I don't think a law saying so would be fine, but I personally wouldn't want to bring a Down's child into the world.

clearly he's a douche. Stephen Hawking would echo that sentiment. A brilliant man with a debilitating physical disease. No one is perfect.

Also, Richard Dawkins apologized for his comments
http://www.nydailynews.com/life-style/health/philosopher-richard-dawkins-keeping-syndrome-babies-immoral-article-1.1911789

so, moot point.

His apology has now been taken down from his page.

Richard Dawkins is a perfect case in point for why materialism is a shitty belief system

Disclaimer: I didn't rtfa.
All the children with Downs Syndrome who I have known have brought joy to their families. That is quite beside the point, however, that each person has inherent human dignity. Mr. Dawkins' comments are offensive, and I believe they probably qualify him for the title "douchenozzle."

There are two ways to approach this question, and I think the answer depends upon which you take.

Personally, my cousin has Downs Syndrome and, as MKECharlie said, he brings a lot of smiles to everyone and generally lives a happy, fulfilling life.

From the other point of view, however, he can only do so because he is being financially cared for by my aunt and uncle. He will never be able to provide for himself nor contribute meaningfully to society.

So, I have a feeling that Dawkins is taking the second point of view, while the rest of us take the first. Speaking as an economist, yes, I agree with Dawson. Speaking as a person, no, there are many things wrong with that idea. Personally, though, I would rather not have the burden of taking care of a child with a mental handicap. However, I applaud those who are strong enough to do so.

Ehh I disagree that contributions to society are impossible if someone cannot support themselves financially. Contributing to society can be as simple as inspiring someone to cure a disease, to inspire someone to raise money for something, the slightest thing or action can be a defining moment of realization for people. Which is inherently a contribution to society, whether intentional or not, it is. But to claim it's meaningless is simply invalid, since those inspirations or shifts in thought can have economic realizations as well, even if they are hard to discern.

A person is valuable because they are a person, not because they contribute something to society.

If people had no inherent worth, contributing to society wouldn't be valuable either, because society is just people.

(Of course, as a separate matter, JMO is quite right that a person with Down's syndrome can, in fact, and very often do contribute something to society, such as making those around them feel more joyful.)

I agree that a person with down syndrome can live a fulfilling and positive life. At the same time, I agree with what this man is saying. If a family wants to raise a child and can reasonably only support one (as an example) and it is diagnosed with down syndrome I think they morally should abort. They will have a child, their child and they will all likely have a much more fulfilling life. It's not purely selfish, since it is better for the child as well.

"It's not purely selfish, since it is better for the child as well."

How is it better for the child? The child will be dead. Since (as you say) he might have lived a positive and meaning life, you speak nonsense.

It works only because you are equivocating with the phrase "the child."

No the child they actually end up having, who otherwise wouldn't have existed.

I don't want to debate abortion in general with you, but if you agree that aborting a fetus is not killing a person than this is really the best moral choice. Despite that a person with down syndrome can live a meaningful life, doesn't make it morally acceptable to force a human to live a life with a burden rather than bring one who might be free into the world.

OK. Well, that is true absolutely irrespective of the first child having Down's syndrome. And in fact, it's not even clear that the non-Down's child will be happier than the Down's child.

Your argument would just as well imply that all children should be aborted, because then room can be made for other children, who will be better off in the sense that they will exist (except that they should be aborted too.....)

This is why I said you were equivocating.

All humans live life with a burden. Many burdens.

I mean, its a very touchy issue. Lando has a point. If there's only one child, what will happen to him once the parents die? (S)he will inevitably be passed on to the state (and taxpayers) for care. But moreover, who will care for the parents in their old age? I have no idea how my grandmother would be faring right now if she didn't have her children to take care of her. Its just....a hardship, and as I said I applaud those who face the challenge but I don't think I could.

And jmo, I was speaking strictly from an economic standpoint. If you're not contributing to GDP or increasing the capital of a society, you're not a productive member of society. Its not the best lens to approach this from (especially morally), but it is a viewpoint that does demand some attention.

Before we add new information to the hypotheticals...

What really shocks me is that when he says it is immoral to bring a Down's child into the world, the only thing Dawkins knows about the (hypothetical) child is that it has Down's syndrome. So I guess it is always immoral in his opinion. Can anyone who actually understands where he is coming from clarify his line of thinking? I don't know enough about Dawkins to fill in the blanks.

Strikes me as hubris and reductionism run amok.

Yeah all people have burdens but they should be given the best attempt at a clean slate when they enter the world.

Is it bad that the only thing I can think of when I look at this thread is that British spellings are the worst?

Seriously though, Dawkins is a dick, and it's something that most certainly shouldn't be imposed, but there's a decent case to be made for aborting a child with Down's. It's something the parents should decide for themselves.

My coworker's son has Down's Syndrome. Based on all the things they did together, I didn't even know until I met him. Having a disability doesn't mean life is over; it just means it's different.

As an aside, a man at my local grocery store has Down's Syndrome and yet he's the only person who can bag my groceries properly.

