people want to do. I’m more comfortable doing this in a petri dish than a uterus.

I guess it’s like I said. I’m more comfortable with it in a petri dish than a uterus.

Essentially, I want women to have a say over whether they’re pregnant or not or whether they’re going to deliver a healthy baby. But as tests get increasingly specific we’re no longer talking about baby yes-no or healthy yes-no. We’re talking about something with is intended to become an adult and at some point we need to consider the rights of that potential adult.

126

[QUOTE=levdrakon]
None of your business. Wait and find out.
[/QUOTE]

If a gene marker indicating an elevated chance for schizophrenia was found and could be tested for, is that similarly none of the mother’s business?

For that matter, isn’t it her business and none of your business (or the state’s) to make the decision to abort and gather as much information as she wants to help make that decision?

In fact your “effort” to identify with the woman is identical to someone who says “gays already have the right to marry - they can marry anyone of the opposite sex they like.”

127

[QUOTE=levdrakon]
Essentially, I want women to have a say over whether they’re pregnant or not or whether they’re going to deliver a healthy baby. But as tests get increasingly specific we’re no longer talking about baby yes-no or healthy yes-no. We’re talking about something with is intended to become an adult and at some point we need to consider the rights of that potential adult.
[/QUOTE]

Potential people don’t have rights. Only actual people do. Furthermore, a sperm and egg which could be combined are as much a “potential adult” as a shapeless lump of cells which could be allowed to grow into a baby; neither of them will become an actual adult without the consent and cooperation of at least one other person.

128

[QUOTE=Mr2001]
Potential people don’t have rights. Only actual people do.
[/QUOTE]
Actual people don’t just have rights. They have responsibilities and they have to obey the laws society tells them to.

Regarding fetuses as potential people and whether they have rights or not as potential people I really don’t know. But I do know we can regulate what you can do with them. Like my link above about the green-glowing pigs. Can I do that to my potential person just because it’s a fetus and doesn’t have rights? Nope, I’m pretty sure not.

I’m not a lawyer and I really don’t know what the legal reason would be but as far as I’m concerned the reason is I’m playing with something which is intended to become an adult and there are limits to how much I can mess around with something (someone) who is eventually going to become an adult human.

If it’s not ever intended to be a human, do what you want with it. If it is intended to be a human, then we get to give it rights or at least regulate what you get to do with it.

129

[QUOTE=levdrakon]
If it’s not ever intended to be a human, do what you want with it. If it is intended to be a human, then we get to give it rights or at least regulate what you get to do with it.
[/QUOTE]

Sure, we won’t alter them. A woman could, however, eliminate a dozen viable (but for some reason unsuitable) fetuses before she gets one she finds acceptable. Got a problem with that?

130

[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers]
Sure, we won’t alter them. A woman could, however, eliminate a dozen viable (but for some reason unsuitable) fetuses before she gets one she finds acceptable. Got a problem with that?
[/QUOTE]
Women should treat their uteruses like petri dishes?

Women: show of hands. Who’s in favor of this?

131

Nope. They’ve found that the kids who are severely affected tend to have BIG amounts of material missing. But, it’s hard to tell exactly how a particualr deletion will affect someone. There ARE some people with it, who have unbalanced translocations (a “combo” where there’s material both added and missing)

Agreed, and scienctists are still debating over the chicken or the egg question. Does the presense of a defect mean that it will manifest, or does it mean that it’s just the POTENIAL for something to develop?

Except for the risk of bipolar, I’m 100% fine with passing it on. It’s not like I’m at risk for Alizhiemer’s or Huntington’s or Tay Sachs or cystic fibrosis.
As a matter of fact, part of my culture (Deaf and ASL) VALUES genetic hearing loss!
Being hoh is really not a “defect or impairment” in my thinking. There has been research indicating that we dhh folks have better sight then hearing people. Might as well just call us “Seeing” people rather then hearing impaired people.

Define healthy…Except for my chronic 18q- issues, I am VERY healthy.
Matter of fact, one time after I’d had surgery I went to the ER and ran into my PCP. At first I didn’t reconize him, b/c I saw my specialists more then I saw him.

132

[QUOTE=levdrakon]
Actual people don’t just have rights. They have responsibilities and they have to obey the laws society tells them to.
[/quote]

And the capital of Nebraska is Lincoln. Back to relevant facts now…

I agree, because there’s a key difference: in one case, you’re subjecting a future person to a life as a glow-in-the-dark freak. If we presume people have the right not to be subjected to that, then your choice now will eventually result in a violation of an actual person’s rights.

In the other case, however, you’re preventing a person from existing in the first place. There will be no violation of an actual person’s rights, because that person will never be born. To argue otherwise would be to argue that a celibate man is somehow harming all the hundreds of children he could potentially father if he decided to have sex.

If it’s going to be aborted, then it isn’t intended to be a human person, now is it? What you’re advocating is not preserving the rights of something intended to become a person, but interfering with that very intent - denying a pregnant woman the information she’d use to formulate her intent.

133

[QUOTE=levdrakon]
Women should treat their uteruses like petri dishes?

Women: show of hands. Who’s in favor of this?
[/QUOTE]

You misspelled “should have the legal right to”.

134

[QUOTE=levdrakon]
Women should treat their uteruses like petri dishes?

Women: show of hands. Who’s in favor of this?
[/QUOTE]

Man, you got nothing.

135

[QUOTE=Bryan Ekers]
Man, you got nothing.
[/QUOTE]
Right. In Bryan world women get pregnant 12 times, abort 11 times and maybe keep one.

In Lev world women use a petri dish.

You got nothin’.

136

[QUOTE=levdrakon]
In Lev world
[/QUOTE]

…women have only the rights Lev is comfortable with.