Richard Dawkins: 'immoral' to allow Down's syndrome babies to be born

Richard Dawkins: 'immoral' to allow Down's syndrome babies to be born
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/11047072/Richard-Dawkins-immoral-to...

The Twitter Conversation:
https://twitter.com/RichardDawkins/status/502106262088466432

Questions for consideration:

1. What comprises eugenics and what does not?
2. If abortion is licit, what conditions morally require it?
3. Dawkins argued that Autism-spectrum disorders were different:

"People on that spectrum have a great deal to contribute, Maybe even an enhanced ability in some respects. DS not enhanced."

What disabilities are suitably unenhanced to morally require abortion? If, as is sometimes said of down-syndrome children, they are particularly loving, does that count?

(I wasn't following the previous discussion about Dawkins.)

I can see how taxpayers in the UK--which has a national health system--might feel that parents who didn't abort a DS fetus were welfare cheats. Certain taxpayers here in the US feel that paying for other people's children to receive medical care through Medicaid or even eat by using food stamps is unfair and immoral.

>2 IreneF:

The logic is indeed just one more turn of the screw.

Dawkins is either trolling us or he's losing the part of his brain that tells him not to say everything that occurs to him. He may be too old to listen to. Maybe he and Pat Roberts could get a room together at the old geezer's home.

I wonder if the Chinese have a policy about aborting fetuses with genetic problems.

>4 RidgewayGirl:

The thing is, these aren't illogical ideas. They're logical ideas. (Logical ideas grounded on immoral premises, perhaps, but logical nonetheless.) At least he doesn't go as far as the ethicist Peter Singer, who advocates for infanticide for such children.

Infanticide is harder these days in the developed world, but it used to be fairly common. It just wasn't called infanticide. Historically, foundling homes and orphanages were places where unwanted children were sent to die. The Bon Secours home in Galway, where the bones of infants were supposedly found, may have had a mortality rate of 50%, far higher than that of third world countries. Plus people would smother their children while sleeping together (called overlying or lying over). Malnutrition and neglect are efficient but take longer.

>6 timspalding: Ideas don't have to be nonsensical to be unworthy of voicing. And controversial ideas need careful phrasing in order to be heard. Dawkins' latest comments, taken together, show a man who can't control himself. In ordinary life, he'd be saying these things from his barcalounger and his grandkids would be rolling their eyes and ignoring him. But he has a soapbox and so he doesn't get to keep his dignity. It's nothing different from Pat Roberts running his mouth about Haitians or any number of comments by the once respectable John McCain and the once respected John Crick.

What strikes me is how uninformed his opinions are. His comparison of those with Downs syndrome and those with Autism. reveals how little he knows about those whose fate he pronounces upon.

>1 timspalding: setting aside the fact that this is a twitter-storm and probably has as much depth, context, and clarity as a Fox News broadcast, I don't understand why it is immoral to be born with -- or to allow a child to be born with -- Down's Syndrome. Does Dawkins say why? Is it because such a person "suffers"?

>10 southernbooklady:: here is Dawkin's apology/explanation:

https://richarddawkins.net/2014/08/abortion-down-syndrome-an-apology-for-letting...

He's just the latest in a long(ish) line of utilitarian jackasses. But no - his argument is neither eugenically inclined, nor of feigned empathy (to his credit). It is simply that the child will be a bother to its parents.

His supposed long answer was substantively different from his twit. I'm astonished that that is his defense. Doesn't he know you can send a series of messages? I smell a readjustment. If he were really trying to condense that more nuanced statement down to 140 characters it would have said more about making an informed choice, which he repeated at the beginning and end of his "real" answer. But he somehow only grabbed the most inflammatory part out of the middle? I call shenanigans.

>11 enevada: It's interesting in that article that Dawson equates "moral" with "sensible." I suppose that's what is meant by "utilitarian." (I note, however, that he uses the word "worry" to describe the parents, not "bother").

But his viewpoint seems to be summed up here:

if your morality is based, as mine is, on a desire to increase the sum of happiness and reduce suffering, the decision to deliberately give birth to a Down baby, when you have the choice to abort it early in the pregnancy, might actually be immoral from the point of view of the child’s own welfare. I agree that that personal opinion is contentious and needs to be argued further, possibly to be withdrawn. In any case, you would probably be condemning yourself as a mother (or yourselves as a couple) to a lifetime of caring for an adult with the needs of a child. Your child would probably have a short life expectancy but, if she did outlive you, you would have the worry of who would care for her after you are gone.

What is unquestioned, in that statement, is what things actually "increase the sum of happiness and reduce suffering." Clearly, his language shows that he could not consider dealing with a DS child as anything but a burden -- as a mother you are "condemned" to a lifetime of caring for such a child, just to cite one example.

But I don't think he's logically substantiated that a life of caring for someone else would be an unhappy one, or would increase suffering. His notion of what constitutes a state of happiness seems somewhat perfunctory.

That said, he at least seems aware that his perspective is his own:

No wonder most people choose abortion when offered the choice. Having said that, the choice would be entirely yours and I would never dream of trying to impose my views on you or anyone else.

Because ultimately it would come down to what the mother decided was best.

If the goal is to reduce the number of DS fetuses that are aborted, then really as a culture we have to stop treating Down Syndrome (or any handicap) as if it is a burden, a flaw, a problem. But that's a question of changing cultural values.

Wait a second -- he tells people who choose to carry children with DS to term, to care for them and raise them, to love with them their entire might -- he tells those people that they have done something immoral; and then he calls them "haters" for objecting?

I'm done with this man.

>13 southernbooklady: "But I don't think he's logically substantiated that a life of caring for someone else would be an unhappy one, or would increase suffering. His notion of what constitutes a state of happiness seems somewhat perfunctory."

Indeed, based on my own experience with parents of children with DS (I am good friends with a person with DS, from childhood), that child brought them an entire new realm of joy, happiness, and love than they had experienced with their other children.

As I said, I am now done with this man. His misanthropy runs so deep he can't even recognize love when it overflows before his face.

>13 southernbooklady: I think you missed this part of that quote, "... from the point of view of the child’s own welfare." He wasn't talking about the parent's burden but the child's welfare. I guess he considers not living at all as a zero and living with the handicap of Down's to be negative, but I think that other people would run the calculation differently.

>15 nathanielcampbell: I'm done with this man.

Hmmm. I'm going to remember you said that. :)

But Dawkins is also just expressing the values that we've adopted culturally: we idolize "the best" and revile anything that doesn't aspire to it. We want people to be beautiful, and smart, and fit, and thin. Everything else is "damaged" or inferior.

>16 jjwilson61: I think he was talking about both:

the decision to deliberately give birth to a Down baby, when you have the choice to abort it early in the pregnancy, might actually be immoral from the point of view of the child’s own welfare.

He draws a distinction between being killed and not being born. And you are right, he assumes that living with a handicap is a negative, --- from his moral point of view it "decreases happiness and increases suffering" but once again, I don't think you can draw that conclusion, because we don't know what causes happiness for someone else. We only know what causes it for ourselves. So we have to be careful about pronouncing that this or that event would be either a burden or a benefit in someone else's life.

>15 nathanielcampbell:: that child brought them an entire new realm of joy, happiness, and love than they had experienced with their other children.

There’s this idea out there that you can plan and micromanage every aspect of your existence, and that this is a good thing. Sounds pretty sterile and unimaginably dull to me, but there you have it. Life, prepackaged and wrapped in cellophane. Are we happy yet?

Down's syndrome, like most chromosomal defects, runs a gamut of phenotypical expression. A good friend's sister, just a little older than myself, is affected so severely (she has never been ambulant or capable of learning to communicate) she wasn't expected to survive long past birth. She is now in her fifth decade, being taken care of by dozens (or hundreds, at this point) of people, at home and during numerous hospitalisations. She had the relatively rare advantage of existing in a system of completely socialised medicine, with intensely loving parents who also had the means and the will to devote them to her to provide enough expert secondary in-home help that they could also go on with their demanding careers, and eventually even have a second child. The second pregnancy, though, was carefully monitored and tested, and it is certain that if there had been a problem, not to mention any sign of trisomy 21, it would have been aborted.

It is quite possible to love dearly someone like this woman, and at the same time not wish to be responsible for another such individual to be born. No one ought to blame the parents for deciding either way.

Tim, do you have any thoughts on parents who bring babies who will be born anencephaly to term? Is there any point where you would draw a line and say that the child's suffering outweighs other considerations?

>19 enevada: There’s this idea out there that you can plan and micromanage every aspect of your existence

Deciding to have a child, or to terminate a pregnancy, does not strike me as an attempt to "micromanage" one's existence.

>22 southernbooklady:: different folks, different strokes.

>23 enevada: Which is exactly why such a decision should be left to the person who is pregnant.

>24 southernbooklady:: It’s an idiom. Not an organizing principle. ; )

My old tee shirt: That's Not Funny! My new tee-shirt: That's Not an Organizing Principle!

>25 enevada: It’s an idiom. Not an organizing principle. ; )

Ha! Speak for yourself!

