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[Draft]

My wife and I are expecting our first daughter in a month. She was screened for genetic abnormalities very early in the pregnancy. I am confident that if we had learned at 12 weeks she would have down syndrome we would have aborted. Partly it's because I think living with Downs is very difficult. Mostly it's because I know neither I or my wife would willing choose to have a child that will depend on us for her entire life. That's an enormous strain on a family financially and emotionally.

There is no perfect solution to this problem, but I am comfortable that my solution is correct for me and my family.

 

[Morrigan Stark]

But choosing to abort based on an unwanted sex is fucking terrible. And a dangerous precedent.

I guess being a horrible human being isn't illegal.

Well, yeah. The alternative is outlawing abortion based on the reasons the woman provides, in which case she'll just lie and say "actually I just changed my mind", making it impossible to enforce.

Individual freedom at work. People are making their choices and living with the consequences. That's how it's supposed to work.

Yep.

 

[nekkid]

It would be selfish to keep a baby that you know has downs, the kid will never have a normal life. Abortion really is best for everyone involved in this situation.

Downs isn't black or white, either.

 

[Eye for an Eye]

Does in vitro fertilization prevent it?

No. But it can be detected through pre-genetic diagnosis. The problem is it costs about 6-8 grand extra on top of ivf.

Other triple chromosome issues are generally fatal and prevent further development. Most end in early miscarriages. T18, T13, and Turner's are all considered 100% fatal (excluding mosiacism).

 

[Always-honest]

I'm not sure how I personally feel about this, but my opinion should not have any bearing on the women making the decision whatsoever.

It's their choice. Not mine.

And certainly not Ted Fucking Cruz's.

Indeed. He's a dangerous snake. I prefer Trump over him. And THAT is saying something, since Trump is the dumbest idiot i've ever seen in politics.

 

[cDNA]

Pre natal screenings + giving families a choice is a great thing.

Wish this would spread to other countries.

This sensationalist and inaccurate article is gonna do the contrary in America.

 

[VendettaRed07]

a fetus isn't a person

It's still the same effect in a sense because mostly people with Down syndrome aren't being given a chance at life. These people have chosen to have a child it's just that the child in question didn't have desirable traits to them. I get the difficulties and how hard that can be on people but this isn't as simple as women having the right to chose as much as it is how far do people's right to select the qualities of their children go. As has been mentioned, gender selection if possible/ begins to become a thing that presents a lot of problems for society even if you don't think the act of aborting the fetuses at the time in question is murder

 

[Real Hero]

It would be selfish to keep a baby that you know has downs, the kid will never have a normal life. Abortion really is best for everyone involved in this situation.

it's selfish to have kids at all, most kids need to be aborted if we want to save this rock

 

[LegendofJoe]

I don't have a problem with terminating pregnancies when the baby would have severe health problems, but prenatal genetic screening isn't accurate enough to inform huge decisions like this. There are A LOT of false positives, so at the very least a more accurate test such as an amniocentesis needs to be performed to verify the screening results. In a country as civilized as Iceland I'm confident that is being done. In America though? Eh......

 

[spons]

You do realize that down down syndrome is more than a learning disability right? It also can seriously impact a person's physical health. Even then, many families don't have the money or time to take care of a child with a medical condition.

Autism can be a severe mental disorder. Obviously it's not entirely comparable to something physical, but in terms of cost and care I don't see the difference.

We need good, early tests for autism ASAP and always inform, educate and give choices on how to deal with it. Classical forms of autism with lower IQ (back from when the spectrum was still divided into subcategories) are really not optimal for anyone involved.

 

[bionic77]

GAF has no idea what they are talking about.

The correct way to figure out what the right thing for a woman to do with her body is for a lot of old, white, christian men to have a meeting about it and tell them what to do.

 

[Phu]

If prenatal testing shows signs of...abnormalities, I can't blame a parent for choosing to terminate at that point. Although I'm not wild about the idea of abortion, I'm also not a complete hypocrite who would tell a woman she must carry a baby to term no matter what the circumstances while offering no state mandated medical assistance, maternal leave, or daycare to make sure any child has the best opportunity to succeed in the world and to make the process easier on the mother. If you want abortion off the table, offer a solution. Otherwise you're just a lot of empty talk.

Offering a solution for childcare post-birth still shouldn't be enough to get abortion off the table. Abortion should be on the table simply because of the stress, both physically and mentally, a pregnancy can put on the mother.

 

[Eye for an Eye]

Autism can be a severe mental disorder. Obviously it's not entirely comparable to something physical, but in terms of cost and care I don't see the difference.

We need good, early tests for autism ASAP and always inform, educate and give choices on how to deal with it. Classical forms of autism with lower IQ (back from when the spectrum was still divided into subcategories) are really not optimal for anyone involved.

