@Obi - poverty, discrimination and the like can be avoided, all suffering can not. Also DS could be cured in future or managed so that no suffering (of the condition) occurs.

Whilst it is right to differentiate between children and foetuses, it is worth mentioning that in 2010 of the 482 foetuses aborted in the UK for being Downs, 10 were aborted after 24 weeks. Interestingly 7 foetuses were aborted because they had a Cleft lip and palate - how grateful must we be that their parents took the moral choice to terminate rather than subject their offspring to a treatable condition.

I think that we should get back to Dawkin’s actual words: ''Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice.''

How might that strike the disabled and their families living in our communities today?

He is the former Simonyi Professor for the public understanding of science at Oxford University, not som hackneyed old hack at www.eugenicsareus.com. He is also on record on speaking insensitively on date rape and the propositioning of women in lifts. The common factor here is that he amorrally sees the world exclusively through uber-reductionist Darwinist eyes. He did, after all, most unscientifically entitle one of his books The Selfish Gene. His agenda is now plain for all to see.

"He did, after all, most unscientifically entitle one of his books The Selfish Gene."

And "A Brief History of Time" is the picture of scientific titling?

Who cares if he decided to put a little flare into a book title so it'd actually sell? As long as the content of the book's sound, are you really going to get on his case for being slightly colorful, when Hawking, Sagan and others have done just the same?

"How might that strike the disabled and their families living in our communities today?"

It's not a quote AIMED at those families, though, but at FUTURE people who might have to suffer from an illness...

If an illness can be prevented, it should be prevented, yes?

Suppose we discovered tomorrow a way to eliminate Down Syndrome from all future children for good--would that affect those suffering from it today?

No, it'd just prevent OTHERS from suffering from it.

Dawkins isn't trying to say those who now have the condition should be sent off to a camp or anything, he's saying that to perpetuate the condition is, in his view, immoral...

Unless you wish to argue that there's some moral imperative that says we MUST continue to have Down Syndrome in the future, and that eliminating this problem in the future--again, NOT eliminating those who already have the condition--then I think you're overreacting, frankly.

His comment in no way applies to those families struggling with Down Syndrome today at present, as neither they nor the present are not what he's addressing here.

"Whilst it is right to differentiate between children and foetuses, it is worth mentioning that in 2010 of the 482 foetuses aborted in the UK for being Downs, 10 were aborted after 24 weeks. Interestingly 7 foetuses were aborted because they had a Cleft lip and palate - how grateful must we be that their parents took the moral choice to terminate rather than subject their offspring to a treatable condition."

1. I have to ask, Maniac--to you, is there such a thing as a state worse than death/not being born? Because there is for me, and while I don't know if their suffering would have exceeded that threshold, I would be in favor of termination were that the case...if you're of the view that any life regardless of quality or condition > no life at all, I think we'll be at am impasse...

I was nearly a vegetable myself, and frankly, I would not wish to subsist for 70 years as a vegetable. To me, death would be preferable to that "existence," a non-life life, so I DO think there are instances where termination can be the lesser of two evils (though obviously being a vegetable's different than terminating a fetus insofar as one has been born and the other has not.)

2. I'm frankly entirely in the pro-choice camp. To me, UNLESS the child is so far ahead that it can be removed from the mother and still live, or else has already developed higher brain functions--that is, that it's VERY far along--the right to terminate is 100% the choice of the mother, in ALL circumstances.

Her body, her choice.

I'm not going to tell a woman what she can or can't do with her body because her moral decisions may or may not be morally-questionable in my view...it has to do with her body and is therefore her moral prerogative and choice, again, UNLESS the child is so far along that it for all intents and purposes IS a child now, and can exit her body and thus relieve her of both the physical/social/economic burden as well as the burden of choice.

A fully-grown human being's wants, needs and moral views trump those of a fetus at every turn...and if the woman who would have to carry the baby to term doesn't want to subject her would-be child to DS, then as the fetus has no vote nor capacity to vote, and it's her body, it's HER choice...to go otherwise is to mandate that a woman somehow doesn't have full control over her body, which is a violation of human rights in favor of not-yet-human rights so egregious it's unfathomable.

Her body, her fetus, her choice.

Obi just to pull you up a little can you, hopefully concisely, explain to me what you think Dawkins meant by these words: ''It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice.''