>27 southernbooklady:: Ooops, forgot to add:

fineprint>This communication is solely for informational purposes. It is not an offer, recommendation or solicitation to buy or sell any security or instrument. It is not a final confirmation of terms, or suggestion of legislative action. No representation is made that it is accurate or complete or that any particular result or return will be achieved, nor enlightenment gained. Past performance is not a guarantee or indicative of future performance and changes to assumptions may materially impact actual results. Prices and terms may change without notice and for any reason. Unless specifically indicated otherwise, any tax advice contained in this communication (including any attachments) was not intended or written to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of (a) avoiding tax-related penalties under the Internal Revenue Code, or (b) promoting, marketing, or recommending to another party any transaction or matter addressed herein./fineprint>

>24 southernbooklady: southernbooklady:: It’s an idiom. Not an organizing principle

Now that's hilarious.

I know a someone with Downs syndrome who speaks two languages fluently. I know someone with autism who has a reading vocabulary of about 500 words and a signed vocabulary of maybe five. no spoken vocabulary. Both are happy,
I look at at Dawkins who says the man with Downs syndrome should not have been born and the autistic man should and I think Why the fuck should I listen to such an ignorant jackass.

>30 SimonW11: So one could ask why your experience with the someone you know would trump Lola's experience with someone she knows.

I think the real question in this debate is why our culture doesn't want Downs Syndrome children.

>11 enevada:

I probably disagree with you about several thousand things (and of course I'm the one who's right, naturally!)...but I'm on board with your reservations about utilitarian jackasses.

>31 southernbooklady: My experience in no way trumps Lola's.But Mr Dawkins opinion was not in any way informed. I pretty much agree with everything Lola says. Informed people may well choose to abort. Especially in the Third world or America where medical or social support is unaffordable or unavailable.

I know we choose not to have a third child after talking to the geneticist. We never needed to discuss abortion, but I am sure we both contemplated it.

Why does our culture not want people with Downs syndrome because they are damned hard work.

Why do parents not want them? Because they foresee a future in which their child is always dependent on the kindness of strangers.

I know quite a few individuals with mild(er) forms of DS, but the point isn't, I think, to argue whether any such individuals can be "happy". Even the mildest of cases that I've seen have caused considerable upheavals and grief in their families--but so would any number of other conditions one could think of.

The question is what to do when you KNOW, when you have a choice of having such a child or not. Granted that every pregnancy is a lottery in dozens of ways. Nobody knows how their perfectly healthy, "normal" kid will turn out, nobody knows what's in store for it--mostly we just hope for the best and do whatever we can to protect them and raise them in health.

But if you knew your kid is going to need extraordinary care all their life? If you knew they'll likely require serial medical intervention all their life? What happens if you're poor, what happens if you die? There are dozens of things to think about, complicating the simple "are they going to be happy".

And I firmly believe theoretical general answers are impossible. Every case is individual, and private. I'd say it's nobody's business but the parents'. If it's a moral question, it is clearly one for the parents. Nobody else has any right to impose sacrifices or guilt trips on them.

>34 LolaWalser:
And I firmly believe theoretical general answers are impossible. Every case is individual, and private. I'd say it's nobody's business but the parents'. If it's a moral question, it is clearly one for the parents. Nobody else has any right to impose sacrifices or guilt trips on them.


Thank you for expressing this so clearly and concisely. No one outside a family can know what financial assets, emotional energy or social networks are available to them. We should trust people to know their own strengths and live their own lives.

>31 southernbooklady: "I think the real question in this debate is why our culture doesn't want Downs Syndrome children."

I guess I must belong to a particular and minority subculture, because most people I know would accept a child with DS if that's what they are given.

It's worth also considering the example provided by the Mormons on this score: not only do they accept children (and adults) with mental incapacities -- they celebrate such people as unique gifts from God.

>34 LolaWalser: Every case is individual, and private. I'd say it's nobody's business but the parents'. If it's a moral question, it is clearly one for the parents. Nobody else has any right to impose sacrifices or guilt trips on them.

Absolutely.

>36 nathanielcampbell: most people I know would accept a child with DS if that's what they are given.

Ah, but would they adopt one?

Just wondering what your run of the mill Ayn Rand libertarian and/or anti-tax conservatives would think of all this? as there's an extremely high chance that a person with Down's Syndrome is going to need some kind of substantial taxpayer assistance throughout their lifetime.

To me it should be up to the parents--to abort or not. There should be that option. I have a son by the way with Aspergers which is in the Autism spectrum. It's nothing like Down's Syndrome--though it can be a trip at times. He's 22 by the way and just got a physics degree this spring so he's smart enough--though OTOH he's not socially inclined at all. Sometimes I wonder about diagnosis--when the thinking, actions and behaviors and social receptiveness of those diagnosed for this or that can be all over the map.

As for Dawkins--smart people think they're smart even when they don't know what they're talking about.

Tim, do you have any thoughts on parents who bring babies who will be born anencephaly to term? Is there any point where you would draw a line and say that the child's suffering outweighs other considerations?

As often happens, I think you're doodling in opinions based on insufficient evidence.

My feelings on the topic are modest.

1. I believe human life has an inherent dignity or worth which is not trumped by utilitarian concerns.
2. I do not know when a fetus becomes a "moral person." I'm uncertain how anyone knows for certain. I recognize and respect certain religious opinions on the topic, but I don't think they can provide final knowledge.
3. I am suspicious that everyone seems to have the answer, dividing themselves neatly into opposite camps and insisting at the top of their lungs that their feelings about the person- or non-personhood of fetuses are obvious and incontrovertible facts of the moral world. It seems far more plausible to me that their feelings on the matter are ill-examined and socially-conditioned. Give me three questions about what consumer brands you favor, and I bet I could predict your feelings about abortion. That seems wrong to me.

My morality of the topic based on these points, namely:

1. I have a terror of abortion, because it may well be the killing of a moral person. In that sense I see it like arson at a school--you might not kill anyone, but should you really try? I am dismayed, as I said, that few share this view.
2. I am acutely aware that people's opinions differ, and I resist all attempts to label people as monsters for their views here. That is, even if abortion is murder, most who abort their fetuses are not monsters, because they don't think it is. And even if abortion is not murder, most who advocate that it be illegal are not motivated by a desire to subjugate women, but by a desire to protect the defenseless.

To your question directly, if I were to learn that a fetus "of mine" had Trisomy 13--an excruciating condition that is always fatal within months--I would be wracked with indecision. Downs Syndrome, however, is another matter.

>39 timspalding: Give me three questions about what consumer brands you favor, and I bet I could predict your feelings about abortion.

What's my favorite junk food? ("Smartfood" cheese powdered popcorn)

What's my favorite tech gadget? (My Nikon DSR 7300)

What's my favorite kitchen appliance? (my Kitchen Aid mixer)

How did I do?

>40 southernbooklady:

Oh not Whole Foods tripe again.

Although it might give us a reason to start yammering about eggplant again.

This is exactly the way the Nazis started in Germany--with killing children with cognitive disabilities. Once you decide that any one group of people would be better off dead, that can be extended to any other group on the planet.

Studies show that 99% of people with Down syndrome consider themselves happy. Can we say that for any other group?

My Nikon DSR 7300

The Canon/Nikon divide is almost as deep as the blue/red divide, yet not, I think, correlated.

Godwin's law.

I think where I strongly disagree with Dawkins here is the total disregard he seems to have for human life and experiences that differ from his. While raising a Down's Syndrome child is extremely demanding, it is in no way intrinsically immoral to choose to do so.

Oh, and Nikon.

>34 LolaWalser: yes exactly the best society can do is to try and ensure the decision is based on knowledge not ignorance.

I can't wait to hear what the great sage Richard Dawkins will say next. Teach us more about your splendid atheist morality! So far we've learned that rape is not so terrible, but letting Down Syndrome babies live is. Enlighten us poor benighted souls who still suffer from the 'god delusion' and such outdated concepts as the sanctity of life and that 'no means no'.

>42 ConnieRossini: Lots of people in Germany smoke. They smoke without even considering it. I've had people tell me about their health regimes and how active they are while smoking. It's because of the Nazis -- they hated smoking. So no German government or political group can come out against it. They're very happy to follow any EU regulations about smoking because that is the only way they can do anything about it. When I was visibly pregnant, standing under a shelter in the pouring rain waiting for a train, a man walked under the shelter and lit up. There was no concept that maybe that was a bad idea, because (unsurprisingly) Germans are even more sensitive to the suggestion that they are behaving like Nazis than anyone else.

So, using "the Nazis did it!" is a poor argument. And not even Dawkins is arguing for the forced deaths of people with disabilities.

And I'm with Lola on the importance of making an informed decision with one's family and people they trust. Having a child with a disability can be a great joy, but no one will dispute the financial and emotional challenges. I've known a wonderful girl with Down's Syndrome (she did a lovely job as one of the flower girls in my wedding), but despite how much her parents loved her and how relatively mild her condition was, there was an undeniable financial strain on that family, which was a combination of one parent needing to be home with her and the added costs of getting her the support she needed to thrive. Even a bicycle was a huge expense, needing to be specially made. I also have a friends with a son with severe autism. They are really struggling, now that he's larger than his mother. There is inadequate support now that he's over school age and no break for them as few can understand him and know what is needed to keep him calm.