I haven't read the article because I'm on my phone and it's way too annoying to copy and paste a link, but volunteering with Special Olympics for many years (I want to say seven or eight) and working at various camps for kids with disabilities in the past, having a child with a disability no matter how debilitating is nothing to be ashamed of and while biologically and socially they may enter this world with an unfair disadvantage compared to those of us that don't have a visible disability, they should get their fair shot and the parents should lovingly and dedicatedly care for them as they would were their child born without a disability.

But what if one of the parents have to give up a job to care for their special needs child? Or have to shell out $50,000 a year for the rest of their lives for personal care? Most people simply can't afford to level the playing field for their child and live a meaningful life themselves.

I mean, my cousin just discovered delivery (pizza, chinese, etc) and racked up several hundred dollars in charges because he thought it was all free. Hilarious? Yes. But he's 24, and has been at some of the best special needs schools in the country for six years. It just shows that they need caretaking for pretty much their whole lives. That's financial ruin for most families.

Shouldn't be having a baby if you aren't prepped for that. The whole abortion rights thing is way beyond me, but as far as I'm concerned, it's a couple's joint decision, not mine or the government's or an employer's or whatever. My response was to counter the notion that all children born with Down's should be effectively eliminated because they are inherently failed creations somehow.

I would give a better and more lengthy reply on a computer.

In an underdeveloped country, aborting a disabled baby may be a hard decision a family needs to make. In America, though, I'd like to think we have the resources that a family doesn't have to abort a child because it would mean financial ruin.

I don't often post here these days, but think a point of view has been neglected and it is this, how do we know that the foetus has DS? I'll tell you how, mothers are offered an invasive diagnostic test (amniocentesis) to see if their child may have DS, MS or other 'abnormalities' such as sickle cell anaemia. There is a low risk that this procedure will induce a miscarriage, about a 1:100 chance. The real moral question then is should we risk harming/killing perfectly 'normal' children just to weed out these 'abnormal' children?

I am a parent of three children and my wife and I declined the test during each pregnancy.

When my wife got pregnant at the age of 40 we were faced with this question, should we abort if there are problems with the foetus and we decided we would because we were not sure how well we could cope with a child that had physical or mental difficulties; if a problem had been diagnosed I'm not sure whether we would have changed our minds or not, however we had already talked about adopting if we could not have children.
Luckily for us all went well and we have a bouncing baby 10 year old boy, then the Mrs ran out of eggs so we also adopted a little girl, she has a few problems because her mother was addicted to butane and has alcohol issues. We are trying to give her as good a life as we can and keep her in mainstream education.
When I think back now I'm not sure we would have aborted but we defend the right for the woman to have a choice, it's her body, it's her baby.

maniac, your question doesn't make sense, because you aren't risking killing normal children - they are foetuses. Likewise, dawkins point is, if interpreted kindly, not that people with downs syndrome don't have a right to life.

I think it depends on the nature of the "should" in that line--

If should = should be aborted as per a law, than absolutely not, that's flat-out eugenics and flat-out wrong.

If should = "I think you should do X, but it's your choice whether you do so or not"...I think that's a somewhat more defensible view,.

The key here, I guess, would be the question as to which is worse--non-existence, or existence in a state which Dawkins, at least, equates to suffering (I'm not touching that one one way or the other.)

I can see the argument that bringing a life into this world when you know it's a life condemned to constant and eternal "suffering" could be immoral--you're adding to the sum total of pain in the world and condemning someone else to live with your conscious decision to allow them to live in that suffering and pain.

I'll ask this--

Forget the fetus...maybe that's too close for some--

Imagine you could detect this sort of thing when the being was just a few cells.
No personality formed yet,
No distinctive features yet,
Just the raw DNA of a few cells...

If you could tell at THAT stage--

Would you be OK aborting them instead of going through with things?

You're not committing genocide against any Down Syndrome people who are already born, or who will be born in the future by the choice of others...

This is just you and those few cells. Would you really keep going, as if those few cells were the equivalent of fully-grown life, and bring a child you know will be harmed and suffer into the world? And not to put too fine a point on it--

Say the mother wants to abort...are you REALLY going to argue the rights of a fully-grown woman are superseded by those of a handful of cells?

@sd - thx I'll reword my question to " The real moral question then is should we risk harming/killing perfectly 'normal' foetuses just to weed out these 'abnormal' foetuses?

Nigel - I'm glad you have a healthy child after undergoing the amniocentesis test but a good result doesn't necessarily mean it was the correct course of action. If 1000 people took the test 10 healthy foetuses would have been miscarried to prevent maybe 1 'abnormal' baby being born.

I know your child / sibling / parents are not equivalent to a foetus, but if a test could be given for anyone of those to determine if they had 'x' disease that would make them not perfect in later years, but the test would kill 1% of them, I would suggest you wouldn't consider the test ethical.

@obi - I disagree that all people with DS suffer in the way that you describe, but let's run with that. Should all potential people who are likely to suffer be aborted? The poor suffer from poverty, women, gays and black people suffer from discrimination, everyone who has ever lived has suffered at some point, perhaps the moral position is to abort every foetus? Happiness can't not be guaranteed unfortunately, perhaps that's why your founding fathers tried to guarantee you guys the right to the pursuit of happiness instead.