And, just to correct a possible misunderstanding on your part, Downs is a genetic but not an inherited condition. these words of yours might suggest otherwise:

''Dawkins isn't trying to say those who now have the condition should be sent off to a camp or anything, he's saying that to perpetuate the condition is, in his view, immoral...''

Unless you meant something else by your use of the verb ''perpetuate'', if so could you please explain?

@ obiwanobiwan: "It's not a quote AIMED at those families, though, but at FUTURE people who might have to suffer from an illness..."

Actually, if those families knew there was a risk of Down's syndrome, and had the baby anyway, Dawkins position appears to be that their decision to *not* to abort the foetus was "immoral".

So, they might well feel his comments were, in part, aimed at them.

Unless Dawkins' moral judgement *only* applies in future cases because he has the capacity to establish new moral codes each time he tweets.

@Jamiet does Dawkins have a moral position? I thought that he is on record as saying this in the Selfish Gene (funnily enough):

“We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes. This is a truth which still fills me with astonishment.”

Uber-reductionist Darwinism and just plain wrong, in my view.

On a vaguely related note, since Dawkins is just an asshat, has anyone else read Flowers for Algernon?

"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. "
My wife did not have that test because of the risks you talk of, there are alternatives.

@ fulhamish: "does Dawkins have a moral position?"

He thinks that he does, otherwise his use of the term "immoral" would be a non-sequitur.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=y6He0FWoFj0

i like to think of myself as a radical feminist, but logically speaking, he didn't say anything about date rape that was necessarily false in his tweet...

His morality, unlike apparently Jamie and Mendax's, is based on idea of reducing suffering in the world. Since the vast people who are actually pregnant with fetuses with Down Syndrome do exactly as he says, what the hell is the kerfuffle all about?

And why are leftists carrying water for the anti-choice crowd?

*vast majority

@Putin: It's not clear that people with Downs Syndrome are meaningfully suffering - certainly the few I've met seem to enjoy life far more than most non-downs people I've met. Also, precisely no-one is suggesting that parents don't have a choice here, with the exception perhaps of Richard Dawkins who clearly things that people with Downs Syndrom shouldn't be born.

So you've fallen for the religious right argument that abortion deprives fetuses of choice, have you?

You're attacking standard fare pro-choice arguments advocating abortion in cases of debilitating genetic diseases, which is what is done across the world routinely. Personally attacking Dawkins is just an alibi for an anti-abortion position.

Downs Syndrome babies have severe medical complications their first 4 years of life, and are prone to Leukemia, respiratory disease and especially heart disease. No amount of emotional manipulation changes that.

Fetuses don't have choice anyway. They're fetuses. There's no meaningful choices that they can make.

So why make the comment "with the exception perhaps of Richard Dawkins who clearly things that people with Downs Syndrom shouldn't be born"?

He was asked advice and he gave it. What the hell is your problem?

Because the parents, and more specifically the mother, have a choice. No-one decrying Dawkins's statement is taking that choice away from them. If the parents decide to abort a fetus because it has Downs Syndrome that's fine. What isn't fine is trying to emotionally bully them into doing it the way that Dawkins is doing.

Moving the goalposts. Now Dawkins is accused of 'emotionally bullying' and not depriving people of choice.

It's fucking fantastic of the pro-life crowd to suddenly be against emotional bullying about decisions regarding abortion.

How it's "emotionally bullying" to state that it would be immoral to willfully and knowingly bring fetuses to term with debilitating genetic diseases is beyond me.

This is just another case of "leftists" getting their jollies off attacking their own. It's like a fucking rite of passage for some on the left to attack Dawkins.

"It's fucking fantastic of the pro-life crowd to suddenly be against emotional bullying about decisions regarding abortion."

What?

"And why are leftists carrying water for the anti-choice crowd?"

Because the advice, though philosophically consistent, is so hubristic that it is worth rejecting on the off chance that the philosophy behind it is wrong. There is such a thing as taking things too far.

@ Putin: "He was asked advice and he gave it. What the hell is your problem?"

Because he didn't simply offer advice in that one instance - he made a claim that to act other than according to his advice would be "immoral".

I am strongly pro-choice but to suggest that it is *immoral* to allow a child with Downs to be born, if *that* is the mother's choice, is bunk.

Also what tendmote said. The main problem here isn't Dawkins being illogical, it's Dawkins being a thundering arsehole.

If calling the willful infliction of suffering on people immoral makes one a thundering arsehole, then you're all thundering arseholes.