People can rise to the occasion and do a great job as loving parents, but do we want to be a society that forces people into that situation? I'd rather we focus our energy on improving the support system for families of the disabled, allowing them a greater opportunity to flourish and be happy.

>46 madpoet: Dawkins saying idiotic things is because Dawkins is an old ass. It has nothing to do with his atheism. Unless you'd like a new thread opened every time some pastor said something racist/sexist/undeniably stupid? I think we could keep busy on the fine words of Pat Roberts and Franklin Graham alone.

Dawkins isn't just any atheist. He is the leader of the so-called 'New Atheists'. People like JGL and his ilk hold him and the late Christopher Hitchens in reverent awe (or used to). He's the closest thing they have to a Pope. Also, they claim to be morally and intellectually superior to religious believers. (Ha!) So when their 'Pope' shows his true colours-- what his 'morality' is all about-- you're darn right we'll attribute it to his atheism.

And there are plenty of threads on Pro and Con where the words of a single Christian leader were used by JGL or others to attack all Christians.

>49 madpoet: He's the closest thing they have to a Pope

That's not very close.

And I say that as an atheist of the "new Athiest" ilk.

>49 madpoet: Then you're no longer upset about what he said. You're upset that he's an outspoken atheist. What he says is now beside the point.

So, what exactly is a "new atheist"?

>51 RidgewayGirl: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Atheism

New Atheism is a social and political movement in favour of atheism and secularism promoted by a collection of modern atheist writers who have advocated the view that "religion should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized, and exposed by rational argument wherever its influence arises

Yup, he's one of those uppity Atheists.

>31 southernbooklady:
"I think the real question in this debate is why our culture doesn't want Downs Syndrome children."

I do not believe that the point is that this society doesn't want Downs Syndrome children. I think the point is, what we all value the most, having the choice and making an informed decision. In years past children with disabilities were often "locked away" from the public eye and often times abused. Further back in tribal life, the child was killed for the sake of survival, an unhealthy child slowed down the entire tribe.

Can say that for all abortions really. If one feels that the child ( whether disabled or not) they are having is a decision they've made it may very well make a big difference in the life of that child. And the family as a whole.

Kind of come full circle I guess. First children with defects were killed shortly after birth, then they were hidden away, later they became a responsibility that is fulfilled, in part, by the society in which the child lives, now with new technology we can determine whether or not a fetus with a defect will develop.

We have the means to care for the disabled child and we have the means to make sure that a disabled fetus can not develop. To me it seems like a personal choice matter which should not be judged from either side.

I think there is plenty of reason to disagree vehemently with Dawkins' actual arguments, without lying and misrepresenting his positions.

As for immorality, we are positively spoiled with examples in this forum. In my book, anyone who thinks of other people and their children as "collateral damage"--while flailing in disingenuous ethical dilemmas about the "personhood" of clumps of cells--or anyone arguing that slaughtering Palestinians is okay because that's exactly what Palestinians would be doing--IF they could--is... not someone whose opinions on morality I'd care to listen to.

In fact, I'd rather gaze at the poop of a horse. There's hope for marigolds within it.

Let me add this about our culture and Down's Syndrome. I have a friend who has two daughters, the oldest is mentally disabled, the younger girl is fine. I got to know them very well as I vacationed with them for many years. My friend's ditzy ;>) husband did a runner when the girls were little, so my friend and her girls were on their own. I was asked to come along on that first vacation to be with Angie (the disabled girl) while my friend did all kinds of risk taking stuff with her youngest , parasailing, scuba diving, horse back riding, stuff like that. I was a walker, so was Angie, we took walking tours. I got to know Angie very well. We took our vacations together for over a decade.

When Angie was born, my friend was told that Angie would most likely never learn to tie her shoes. Angie works a full time job now. BUT, my friend pushed....constantly pushed, both Angie and those programs available to kids like Angie. There is a lot out there for Angie. If we have done anything right in this country, we have taken care of the Angie's. It takes a lot of work on the parents part but there is so much more now than ever before.

However, I remember a day when my friend came into work crying and said "If you don't believe that there are days I would like to push that kid in front of the bus, you can think again" It isn't easy and not everyone has the patience and the will to follow through as well as my friend did with Angie. It is not a path all people could take.

Seems to me, at least on this matter , that we are in a better place right now, than ever before, for making a personal choice.

>55 LolaWalser:
"In fact, I'd rather gaze at the poop of a horse. There's hope for marigolds within it."

I know this was meant to be funny but there is an element in truth here. BEST marigolds (and petunias) I ever grew were when I had horses and used their poop for fertilizer. Nothing I've used has ever come close. The value in the poop of a horse is nothing to be diminished.

>31 southernbooklady: "I think the real question in this debate is why our culture doesn't want Downs Syndrome children."

Perhaps I was being a little too allusive (for the sake of civility) in >36 nathanielcampbell:. Let me put it more plainly: I suspect that the culture that doesn't want DS children is the culture that embraces "a woman's right to choose;" while the culture that welcomes DS children is the one that is most vocally "pro-life," and tends to be religious and "conservative".

In broad terms, I think it comes down to the general attitude that a cultural segment takes to sexuality, pregnancy, and children. There's one broad attitude that values the possibility of pregnancy from sexual intercourse as a gift to be cherished and nourished; there's another broad attitude that sees that possibility as a danger to be avoided.

(Yes, I know, I've vastly oversimplified things almost to the point of caricature. Yes, I know, in practice, most people exist within the myriad shades of grey that exist between and around these two polar assumptions. That complexity especially manifests itself in the particular moment, while the more general attitudes are indicative of the "theoretical beforehand," if I may put it that way. In the midst of an actual pregnancy, the black-and-whites bleed into the complicated exigencies of now. Before I was married, I would have expressed myself quite strongly on one side of that theoretical polarity I articulated; in the midst of actually living out the process of bringing a child into the world (and failed attempts at it, too), I know that it is far more complicated in reality. My wife, for example, is as a matter of government policy "pro-choice;" but she is personally very "pro-life," in the fullest sense of the term. We made the decision before getting pregnant that if the child was conceived with trisomy, we would not abort; but in that moment of making that decision, my old, black-and-white views softened -- had my wife wanted to go the other way, I would have seriously considered supporting her in that decision.

We've had this conversation before: an issue like abortion may seem simple in theory but is, in reality, exceedingly complicated. It's why I don't now (though I used to, before I was married), support the illegalization of abortion. As I've said before, the law is too blunt an instrument for so complicated and myriad situations.)

It's that segment of the culture that tends to take the former attitude, and tends to be "pro-life," religious, and "conservative," that seems the "counter-culture" to the assumptions that you, Nicki, are questioning about the value of trisomy children.

So, >37 southernbooklady: "Ah, but would they adopt one?"

I know some who would -- and they are also the most conservative of Catholics, who are passionately "pro-life," including a stringent opposition to the use of contraception (and even, for some, NFP).

So here's the conundrum: the cultural minority that defies the general, negative attitude towards children with DS is also the cultural minority that you often find most obnoxious about issues of sexuality and pregnancy.

>57 faceinbook:

Yup, always try to combine the funny with the true and useful!

On culture or society and the disabled, I'll just say that the US is in a paradoxical position--the costs of medical care make any prospect of a chronic condition horrific, but at the same time, the advocacy for the disabled, and their integration in everyday life, is far stronger than anywhere else I've seen.

One of the first things I noticed, in stark contrast to Europe, was the effort to make spaces wheelchair-accessible, for instance. It was taken for granted that a person in a wheelchair would and could not just go out, but go everywhere. There's no way to calculate the effect of such a simple thing, not just on the lives of the wheelchair-bound, but on the mentality of everyone. Imagine if ramps and crossings etc. were suddenly now removed. There would be a general outcry and outrage.

Liberties once won for any group become part of everyone's freedom.

The idea that religious creeps might adopt a disabled child specifically to enjoy "martyrdom" of the difficulties entailed is incredibly repulsive.

Adopt them out of kindness, out of love, not as some ersatz fucking cross to bear.

>58 nathanielcampbell: Perhaps I was being a little too allusive (for the sake of civility) in >36 nathanielcampbell: nathanielcampbell:. Let me put it more plainly: I suspect that the culture that doesn't want DS children is the culture that embraces "a woman's right to choose;" while the culture that welcomes DS children is the one that is most vocally "pro-life," and tends to be religious and "conservative".

I think you'd like to think this, but I don't think it is true, and I think it misses the point to a pretty significant extent. Just as Tim and Lola have both pointed out, the decision of whether or not to terminate a pregnancy is in the hands of the mother and/or the couple, and we can't make assumptions about their reasons, only trust that they have very good ones. But if they do decide to terminate, that does not make them de facto "unwelcoming" of DS children, or indeed any children. It doesn't make them "baby murderers" or morally bankrupt.

And despite the rhetoric to the contrary from the pro-life side of the fence, I do not think conservative America is in fact as pro-family as all that. They are, perhaps, pro a specific kind of family. But even here there are caveats.

A long time ago I posted my own opinion on the abortion debate (here) and it has not changed: if you want to reduce the number of abortions, then take seriously the issues that cause women to want to have one. That applies to Down Syndrome children, or any other potential handicap -- if you want people to reconsider abortion, then you have to create a culture where they have realistic alternative options.