But they haven't discovered the genetics for it yet. Women, like myself, do terminate for Fragile X. It's the only genetically linked form of autism.

 

[meltingparappa]

With the dumb zodiac killer meme and Vic Berger clips of him being bullied by Trump, it's easy to forget that Ted Cruz is a genuine piece of irredeemable human shit.

 

[Kthulhu]

Autism can be a severe mental disorder. Obviously it's not entirely comparable to something physical, but in terms of cost and care I don't see the difference.

We need good, early tests for autism ASAP and always inform, educate and give choices on how to deal with it. Classical forms of autism with lower IQ (back from when the spectrum was still divided into subcategories) are really not optimal for anyone involved.

I know this. I have Autism.

My point was that forcing people to care for children who need lots of medical care and could potentially not make it in society is wrong. Esspecially if those parents can't adequately provide for that child.

 

[Moff]

Not all "choices" are the same, there is a difference between not wanting a child at all and not wanting a child with down syndrome or not wanting a girl. Morally, there is a big difference between those.
However, I would do the same and I know for sure my SO would, so I don't judge, but I probably would not feel it was right if I did it.

 

[Eye for an Eye]

Ted Cruz has a T18 kid still alive. It's extremely rare or it has a mosiac form. But he also has access and money to healthcare that 99% of the population doesn't have. He wants to rub it in every one's face.

 

[PdotMichael]

Why does an unwanted child have more rights than the woman carrying it? Childbirth has a very real chance of killing her, she should be allowed the choice to terminate it.

In most western countries she does have the right within the first stages of the fetus like the first 14 weeks.
The start of brain activites is the crucial point here (brain birth) which is the most logical point to talk about the beginning of a human being, especially because we define the end of brain activities as the end of life.

 

[aeolist]

It's still the same effect in a sense because mostly people with Down syndrome aren't being given a chance at life. These people have chosen to have a child it's just that the child in question didn't have desirable traits to them. I get the difficulties and how hard that can be on people but this isn't as simple as women having the right to chose as much as it is how far do people's right to select the qualities of their children go. As has been mentioned, gender selection if possible/ begins to become a thing that presents a lot of problems for society even if you don't think the act of aborting the fetuses at the time in question is murder

well then it comes down to bodily autonomy. you can't force me to give up blood or organs from my body even if it means someone else will die, similarly you can't (or shouldn't be able to) force women to keep unwanted pregnancies that depend on their bodies to survive.

 

[GamerJM]

I believe that women have the right to chose, but I'm honestly a bit horrified with people equating Down's Syndrome with a life of misery and suffering ITT.

 

[Alcotholic]

The women comes first, then the child.
We need to minimize as much suffering as possible.

 

[segasonic]

Good

 

[Madame M]

I don't have a problem with terminating pregnancies when the baby would have severe health problems, but prenatal genetic screening isn't accurate enough to inform huge decisions like this. There are A LOT of false positives, so at the very least a more accurate test such as an amniocentesis needs to be performed to verify the screening results. In a country as civilized as Iceland I'm confident that is being done. In America though? Eh......

I don't understand what you are trying to say, you don't have a problem with terminating based on the baby having health problems, but you have concerns on the off chance a healthy fetus might "accidentally" be terminated based on bad testing?

 

[Toparaman]

It's none of Ted Cruz's business.

Enough said.

 

[jph139]

It's sensible, and it's something I'd personally advocate for if I was expecting a child and the fetus was high-risk.

But "abnormal fetuses should be eliminated" is the sort of sentiment I'm... not entirely comfortable with.

 

[StoneFox]

In most western countries she does have the right within the first stages of the fetus like the first 14 weeks.
The start of brain activites is the crucial point here (brain birth) which is the most logical point to talk about the beginning of a human being, especially because we define the end of brain activities as the end of live.

I dunno, if I was at 24 weeks or something and I wanted an abortion I would find a way to get one. Fetus are a parasites in my eyes which I why I never want to be pregnant. It's my body, my choice.

 

[Aikidoka]

Where is this equivalence between genetic disorders and being born a girl coming from? Seems like some poor slippery slope reasoning.

 

[freethoughtbubble]

My main concern is that the society takes steps to ensure that people with severe disabilities are not marginalized or discriminated against any more than they already are. One could imagine that, over time, a society that voluntarily chooses to abort virtually all fetuses with down syndrome could come to view people with the disorder as less than human, or to view the parents as ignorant or evil for choosing or allowing the pregnancy to go to term.

 

[AoM]

I dunno, if I was at 24 weeks or something and I wanted an abortion I would find a way to get one. Fetus are a parasites in my eyes which I why I never want to be pregnant. It's my body, my choice.

