“Plans To Make Denmark A Down Syndrome-Free Perfect Society.”

[CatherineM]

When they start making catholics wear triangles, I think we should wear baby blue.

[faithcecelia]

This is so sad. Years ago, family friends finally fell pregnant after about 12yrs of trying. When they had the scan, they were told their child was severely disabled (I cant remember what) and advised to abort. When they refused, the doctor actually told them they were selfish to even consider bringing that child in the world just to suffer! When the baby was born, it was perfectly healthy.

Friends of mine now do have a disabled child, in their case its Turners, and from the first scan to now (baby is 2 and a half) and into the future, there is challenge after challenge, upset after upset, yet joy after joy.

[Archaeology cat]

A few years back I was waiting at the bus stop and chatting with an elderly woman. She told me her granddaughter was pregnant with her first, so I congratulated her. She then said the child had Downs and so her granddaughter was going to abort after she went in for the final consult and all that. I must've had a horrified look on my face, because she then said "what else could she do?" or something along those lines. I'm not sure if I said it aloud, but my thought was "what could she do?! She can keep the child!" I still wonder what happened.

[Clare~Therese]

[i]Plans to make [s]Denmark[/s] [s]Germany[/s] [s]Europe[/s] the world a Down syndrome-free perfect society[/i]?

That sounds like something Hitler would say.

[OnlySunshine]

This reminds me of what I read about eugenics and Planned Parenthood. I think I'm going to be sick.

[i]For the sake of His sorrowful passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.[/i]

[penguin31]

[quote name='cappie' timestamp='1314071335' post='2293619']
One bioethicist describes it as a “fantastic achievement.”
[/quote]

Clearly they're not very good at their job, then. You literally can't spell the JOB TITLE without the word ethics, something this person apparently has in short supply.

[BG45]

I know it's been invoked in passing already, but how Hitlerian...or how Sangerian I guess. Margaret Sanger was big on Eugenics too, part of why she founded Planned Parenthood.

[homeschoolmom]

I worry that if a woman chooses not to abort a child that is deemed "imperfect" her health care coverage will be dropped, since giving birth to a child with a birth defect was "preventable."

[CatherineM]

[quote name='homeschoolmom' timestamp='1314154425' post='2294044']
I worry that if a woman chooses not to abort a child that is deemed "imperfect" her health care coverage will be dropped, since giving birth to a child with a birth defect was "preventable."
[/quote]
That's a valid question since Down's Syndrome kids often need some abdominal or heart surgeries. That and special care or schools can be expensive. I know that doctors have gotten sued when someone has a child after a vasectomy or tubal for the costs of raising an unwanted child.

[BG45]

[quote name='CatherineM' timestamp='1314157274' post='2294108']
That's a valid question since Down's Syndrome kids often need some abdominal or heart surgeries. That and special care or schools can be expensive. I know that doctors have gotten sued when someone has a child after a vasectomy or tubal for the costs of raising an unwanted child.
[/quote]

...that's awful. Even from a secularized standpoint, I thought that with vasectomies at least there was always a chance of the body engaging in a little self repair.

[MithLuin]

Seriously, I thought people understood that all forms of birth control (including vasectomies) have a less than perfect success rate. Just because a doctor was involved doesn't mean that getting pregnant was a medical error. If you really don't want to have kids...then don't have heterosexual vaginal intercourse. (I realize that for this phorum, I can just say 'don't get married.')

When my mom refused a Downs Syndrome prenatal screening in 1990 (she was 36; 35+ is the age of increased risk), she had to sign paperwork that she had been offered the test and wouldn't sue if the baby turned out to have Downs. When she gave her reason for refusing the test to the doctor ('If you can't do anything to treat the baby now, why would it matter?'), he told her he wished more mothers were like her. My baby brother does not have any genetic abnormalities that I am aware of.

Eliminating Downs Syndrome from a society is a lot more difficult than simply aborting all the babies who have it. Sure, you might have a generation that is Downs-free. But what about the next generation? You don't get Downs because your parents had it or it runs in the family; you get it because of an error in meiosis during the formation of the egg cell. Any woman could have this chromosomal error in her sex cells; until we find a way of preventing [i]that[/i], we're certainly not going to do anything to stop Downs Syndrome from occuring.

Eugenics tends to be pretty bad stuff. It is true that if we just *let* everybody die and don't even bother trying with health care or doctors or any of that....then future generations will likely be a lot more resistant to diseases and such (albeit fewer in number, of course). Strangely enough, few people seriously suggest giving up their own access to health care or volunteer to be 'culled' in the interest of a genetically superior future.

We've chosen the option of treating problems and protecting the vulnerable, and this is part of what makes us human. When we fail to do that...we give up our claim on morality or superiority to many animals.

[Clare~Therese]

[quote name='CatherineM' timestamp='1314125024' post='2293780']
When they start making catholics wear triangles, I think we should wear baby blue.
[/quote]

No they should totally be yellow and white for the colors of the Vatican flag.

Edited to add:
I had my mom read these posts and she was shocked. She said, "I knew this kind of stuff is out there but I didn't know it was this prevalent."

Edited August 24, 2011 by Clare~Therese

[Selah]

Grr...

That's pretty much the only thing I can say without being banned...

[Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam]

Without knowing whose we are and where we are headed humanity loses track of what it truly means to love. It is crazy how love and mercy can be used to justify killing. I recently read an article about a retired NY times reporter who wrote a book about how she helped her mother, who was not terminally ill, to starve/dehydrate to death. She admits to even encouraging the decision. We have to work to repair this understanding of love and mercy, that such notions involve sacrifice on those who love and feel called to be merciful. One does not kill another like one puts-down a pet nor do we weigh their lives by trying to evaluate the worth or quantify the lived experience and capacity for experience of the person. Such understandings reduce the human person and constrain rather than free. Love and mercy accept and bear burdens for another and above all has a view of hope, not in material comfort but rather in the peace of something more. This hope and love is lacking in society and our society continues to preach that this lack is to be glorified as the reality. One here thinks of mistaking the real absence of love for the real presence of Love and adoring the former rather than the latter.

O Mary Help of Christians, Pray for us.

Edited August 25, 2011 by Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam

[Archaeology cat]

[quote name='Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam' timestamp='1314254057' post='2294651']
Without knowing whose we are and where we are headed humanity loses track of what it truly means to love. It is crazy how love and mercy can be used to justify killing. I recently read an article about a retired NY times reporter who wrote a book about how she helped her mother, who was not terminally ill, to starve/dehydrate to death. She admits to even encouraging the decision. We have to work to repair this understanding of love and mercy, that such notions involve sacrifice on those who love and feel called to be merciful. One does not kill another like one puts-down a pet nor do we weigh their lives by trying to evaluate the worth or quantify the lived experience and capacity for experience of the person. Such understandings reduce the human person and constrain rather than free. Love and mercy accept and bear burdens for another and above all has a view of hope, not in material comfort but rather in the peace of something more. This hope and love is lacking in society and our society continues to preach that this lack is to be glorified as the reality. One here thinks of mistaking the real absence of love for the real presence of Love and adoring the former rather than the latter.

O Mary Help of Christians, Pray for us.
[/quote]
Yes, it's misplaced/misunderstood mercy and/or a skewed idea of suffering. One of my grandfathers chose to starve himself to death after his stroke. He could've lived for years, but he didn't want to lose his independence. His wife kept trying to get him to eat, while my mom and her siblings told her to stop trying.