In the United States we don't. Medical expenses -- the most oft-cited consideration here on this forum -- alone are debilitating for even the most mild conditions. And yet conservative America is consistently against universal health care and/or social welfare programs. (Not to mention a whole host of other sensible measures like easy access to birth control and good sex ed.)

It's that segment of the culture that tends to take the former attitude, and tends to be "pro-life," religious, and "conservative," that seems the "counter-culture" to the assumptions that you, Nicki, are questioning about the value of trisomy children.

I remain cynical, I'm afraid. I don't think our culture is set up to "value" anything but what is pretty and shiny, and I don't think that trait is just a secular one. Nor is it noticeably less prevalent in red states than in blue states. American culture is great for many things. It has a lot of energy and a lot of drive, but it is not a particularly compassionate or empathetic culture.

As usual, Dawkins' main mistake is in trying to address complex questions on twitter. And everyone else's mistake is in paying attention to what someone says on twitter. I don't know which of these mistakes is worse.

But I do know this: to have an opinion on a question taken from the syllabus of a freshman-year ethics course does not make someone a nazi, it does not make someone a monster, it does not make them a eugenicist. It's easy to assume that someone disagrees with you is a monster and an ethical imbecile. This is in fact the normal assumption these days - it's just the way we do things. It's also boring and uninformative.

Wouldn't it be a little more interesting to start with the assumption that Dawkins is a decent person with some reasonable ethical positions, and try to work out what could bring a decent and reasonable person to make this claim? You might then find that you are disagreeing with someone who has reasons for holding their beliefs, and that you understand where you disagree. And who knows, you might even learn something about what you believe.

In this light, here's a question that you might ask yourself:
Imagine a newly-pregnant mother, well-situated to care for a child, even one with greater-than-average medical needs. This mother is contacted by a doctor who makes her a proposition: he has a treatment which will guarantee that her child will surely have Down syndrome. No other side effects will occur. If she does not take this offer, her child's chances of having Down syndrome are effectively zero. (she's been tested, and the genetic markers are not present)
Would you advise this mother to accept this offer?
If you were a friend of this mother, and she indicated she were disposed to accept this offer, would you try to convince her to change her mind?

Why, or why not?

>61 southernbooklady: I can't help but feel that you simply skipped over the long, parenthetical middle of my >58 nathanielcampbell:, as it addresses everything you write in response to my initial statement about general attitudes.

>60 LolaWalser: "Adopt them out of kindness, out of love, not as some ersatz fucking cross to bear."

You're making some HUGE and wholly unwarranted assumptions here. The people I know who would, in the right circumstances, adopt a child with DS would, in fact, be doing so out of kindness and love, and not the pseudo-religious sadism you imagine.

I'm sorry that your hangups about religious people are so stubbornly prejudicial that you can't recognize the love and kindness with which most of them live their lives.

>63 nathanielcampbell: Your middle paragraph speaks to your experience. I am speaking of general social attitudes not making a comment on your situation.

>65 southernbooklady: But my point was to echo the general consensus here, voiced by you, Lola, Tim, and others, to wit: the complexities of decisions about carrying or not carrying a trisomy baby to term are immense and utterly personal.

However, I was also trying to make sense of the fact that the people I know who are most caring for children with DS--or to put it another way: the families I know that have children with DS at all, rather than having aborted the children--are generally "conservative," highly religious, and very pro-life.

>64 nathanielcampbell:

You brought in a particular brand of religion into discussion.

I trust character infinitely more than any religion. What you see as advantage--doing things because faith prompts you--I see as at best neutral, and at worst as a terrible disadvantage and danger.

I'd rather rely on goodness than faith. Faith is no guarantee of goodness, and goodness isn't dependent on faith.

>66 nathanielcampbell: the families I know that have children with DS at all, rather than having aborted the children--are generally "conservative," highly religious, and very pro-life.

Right. Anecdotal. I too know families that have DS children. They are on the liberal end of the spectrum, but that is to be expected since I'm as liberal as it gets and it follows that most of my friends would also be liberal-leaning. So, does your assessment still make sense?

>58 nathanielcampbell:

Abortion is demographically interesting insofar as it transcends the religious-secular divide. That is, if opposition to abortion were just a thing of conservative Christians, it would be a minority view, and declining slowly. But 58% of Americans believe abortion should be illegal in all or most circumstances. As regards self-identification as "pro-choice" or "pro-life," it's basically a tie (48-45, pro-life), but with a long-term decline in the number of pro-choice. This doesn't match the overall socio-religious demography. Although the issue is clearly tied to the overall trend of relentlessly "sorting" everything by red and blue, it transcends it to some extent too.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/162374/americans-abortion-views-steady-amid-gosnell-t...

Since abortion is often conceptually associated with the death penalty, I wonder how the demographics play out for support of capital punishment.

ETA: The conclusion of that poll was: Gallup finds 26% of Americans saying abortion should be legal under any circumstances and 20% saying it should be illegal in all circumstances. The majority, 52%, opt for something in between, as has been the case in nearly every Gallup measure of this question since 1975

And the final assessment was that most Americans late-term abortions should be illegal.

>69 timspalding:

It's an irritating polling in between insofar as "most circumstances" is a very wide category. Presumably all of them would include "the life of the mother." After that come all sorts of other categories like incest, rape, health of the mother, extreme poverty, age, etc.

Everybody gets born; everybody gets dead. So far...

You're making some HUGE and wholly unwarranted assumptions here. The people I know who would, in the right circumstances, adopt a child with DS would, in fact, be doing so out of kindness and love, and not the pseudo-religious sadism you imagine.

I'm sorry that your hangups about religious people are so stubbornly prejudicial that you can't recognize the love and kindness with which most of them live their lives.

I've a cousin who's a NICU nurse who has much the same problems with many of the people that come through her ward. Many of them seem to feel that their children's suffering is an object lesson meant to teach them compassion or some other shiny ideal. It's often reflected in their language use and is one of her constant 'plaints about the job.

> 70

Absolutely no disrespect intended, this is one of the funniest accidentally funny clauses I've come across in a long time: 'Since abortion is often conceptually associated with the death penalty...'

So many levels!

>73 Jesse_wiedinmyer: But what you're describing is something rather different than what Lola was imagining. For her, a Catholic only does good things out of a sadistic sense of sacrifice, or some such nonsense.

But what your friend is seeing is simply one manifestation of the utterly human propensity to try to make sense out of what would otherwise be senseless suffering.

>51 RidgewayGirl: A 'New Atheist' is someone who believes that religion is the root of all evil. The old atheists simply said, "I don't believe in God." New Atheists don't want anyone else to, either. They want to spread the gospel of atheism and dream of a day when everyone believes as they do. Then, in this atheist utopia, there will be no more war (wars are caused by religion, don't you know!) and everyone will live in peace and harmony.

Ok, I may be exaggerating their views somewhat, but it is definitely an evangelizing ideology (they are trying to win converts) and while they usually use what they consider to be 'rational arguments', there is a tone of contempt and disrespect for religious believers which is obnoxious and intolerant. New Atheists try to drive religion out of the public sphere, and have often stated they don't like children 'being indoctrinated' in religion, suggesting that they would even prohibit parents from teaching their children about God, if they could.

If you don't believe in God, that's your right. Just don't try to tell the rest of us what we can believe.

>75 nathanielcampbell:

That's an overstatement of Lola's position as stated in 60 or whatever it is.

But what your friend is seeing is simply one manifestation of the utterly human propensity to try to make sense out of what would otherwise be senseless suffering.

Yeah. Mayhap so. It's still a rank objectification of another being's life and suffering.

Though the same cousin would probably disagree with Dawkins about Downs. She also finds things such as people who choose to carry anencephalitic children to term deeply disturbing.

>76 madpoet: If you don't believe in God, that's your right. Just don't try to tell the rest of us what we can believe.

So the big reason to dislike "new" atheists is that they use the techniques of religious groups? Or do you also take umbrage with Christians proselytizing or making their views publicly known?

I think, as Christians, it is important to allow other belief systems equal freedom to air their views in the public space, if we would like that same courtesy. We can disagree with the substance, but failing to see that Christians also often air their views in a way that is seen to others as contemptuous and disrespectful of others is being deliberately foolish. It is also on us to understand why atheists might be angry and forceful in their expressions -- in this country, Christianity has dominated the public discourse for some time. It is our turn to have to listen to viewpoints we disagree with and to do so with humility and respect.

The "new atheists" tend to come under fire not just because of what they don't believe, but because they relentlessly and publicly challenge the claims of religion. They aren't the first to ask "Is religion really a good thing?" but they are perhaps the first to do so in a cultural climate that does not immediately dismiss them as cranks, and may in fact even listen to them seriously.

Religious people are affronted because we in the modern era hold matters of conscience in very high regard -- the fruit of eons of religious strife that is still ongoing in many parts of the world -- so to challenge religion is to challenge the consciences of great swaths of people. Then too, religion has traditionally set the standards and foundations for what we consider "morality" -- and a challenge to religion is taken as a challenge to everything our society has always defined as "good."