Parasite... goddamn.

 

[ShyMel]

Ted Cruz has a T18 kid still alive. It's extremely rare or it has a mosiac form. But he also has access and money to healthcare that 99% of the population doesn't have. He wants to rub it in every one's face.

Yep, that is a big reason why women abort in situations like this. The medical costs of neurotypical children is high already and weighs heavily on women who are planning for children. Then they have to think about the specialized care required for Down Syndrome or another difference and its costs.

 

[Madame M]

My main concern is that the society takes steps to ensure that people with severe disabilities are not marginalized or discriminated against any more than they already are. One could imagine that, over time, a society that voluntarily chooses to abort virtually all fetuses with down syndrome could come to view people with the disorder as less than human, or to view the parents as ignorant or evil for choosing or allowing the pregnancy to go to term.

I don't think it would take time, those views are widely held by people in the present day.

 

[Zoe]

I dunno, if I was at 24 weeks or something and I wanted an abortion I would find a way to get one. Fetus are a parasites in my eyes which I why I never want to be pregnant. It's my body, my choice.

The people talked about in the article are going to have a very different mindset than you.

 

[LegendofJoe]

I don't understand what you are trying to say, you don't have a problem with terminating based on the baby having health problems, but you have concerns on the off chance a healthy fetus might "accidentally" be terminated based on bad testing?

The amount of false positives from these tests are significant enough that I wouldn't characterize it as an "off chance." That's why I think the results should be verified via amniocentesis before a decision is made to terminate the pregnancy.

 

[Hastati]

So could Down Syndrome be potentially eradicated from a genetic perspective?

If no Down Syndrome children are ever born, then the chances of those specific genetic abnormalities would eventually lessen to the point of disappearing?

I might be completely misinterpreting the science here.

crispr example

A number of diseases, including cancer syndromes, could be temporarily eliminated from future populations. Diseases that spawn from one or two gene knockouts could theoretically be prevented by fixing the sequence of said genes in the sperm and egg prior to fertilization. They would crop up again due to random mutation, but even now we have the means to check for this in someone's germline relatively cheaply.

I believe a lab recently had a breakthrough using CRISPR on mice in a similar away to eliminate an inherited disease.

Ethics is a separate question entirely that will likely only stall the eventual use of CRISPR and similar technologies to modify humans to exhibit desired characteristics.

 

[PdotMichael]

I dunno, if I was at 24 weeks or something and I wanted an abortion I would find a way to get one. Fetus are a parasites in my eyes which I why I never want to be pregnant. It's my body, my choice.

What's with GAF and the silly extremes? Parasite, cancer cells is also something I read here all the time.

Is that a result of abortions being a highly politicized topic in the USA?

 

[kirblar]

I don't understand what you are trying to say, you don't have a problem with terminating based on the baby having health problems, but you have concerns on the off chance a healthy fetus might "accidentally" be terminated based on bad testing?

This is actually the argument for the necessity of availability of later-term abortions for medical reasons.

For some conditions, it's only possible to get an accurate reading on the fetus late in the term. If a woman/family is forced to decide early on w/ inconclusive early testing due to laws/regulations banning it completely, you're asking them to effectively flip a coin and guess.

Andrew Sullivan's blog years back had a story from a family who were able to go through with a pregnancy because they were able to wait until later tests came in because one of those clinics that perform the procedures in the US was available if they needed it. (The preliminary ones were showing high risks of a condition where it'd be inhumane to actually bring their child to term because it'd be doomed to a short and painful life.) Had they been forced to decide earlier on, they would have aborted and tried again.

 

[DarkKyo]

Parasite... goddamn.

I mean, is she wrong?
An unwanted life form growing inside of you, feeding off of your nutrients. Yeah that sounds like a parasite to me lol

 

[Zoe]

I mean, is she wrong?
An unwanted life form growing inside of you, feeding off of your nutrients. Yeah that sounds like a parasite to me lol

The people getting the tests in the OP don't have an unwanted life form growing inside of them.

 

[Madame M]

The amount of false positives from these tests are significant enough that I wouldn't characterize it as an "off chance." That's why I think the results should be verified via amniocentesis before a decision is made to terminate the pregnancy.

But why? If the woman wants to make her decision after the initial screening, what's the problem?

 

[Rentahamster]

Ted Cruz tweeted about this and now people have been calling the Icelandic people Nazis and claiming that they are boasting of genocide.

What does GAF say?

Lyin' Ted is a misguided fellow.

 

[The Albatross]

I think if my wife and I found that she was carrying a child with down syndrome, I think we carry to term, but above all I'm glad we live in a country and region where we (and other people) have that choice.

So could Down Syndrome be potentially eradicated from a genetic perspective?