Indeed, the presumption of these new athesits seems so outrageous to some that they often react with fear and anger, rather than a rational counter-argument. Consider post >76 madpoet:, which basically accuses these proponents of atheism of acting like a competing church of the fundamentalist stripe. Which in effect counters the atheist challenge with emotional, not rational, language.

I suppose the popularity of the blatant skepticism and scorn of writers like Dawkins, or Harris, or Hitchens (to name the three that seem to get the most attention) might represent a sea-change of sorts in our society's tolerance for radical ideas. But society has always progressed by challenging fundamental assumptions:

-- that social stability requires a rigid class structure
-- that kings rule by divine right
-- that women and men must stay in defined roles
-- that black people are naturally inferior to white people

It's never pretty when such fundamental concepts are challenged, it almost always erupts in anger and violence. But as it turns out, people are better off in the long run when we dare to question that which we've always taken for granted.

Which in this case is, "Is religion really a good thing?"

That's why I think I'd end up in the New Atheist camp, if someone were trying to assign labels. I hold on to the conviction that I always have the right to ask that question.

>80 southernbooklady: Dawkins et al. aren't asking 'Is religion really a good thing?' They have made up their minds about it: religion is an evil to be eliminated from society.

And yeah, you got my point about them acting like a religion (ironically). The fanatical, intolerant kind of religious folk who give everyone else a bad name. As they give atheists a bad name.

It's not so much their viewpoint that bothers me-- as I said before, I get along fine with 'old atheists' who are generally rational and have a 'live and let live' attitude. It's the way the 'new atheists' think it's right to use 'scorn', contempt and disrespect for the views of others that I find unacceptable. Not only is it immature and petty, but it cannot possibly lead to productive discussion or debate, where a modicum of civility and mutual respect is necessary.

>79 RidgewayGirl: "It is our turn to have to listen to viewpoints we disagree with and to do so with humility and respect."

'Humility and respect' are the exact opposite of how the 'new atheists' are presenting their message. But perhaps you're right. Jesus did tell his disciples: "Do not resist evil. If a man strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the left also." I guess if we have contempt for those who have contempt for us we are no better than they are.

>81 madpoet: Dawkins et al. aren't asking 'Is religion really a good thing?' They have made up their minds about it: religion is an evil to be eliminated from society.

Right. It's a statement of position. Just like any other challenge. The default assumption is "Religion is beneficial." Their challenge -- and it is a challenge worth considering -- is "Religion is harmful."

You can complain that they are mean about it but contempt and scorn are in good supply on both sides of the divide so that doesn't get us very far. The better response would be to counter their arguments. That's what the current group read of The God Delusion on another thread is after (so far without much luck) ...an assessment of the argument, not these reactions to Richard Dawkins, the son of a bitch.

As for Atheism being its own kind of religion, I find this charge sort of amusing because I don't think the people who make it have really considered the implications. One of Dawkins' propositions is that ideas move through culture like viruses. Some are more "infectious" than others but their staying power depends--I think, I'm still reading his books--on their ability to find populations of willing hosts, for lack of a better example. So when theists accuse Dawkins, et al of "setting up another religion" they are putting their own beliefs in a group with all those other thought-viruses. At least, from the point of view of the atheist.

And as for the charge that Dawkins, et al, are "evangelical" about their position, I don't think that's a charge any Christian can make without indulging in a fair amount of denial about their own faith. Evangelism, the call to spread that good news, is one of the directives of that faith. So "live and let live" does not seem to be a virtue held in any great esteem. At least at a doctrinal level. It is also not something that has traditionally been allowed to people whose lives are in direct contradiction to religious moral standards.

So in that sense I think some push back is justified. You object that New Atheism wants religion "out of the public sphere." I'm not sure what you mean by that, but in so far as it means the government and civil laws, I absolutely want religion out of that sphere. I view the encroachment of religious claims on civil government in the United States with alarm, because I think theocratic governments are very, very dangerous.

(edited for typo)

I also wonder whether the snarkiness is a strategy used to get attention. Dawkins makes it clear in the introduction to The God Delusion that his purpose is to persuade wavering religious believers to his point of view and the old way of "live and let live" atheists aren't going to accomplish that.

Oh, I have no doubt that Dawkins, at least, loves the attention.

>84 jjwilson61: and I think in that He is totally wrong. The increasing secularisation of europe. and the growth of atheism this has engenders has been i think the result of a policy of nonconfrontation by both sides. While the confrontation that has characterised the American experience has strengthened traditional religious movements.

>86 SimonW11:

The increasing secularisation of europe. and the growth of atheism this has engenders has been i think the result of a policy of nonconfrontation by both sides.

Our historical memories tend to be short. I can't think of a good general history of the movement for secularisation in Europe in English (and in French the first that comes to mind is a biased study from a Catholic source), but it might be helpful to recall just how much confrontation, persecution and prosecution there was of Enlightenment philosophers and atheists, and consider how their fate reflected on the anonymous masses. The laws didn't (re)write themselves; the church didn't just roll over.

And I can't think of a less benign form of confrontation than the revolutions such as French and October, in whose wake secularism made crucial strides.

I also don't see Islam peacefully "withering away", not for, ummm, centuries--and that's assuming we don't revert en masse to caveman lifestyles.

If Dawkins is hated so much, it isn't because he's wrong, it's because his activism is effective.

>88 LolaWalser: my opinions are very much based on the last hundred years. to at most 150 years Indeed France whose secularisation very much preceded that and took place in and continues to be shaped by much more confrontational environment. Is showing the greatest problems in coping with religious intolerance.

>89 LolaWalser: yet he complains that he cannot even rally Atheists to take his side.

>90 SimonW11:

I don't think that's right. France, Germany and increasingly the rest of Europe are having problems dealing with immigration, not religious intolerance.

>91 SimonW11:

Does he, where?

>92 LolaWalser: Yet it is the religious who riot. you do not hear of Romanian rioters, you hear of muslim rioters, You hear of Jews fleeing. not Poles and most frequently you hear of these events in France.

the preface to the paperback edition

>92 LolaWalser: France, Germany and increasingly the rest of Europe are having problems dealing with immigration, not religious intolerance.

Somewhere in The God Delusion Dawkins cites "ethnic cleansing" and "sectarian violence" as polite code phrases for religious violence. I think he misses mark there, treating religion as the primary cause of violence, instead of just one of the justifications for tribalism.

>95 SimonW11:

Okay--so what? One, as far as I remember, he states his mission is aimed at those who are "on the fence", two, he DOES have plenty of atheists on his side. I'd say the number of books sold and audience drawn is a better indicator of his influence than whether any other self-identified atheist joins his camp.

>94 SimonW11:

I'm not sure Muslim "rioters" (not limited to France, btw--German-speaking countries have a significant Muslim minority, not to mention Bosnia) are rioting out of religious intolerance.

>96 southernbooklady:

I agree with you. But, at the risk of pulling a Nathaniel and seeming to argue for two contradictory sides at the same time, while I don't agree that religion as such is always a primary motivator for conflict--and was NOT that in the Yugoslav wars (contrary to Dawkins' glib assertion)--it is indubitably true that religion is 1) sometimes a primary motivator (especially for individuals) and 2) more to the point, it is frequently, even usually, used to justify conflict.

There'd be war even without religion. But that is not an argument FOR religion. Nor does it mean that religion can't make conflict worse--it is demonstrably frequently a source of conflict.

>98 LolaWalser: 2) more to the point, it is frequently, even usually, used to justify conflict.

If there is a "unique" danger to religion, I think it is to be found in this...that as a justification, it is all but unassailable.

>97 LolaWalser: >95 SimonW11: "Okay--so what?"

so I was pointing out that your opinion was not shared by all atheists and was hoping that you would substantiate it,

could you present evidence that the books are being read by people who are not already converted to one side or the other? and that they produce the effect you attribute to them on the agnostics you target?.

>99 southernbooklady:

That is exactly the problem, although I'm not sure that "unassailability" is unique to religious motivation. It's hard to argue with "my country right or wrong!" too.

>100 SimonW11:

You mean my opinion that Dawkins' activism is effective? I judge it is effective by the consistent ire and backlash he excites from the religious. How many atheists agree or not with his arguments or approach is, IMO, irrelevant.

>101 LolaWalser: I think there is a lot in common between religious fervor and knee-jerk patriotism. At the very least they both absolve you of responsibility for your actions when you act in their name.

>102 LolaWalser: I judge it is effective by the consistent ire and backlash he excites from the religious.

attention is not the same as efficacy, unless you think that Dawkins' goal is to goad the religious, rather than to convince people he's right. In that sense his efficacy is on a par with the Westboro Baptist Church.

>100 SimonW11: I'm reading The God Delusion now, mainly because of the animus some hold for it. So, no, the only people reading it are not the already convinced. I don't expect to find myself switching over to atheism. I'm reading because it's useful and good to find out what other people think.

>104 southernbooklady:

First, my point was that convincing atheists isn't necessary or a measure of Dawkins' effectiveness (Simon didn't say what exactly Dawkins is "complaining" about regarding atheists but I doubt that it is that they are not atheists--I expect, if there really is a complaint, it concerns militancy.)

I'm atheist but I'm not on Dawkins' side--or not "all the way", obviously I share some opinions with him. Which reflects in no way on how Dawkins' arguments work on anyone else, believer or non.

As for "effectiveness", I'm ready to change that term for a better one if it's not clear--to me Dawkins' public presence is what is important, the voice he gives to atheism, and that he did so for decades. For better or for worse, he is a recognisable, famous public figure who sold millions of books--that is effective, or, in relative terms, more "effective" i.e. influential, than any random anonymous atheist like myself.

No doubt a militant like Dawkins might himself disagree with what ought to be considered "effective" in an atheist campaign. I'm saying that for me effectiveness and influence is achieved through making arguments available, not by counting "converted" scalps.

I abhor converts, personally. Converts make the worst fanatics.

>105 BoMag: Wow. That was not well phrased, unless it was deliberately phrased to cause offense? We do try to avoid facile personal attacks here on Pro & Con.

>108 RidgewayGirl: It's also incoherent. I don't know where that quote comes from but in didn't come from >99 southernbooklady:.

>107 LolaWalser: As for "effectiveness", I'm ready to change that term for a better one if it's not clear--to me Dawkins' public presence is what is important, the voice he gives to atheism, and that he did so for decades. For better or for worse, he is a recognisable, famous public figure who sold millions of books--that is effectiv

Yeah, I don't disagree. I'm probably just being nitpicky, but Dawkins' notoriety and his desire to make a convincing case for atheism (and a convincing case to abandon religious belief) strike me as two separate things that are not always in service to each other.

>105 BoMag:. If that's a reference to the Massacre of the Innocents, I think you give me too much credit.

>96 southernbooklady:
Agree...cf. Stalin's deportation and murderous policy toward targeted ethnic groups...

I've been a bookseller for over twenty years and I'm really good for nothing else.

I disagree with SBL on occasion, but she is the cat's pajamas.

>92 LolaWalser: 'France, Germany and increasingly the rest of Europe are having problems dealing with immigration, not religious intolerance.' That's unfortunately rapidly becoming a dated fact.

Here's a story that doesn't prove anything but could be suggestive:

http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/aljazeeraworld/2014/08/ceska-murders-2014818...

The rest of what I get is picked up anecdotally, or from Hungary, which is becoming more vicious than ever.

And I guess it may be obvious that with the European economy in general in an absurdly bad state due to austerity economics, immigration leads to resentment leads to religious intolerance.

Yesterday I read that 260 died on the Mediterranean 'migrant trail', I believe at sea between Africa and Italy.

I find it interesting that nobody notes that religion can be, and indeed has been, a primary motivator of the making of peace. Can somebody remind me again what profession Martin Luther King, Jr., was?

And who was it that blessed the peacemakers?

Very good points. MANY clergy and "religious" as Catholics say as well as rabbis etc., were deeply involved in "progressive" and anti war movements from the 19th century on...

>114 nathanielcampbell: Not to mention the Christian leaders of social reform movements during the Industrial Revolution, and the Christian abolitionists.

>114 nathanielcampbell: I find it interesting that nobody notes that religion can be, and indeed has been, a primary motivator of the making of peace.

Well to be fair, the recent discussion hasn't been about whether Dawkins' views on religion were right, but whether they were effective in explicating his ideas about atheism. (And more than one post concluded that his view was simplistic).

But it is interesting from my perspective to think about religion as a tool (a primary motivation) for action. Sometimes for peace, sometimes for war, but the rationale behind each is the same. A person is doing what they think is "right" in either case. And I find it curious that Richard Dawkins, the man who gave us the evolutionary explanation for altruism, apparently hasn't considered the religious impulse (the need to "do the right thing") with the same kind of analytic approach.

>114 nathanielcampbell: To be fair, you can't bring up Dr. King's religious inspirations without also pointing out that the same traditions were instrumental in justifying the wretched injustice that he stood up against. In fact, in one reading of this history, you'd have to conclude that King's most important work in the fight was to bring religion into the fight for justice. And the fact that it required his heroic effort (and the work of others) to do this does not speak at all well for religion generally.

It would also be quite unfair to fail to mention the legions of atheists who laid the groundwork for the civil rights movement, and participated in it as it went on. To try to claim the civil rights movement as a primarily religious one seems to me disingenuous at best.

As I look at it, the best we can get for religion from this example is that it is a general-purpose tool for rationalizing anything that needs rationalized. Sometimes it has been useful in the hands of the powerless, but clearly throughout history it has been much more firmly in control of the powerful.

>107 LolaWalser: Dawkins seems to be addressing atheists in the preface who as southernbooklady puts it. think "his efficacy is on a par with the Westboro Baptist Church."

christians may or may not take on a role as peacemakers. it seems far from foregone/

http://www.centenarynews.com/article/?id=1773

>120 SimonW11: Atheists may or may not take on a role as peacemakers. It seems far from foregone.

In fact, {insert any human group identity here} may or may not take on a role as peacemakers. It seems far from foregone.

In other words: it seems quite hypocritical to single out religion as the primary cause of violence and conflict, when pretty much all tribal identity constructs provoke violence and conflict (as >96 southernbooklady: quite sensibly points out).

In other other words: Dawkins has to take responsibility for the Stalins and Pol Pots of the world if he demands that all religious people bear the burden of responsibility for the Crusades and Islamic terrorism.

>121 nathanielcampbell: Dawkins has to take responsibility for the Stalins and Pol Pots of the world if he demands that all religious people bear the burden of responsibility for the Crusades and Islamic terrorism.

I knew you couldn't leave him alone! :)

I don't know that he doesn't, but I think you are missing the point. It's not a game where we parcel out who gets to hold the bag for this or that bad thing: Religion gets the Inquisition and Atheism gets the Khmer Rouge. It is--from everything I've read about Dawkins--a question of thinking well or thinking badly. Religion, in Dawkins' arguments, is founded on "bad thinking." Presumably anyone who talks themselves into justifying a genocide is also indulging in bad thinking, although to bring this back around to the question of the immorality of bringing a DS child into the world when you have the option not to, Dawkins' utilitarian perspective is also flawed by the same assumptions that the Khmer Rouge used to justify murdering people who wore glasses.

In any case, regardless of whether you think religion is a force for good or a force for evil, its still just one of those things people do. Like art. Or football. Or building things. And if you throw it in the mix with all those other human traits and habits that may or may not be beneficial to the species in the short or long term, the one thing you do relinquish is any claim it has to an overall objective Truth.

It's that claim to objective but ultimately unreachable Truth--which is at the foundation of Dawkins' objections to religion. Why he says it is "bad thinking."

>121 nathanielcampbell:

Dawkins has to take responsibility for the Stalins and Pol Pots of the world if he demands that all religious people bear the burden of responsibility for the Crusades and Islamic terrorism.

Ludicrous idiotic bullshit. (And, HOW MANY TIMES...?!)

One, contrary to religion, atheism holds no promise nor brief of morality. Espousing atheism is neither programmatic for nor predictive of an atheist's personal ethics. Two, neither Stalin nor Pol Pot (or Hitler or Mao--why not throw it all out in one pile as usual) were motivated by atheism, nor was atheism their main concern, if it was a concern, in itself, of ANY kind.

So, NO: Dawkins isn't beholden to you to take on any "burdens" (you do like "burdens", dontcha?) and apologise for any and all perfect villains etc. who were or may have been atheists.

Religion is different. Religion squarely and centrally deals with ethics and morality. And Christianity, especially, with its "message of love", DOES hold the promise and brief, programmatically and predictively, of "bettering" a person. A Christian is explicitly beholden to a certain moral standard (funnily enough--this is why I keep getting entreated to LIKE Christianity--Christians are "good" people, by definition!)

This is why the ethical scandals in the Church are especially horrendous. NO, it is not one and the same thing when some random person who happens to be atheist commits a crime under his roof, and when a priest of Christ does it under "God's" roof. The latter is worse--infinitely worse, imo, in the implications for that church's mission and that religion's message. It ought to END a church, if not a religion. In my opinion.

(Because the question is, obviously, not just how could this or that priest commit a crime--they are fallible! They sin! Confession and penance whitewashes everything!--but how could this purported "loving" god allow such crimes to happen, against innocents, at the hands of his priests, in "his house".)

Did Pol Pot or Stalin kill people in the name of not-God?

>119 SimonW11:

If you think what Dawkins thinks about other atheists is pertinent to my take on his activism (I don't), I wish you'd just quote him... I don't have that paperback edition.

But, as I said above, I think it is demonstrable--through the sheer number of Google hits if you will--that he has succeeded in spreading the arguments of atheism (to keep it vague, thinking of sum total of his publishing, lecturing, debating) both "widely" and more "widely" than any other atheist interested in influencing opinion.

In my mind, this is important--this laying out of arguments, making them available to the public. When a friend's mother, who has been "religious" in the inert, mechanical way so many people are who just "inherit" their religion through upbringing, tells me she started thinking about her faith for the first time ever, in her fifties, because she picked up "The god delusion", I chalk that up as a success for Dawkins the activist--whatever the "outcome" of her reading. And whether Dawkins agrees with me or not.