If no Down Syndrome children are ever born, then the chances of those specific genetic abnormalities would eventually lessen to the point of disappearing?

I might be completely misinterpreting the science here.

Down syndrome is not like, say, Huntington's disease (where theoretically if anybody that carried the gene for Huntington's did not have children, the disease would be eradicated, but this is more difficult than it might sound). People who have down syndrome did not inherit the condition from their parents, it's a random event that occurs during pregnancy.

Down syndrome, as we know it, probably cannot be eradicated because most cases of down syndrome (trisomy 21, mosaic down syndrom) are not inherited, "the chromosomal abnormality occurs as a random event during the formation of reproductive cells in a parent.." A type of condition that can lead to down syndrome (translocation down syndrome) can be inherited, but it's not as common and does not commonly result in down syndrome even if the condition is present.

For the most part, let's say that hypothetically Iceland made abortion illegal next year, then by 2019, the rate of Down syndrome would return to "normal," because it's not an inherited trait. It would be slightly lower as a result of the inherited translocation down syndrome being reduced over the last however many years, but that's not as common of a type of down syndrome. The article write it that "Down syndrome is disappearing." This isn't exactly true. Fetus are likely developing down syndrome at the same rate as any other country or area, but those fetuses are not being brought to term.

Anybody feel free to correct anything I'm wrong about, this is my understanding but I'm not an expert on inheritance, genetics, down syndrome, or anything else for that matter.

 

[PdotMichael]

I mean, is she wrong?
An unwanted life form growing inside of you, feeding off of your nutrients. Yeah that sounds like a parasite to me lol

fetus not even part of the same specis anymore.

If people want to use biological terms then use them correctly. Even ignoring how being a parasit is an argument for anything.

 

[DarkKyo]

The people getting the tests in the OP don't have an unwanted life form growing inside of them.

What I'm saying is to those who have an unwanted pregnancy, the fetus is a parasite. If you want to keep it and raise it then you wouldn't consider it a parasite.

 

[bender]

I'm not sure how to feel about this but I'm biased. My oldest nephew has Down Syndrome and was born at a time before screening tests were common. I can see a potential parent aborting because of the extra burden that comes with a special needs child but I also can't imagine my life without my nephew and everything the world could stand to learn from him.

It would be selfish to keep a baby that you know has downs, the kid will never have a normal life. Abortion really is best for everyone involved in this situation.

Spoken like someone with very little firsthand experience.

 

[DarkKyo]

I'm not sure how to feel about this but I'm biased. My oldest nephew has Down Syndrome and was born at a time before screening tests were common. I can a potential parent aborting because of the extra burden that comes with a special needs child but I also can't imagine my life without my nephew and everything the world could stand to learn from him.

That right there is the difference between a fetus and a person.

 

[freethoughtbubble]

I don't think it would take time, those views are widely held by people in the present day.

No doubt. I'm worried it could get even worse if the near universal opinion becomes down syndrome equals insta-abortion. That reality has to be balanced with public efforts to protect and empower people with disabilities.

 

[VendettaRed07]

Where is this equivalence between genetic disorders and being born a girl coming from? Seems like some poor slippery slope reasoning.

Its really not slippery slope reasoning at all because if it's ok to chose not to have children with certain disoders don't really know why gender choice is out of the question either

But even if you think it is how about this. What if technology progresses to where we are able to detect a gay or trans gene in people and parents have the choice of doing something about it. I'd say virtually all parents if they had the ability to chose that their children would not be gay or trans they'd do it. With the reasoning "I want to be able to have grandchildren". And then LGBT people and everything that they have brought to culture and society are at risk of being slowly phased out. There's not really much of a difference here

 

[DarkKyo]

Its really not slippery slope reasoning at all because if it's ok to chose not to have children with certain disoders don't really know why gender choice is out of the question either

You're equating a certain gender with having a disorder. Being a specific sex is not a disorder.

 

[nekkid]

I don't have a fundamental issue with the choice, although the wording in some of these posts here is very worrying - there's a huge number of people with Downs that would take exception to the notion that they'd be better off having never been born...

But I find the tone here to be a little bit like this is a statistic that's to be proud of, like Iceland has defeated Downs or something.

 

[StoneFox]

Parasite... goddamn.

What's with GAF and the silly extremes? Parasite, cancer cells is also something I read here all the time.

Is that a result of abortions being a highly politicized topic in the USA?

I'm sorry that I have an extreme viewpoint compared to some people but the idea of being pregnant and having to support it and deal with all the physical complications is probably the grossest thing I can imagine happening to me. If I wasn't allowed the choice to not have to deal with it I would be pissed.

Please note that I don't hate kids, just the biological process of pregnancy. If I ever have a partner who was willing to adopt and we could support the kid, I'm all for that.