>123 LolaWalser: I call special pleading, as you make the unfounded assumption that if a religious believer commits an act of violence, it is thus "in the name of God."

To offer a counter-example from a report we heard on NPR's Weekend Edition while driving to church this past Sunday:

Journalist: It's Not Islam That Inspires U.K.'s Young Jihadis:

WERTHEIMER: You say, in your latest article, that the Islamic faith has little to do with the modern jihadist movement. Why do you think that?

HASAN: Well, it's not just my view. I know it's counterintuitive to say that people fighting for groups calling themselves Islamic State or people fighting in what they call a jihad are not being motivated by religious faith or fervor. But it's even the view of British Security Service, MI5, which found in a report a few years ago that far from being religious zealots, a larger number of those involved in terrorism don't practice their faith regularly. They lack religious literacy. They could be called religious novices. MI5 found that actually a well-established religious identity actually protects you from violent radicalization. It's not a driver of that radicalization.

WERTHEIMER: So what does motivate these young people to leave their lives in the UK and fight in Iraq or Syria?

HASAN: Well, that's $64,000 question, Linda, right now being asked again and again. And I think, look, there's no one single cause or explanation. We don't know. The experts who have looked at the backgrounds of westerners who have gone to fight in the so-called jihad, they point to a range of drivers of radicalization - moral outrage, disaffection and alienation from wider society, peer pressure, social networks, the search for a new identity, for a sense of belonging and purpose, some glamour, some coolness in their pretty mundane and pointless lives.

As those of us who take religious belief seriously have pointed out time and time again, most violence committed "in the name of God" is really a perversion of the teachings of that God and the faith in that God; and "the name of God" is most often just a superficial cover or excuse for other, less supernatural motivations--usually greed (whether for power, wealth, fame, it doesn't really matter) or vengeance.

>126 nathanielcampbell:
So people are only properly acting "in the name of God" or in the name of some religious faith if you approve of their actions? What about Hamas, who claim both their charitable work and their murderous attacks as divinely inspired? Are they acting in the name of God, but only some of the time?

>113 RickHarsch:

But that's what I'm saying--religion becomes a "problem" as a function of other factors, beginning with economic problems. And what bothers me personally about it is that it is such a sensitive, easily "problematised", flammable thing.

If those masses of Muslim immigrants were, say, Zoroastrians instead, we'd still be seeing the same uproars in these conditions.

And antisemitism can't be reduced to religious intolerance, it's not just the religious who are antisemites.

>110 southernbooklady:

Dawkins' notoriety and his desire to make a convincing case for atheism (and a convincing case to abandon religious belief) strike me as two separate things that are not always in service to each other.

I agree. It is evident even in this forum, that associating his atheist activism with rape and paedophilia apologetics and Nazi eugenics is considered excellent tactics for countering it. (Today is the day of words ending in -ics!)

He sure should step away from Twitter ASAP.

>127 kiparsky: I'm not making categorical statements that religious motivations are always this or always that. In fact, I'm trying to counter Lola's bizarrely categorical insistence that violence committed by atheists never has anything to do with atheism, but violence committed by religious believers always is because of religion.

Human behavior, both good and bad, is a complex of motivations; I'm suspicious of anyone who tries to make categorical claims that privilege one of those motivations over all the rest.

>126 nathanielcampbell:

I call special pleading, as you make the unfounded assumption that if a religious believer commits an act of violence, it is thus "in the name of God."

And I call outright shameless LYING, because I have nowhere, now or ever, said that "if a religious believer commits an act of violence, it is thus "in the name of God.""

And don't impute assumptions to me, when my post is perfectly clear. Atheism doesn't aim to construct, nor does it imply, any special system of ethics and morality. Religion--Christianity--is ALL about ethics and morality. Ten Commandments and all that.

>129 nathanielcampbell:

Lola's bizarrely categorical insistence that violence committed by atheists never has anything to do with atheism, but violence committed by religious believers always is because of religion.

STILL lying!

>129 nathanielcampbell: I don't think that Lola's making the claim that *all* violence committed by the religious is always for religious reasons, but there is still plenty of violence where the believer states himself that his reasons were religious.

>130 LolaWalser: Ten Commandments and all that

Which if you think about it is a pretty shitty basis for morality.

>126 nathanielcampbell: you make the unfounded assumption that if a religious believer commits an act of violence, it is thus "in the name of God."

It is fair to say so if the person committing the act says so, don't you think? You may disagree with their interpretation of what God wants or intends, but both you and the jihadist are justifying your positions as what God wants. In effect, you both have ideas of what you want God to want. Whose ideas are more "right" is a matter of much debate and possibly strife, and no doubt littered with other motivations like economic disparity, or a desire for justice, or land rights, or identity. But "what God wants" is the justification that is used. It's the trump card.

One of the basic differences, in my mind, between an empirical approach and a faith based approach is that the former is always subject to what you might call a "reality check." It doesn't matter, for example, if the person who wants to build their house on a coastal barrier island chooses not to accept (or believe) scientific studies about rising sea levels. If the sea level really is rising, the house is doomed.

Religious belief doesn't have that kind of reality check. All that is required is that you believe what you believe. In fact, we go to great lengths to accommodate the idiosyncrasies of belief even in the face of numerous reality checks. So if you believe becoming a martyr for your faith means you'll be rewarded in heaven, then no one can can show you otherwise. That's what I mean when I say religion's danger is that it's directives are unassailable to the believer. Belief is considered a valid reason to defy or ignore experience or evidence that contradicts it.

Let me put this as simply as I think possible: atheism doesn't tell one how to treat people. Religions (typically) tell one how to treat people.

Any self-described atheist can go out and commit crimes "in the name of atheism" with exactly the same relevance or consequences for the atheist thought as committing crimes "in the name of art history" or "topology" would have for art history or topology.

When a self-described Christian commits a crime, it is different, because the point of Christianity is to adhere to a specific ethical system, so that every crime committed by a Christian must be squared not just with the secular law of the land (if any), or with "what the neighbours will think", but with a specific injunction within this specific ethical system, imposed by religion, that says not to commit such and such crime etc.

Any person WITH a specific ethical system, a moral code (such as I hope we all are), atheist or Christian, is never outside their ethical system. Every act reflects on and is relevant for that moral code.

>128 LolaWalser: Well, sure, if you want to go deeper...

135 I think you overstate your case bringing in the art historians who have much more motive to commit acts of violence than atheists.

Topologists? They have THEIR caves.

How awesome would it be if art historians had running street battles? The Impressionists out to wipe out the Pre-Raphaelites? The Surrealists armed with fish and not afraid to use them? Where admitting to liking Rothko could be a death sentence?

>138 RidgewayGirl: The Impressionists out to wipe out the Pre-Raphaelites?

Who could blame them?

>134 southernbooklady: "It is fair to say so if the person committing the act says so, don't you think?"

I refer you to the interview on NPR I linked to in >126 nathanielcampbell: -- the research indicates that many of the radicalized U.K. Muslims, while claiming to be on religious "jihad," are in fact "religious novices," and that their motivations are not religious but other factors -- political unrest, social pressure, thirst for the limelight, etc.

And again, I'm forced to think that we've entered the realm of special pleading, where any old hypocrite who claims to act in the name of God but really is acting for personal gain and selfishness is a mark against religion in general; but atheism need never answer for atrocities committed by atheists. Because apparently, atheism provides no morality.

(Because that's a great way to build a society -- let's get everyone to chuck their morality overboard!)

>121 nathanielcampbell: indeed. but Dawkins is not claiming to be free of error.

Honestly, Nathan, I don't understand the point you say you're making here. If you (or "research") is doubting the sincerity of that group, it doesn't really undercut the point that religion is a good general justification for actions -- good or bad.

But as Lola has pointed out, atheism is not an ethical system, while most religion is. So it is a doubtful motivating force for ethical statements. A rejection of religion may be a motivating force for violence, certainly, but it is usually tied to other things than wanting to enforce a disbelief in God. Nationalism comes to mind in the case of Stalin. Racial or ethnic purity is another possible example. But the statement "there is no such entity as God" does not lend itself to a justification of either position.

Because apparently, atheism provides no morality. (Because that's a great way to build a society -- let's get everyone to chuck their morality overboard!)

And this betrays the limits of your perspective. Because of course atheists have ethical standards and systems they live by. But as a rule such standards are not based on atheism. You, however, seem unable to conceive of a moral system that is not founded on or in a belief in God (the perfect Divine Justice), so you are working from the idea that a person who does not believe in God-the-divine-justice can't have a "real" morality.

That's not the case.

>140 nathanielcampbell: (Because that's a great way to build a society -- let's get everyone to chuck their morality overboard!)

Another red herring. Just because atheism doesn't itself provide a morality doesn't mean that atheists don't have morals.

138 no lqarl, a genuine llarl.

armed with fish and not afraid to use them!

I was thinking of their cooperative fight against modernity, but of course, you're right...i mean, thing of the Cubists, so...so...so, well TROTSKYITE!

>142 southernbooklady: and >143 jjwilson61:

I apologize, as the tongue-in-cheek with which the statement about atheism having no morality was meant to satirize Lola's repeated claims on that point -- but apparently that didn't come through in the electronic medium. I am perfectly well aware that atheists have ethical standards and systems that they live by, as rare is the human psychopath who doesn't; and Nicki in particular displays an ethical awareness far surpassing many religious believers. (But you can see how many people would read Lola's statements to mean precisely that red herring -- that atheists have no basis for morality.)

But there is a deeper issue here: historically, religion has provided the ethical and moral foundations for most societies. If Dawkins' statements about aborting children with DS are an indication of what would replace it in an atheistic society, then are we really sure a post-religious society would be better than a religious one?

>145 nathanielcampbell: There is a section on morality in The God Delusion where Dawkins shows that all people have a common ingrained morality regardless of their religion and most people believe that sacrificing another person without their consent for the common good is immoral. So, I suspect the difference between Dawkins and you is that you think that he's advocating aborting children (as you stated above), whereas Dawkins doesn't believe that clumps of cells without a nervous system are children.

>145 nathanielcampbell: 'If Dawkins' statements about aborting children with DS are an indication of what would replace it in an atheistic society, then are we really sure a post-religious society would be better than a religious one?'

But this thread exists precisely because the notion of aborting children with this or that because it would be immoral not to is almost universally repugnant. So you know, Campbell, that that is not at all what a post-religious society would be like. This is the way in which you are often sneaking off your moral plane into dishonest turf (where it's more fun, at least for a change?). Or is that satire again? The preceding sentence would suggest it is not.

>140 nathanielcampbell: "I'm forced to think that we've entered the realm of special pleading, where any old hypocrite who claims to act in the name of God but really is acting for personal gain and selfishness is a mark against religion in general; but atheism need never answer for atrocities committed by atheists"

Don't you see the difference, though? On the one hand, you have people explicitly claiming their beliefs about god as the justification for their actions. On the other hand, you have people who have a characteristic which you are claiming as the justification (or at least, the reason) for their action. If you want to dismiss each "old hypocrite" claiming to act in the name of god as some sort of special case that doesn't really count, you have a long lot of special pleading ahead of you.

>145 nathanielcampbell: If Dawkins' statements about aborting children with DS are an indication of what would replace it in an atheistic society, then are we really sure a post-religious society would be better than a religious one?

That's a big if. You already know I concur with @jjwilson61 that aborting a fetus is not "killing a child" so the real question in Dawkins' statement is not "is it immoral to abort a fetus for what people consider "the wrong reasons?" but "is it immoral to bring a child into this world if it is doomed to suffer and you had the choice not to?"

And here Dawkins' is on very shaky ground, because his definition of happiness and suffering is apparently tied into things like good health, and no genetic flaws. And he hasn't made the case for why that would be. In fact, I think I could make a good case that happiness and suffering can be independent of our health or genetic viability.

(The discussion reminds me of this period years ago when someone claimed to have found "the gay gene" and all the hoopla over the implications of knowing the genetic code for sexuality.)

>149 southernbooklady: But a large chunk of society hasn't given up yet on the very presumption by which you shift the ground of debate: a majority of American society is sufficiently uncertain about the morality of abortion to agree that there should be some limits on its legality.

You have one reason to find Dawkins' ideas on morality suspect; many of us have that reason (because I think that most Christians would generally agree with your critique of his assumptions about "happiness"), but have an even deeper reason, too.

To us, an atheistic society in which it's taken for granted that an abortion is not immoral is a frightening prospectus of a society that has lost its moral and ethical bearings. So again, you can see why many people take one look at this proposed atheistic society and shudder to think how soulless it would be.

>149 southernbooklady: I asked this question above, and got no takers. I'll ask again. If you were a young woman newly pregnant and well-situated to care for a child with a serious and demanding medical condition, and you had the choice to do so, would you inflict that child with Down syndrome?
If you would hesitate to do so, the response to your "good case" is contained in that hesitation, and you can explore it at your own leisure.

>151 kiparsky: "would you inflict that child with Down syndrome?"

You've already betrayed your bias in the very phrasing of the question. Again, there are many of us who don't assume that DS is an "affliction" that a child's parents choose to give their child.

Moreover, you've already presumed that living with DS is worse than not living at all. Why? On what grounds can you say that never being born is better than being born to loving parents? Why is killing someone automatically a more loving choice than caring for them?

This is the same logic according to which we should kill the mentally ill -- they "suffer" from an "affliction", so let's just better end their lives, shall we?

Oh, you're paralyzed from an accident? Best we kill you now rather than let you suffer. (Tell that to Christopher Reeves or Amy Van Dyken.)

That's the utilitarian logic that presumes that death is better than an "affliction".

>152 nathanielcampbell: "Again, there are many of us who don't assume that DS is an "affliction" that a child's parents choose to give their child."

The question was carefully phrased, but if you prefer, would you choose to "gift" your unborn child with Down syndrome? The point is: in this hypothetical, it's your choice. You can say yes, or no, or you can flip a coin if it's all the same to you.

And please don't pull the hysterical left turn and start saying that I'm arguing for murdering people. I think it's possible to have a civilized conversation without intentionally misstating the other person's position. Let's shoot for that.

>150 nathanielcampbell: To us, an atheistic society in which it's taken for granted that an abortion is not immoral is a frightening prospectus of a society that has lost its moral and ethical bearings

Sure, but now we're in the realm of interpretation. You'd have to provide evidence that society "has lost its moral and ethical bearings" and that means you'd have to provide evidence that abortion is immoral.

>151 kiparsky: If you were a young woman newly pregnant and well-situated to care for a child with a serious and demanding medical condition, and you had the choice to do so, would you inflict that child with Down syndrome?

I think your scenario is asking a different question than you intended. Not "Is it immoral to have a child that is doomed to suffer if you can avoid it?" but "Is it immoral to build the kind of child you want?"

After all, a woman terminates a pregnancy (or doesn't) based on the circumstances she finds herself in and her assessment for her own future and the future of her potential child. I don't think Down's Syndrome is a "neutral" trait, like brown eyes or curly hair. The question is can a person be happy if they have Down's Syndrome? Can a person be happy if they must care for a Down's Syndrome child? Dawkins thinks the suffering would outweigh the happiness. But he has no evidence for this except a personal inclination that it is better to be smart and high-functioning than not.

>152 nathanielcampbell: you've already presumed that living with DS is worse than not living at all. Why? On what grounds can you say that never being born is better than being born to loving parents?

Never being born makes being born to loving parents irrelevant.

>150 nathanielcampbell: So again, you can see why many people take one look at this proposed atheistic society and shudder to think how soulless it would be.

Since atheists don't believe in souls I suppose soulless is accurate. I don't see why you have to shudder over it though.

>154 southernbooklady: "that means you'd have to provide evidence that abortion is immoral. "

What qualifies as evidence that something is immoral?

Dawkins himself would (were he consistent) articulate the notion that morality is a biological construct that is "hardwired" into humanity, as it were. If that is the case, then wouldn't the fact that the majority of Americans find the morality of abortion at least problematic be "evidence" that it is, in fact, problematic?

Of course, on those grounds, the fact that homosexuality was almost universally considered immoral (at least between people of the same social standing) until fairly recently, indicate that maybe there is something immoral about it? Or is morality not a biological construct hardwired into humanity?

If it is a social rather than biological construct, then if a society decides that abortion is immoral, is not therefore immoral?

(These may come across as leading or rhetorical questions, but I don't intend them to be. I think that we need to honestly dig into this question: what is the evidence that something is immoral?)

>155 jjwilson61: You don't shudder at a utilitarian approach that judges a person based on how useful they are to society? Once they are no longer useful--or are a "burden"--then they are no longer wanted, valued, loved, or desired?

Other people as a means to an end, to be used or discarded -- such a happy vision for human society that is!

(And no, this isn't hyperbole -- it's the logical conclusion of the utilitarianism that Dawkins has suggested for making it immoral to give birth to a child with DS. But maybe we're not supposed to apply logic to his arguments?)

>157 nathanielcampbell: You don't shudder at a utilitarian approach that judges a person based on how useful they are to society? Once they are no longer useful--or are a "burden"--then they are no longer wanted, valued, loved, or desired?

Apparently you didn't read what I wrote in >146 jjwilson61:.

ETA for the hard of hearing: The issue has nothing to do with sacrificing people, I think Dawkins agrees that that is immoral, but with deciding what qualifies as a person.

>156 nathanielcampbell: Of course, on those grounds, the fact that homosexuality was almost universally considered immoral (at least between people of the same social standing) until fairly recently, indicate that maybe there is something immoral about it? Or is morality not a biological construct hardwired into humanity?

And yet most Christian theologians believed until recently that homosexuality is a sin. ...or maybe most still do so that example doesn't work. OK, until sometime somewhat less recently most Christian theologians believed that marriage between the races was immoral but they don't now. What does that tell us about how morality derived from God is any less arbitrary than morality derived from biology.

>156 nathanielcampbell: What qualifies as evidence that something is immoral?

Exactly! You see the dilemma. Your evidence might not qualify as my evidence, and vice versa. Hence all the argument about "when life begins" and when a fetus becomes "a person."

ETA: If that is the case, then wouldn't the fact that the majority of Americans find the morality of abortion at least problematic be "evidence" that it is, in fact, problematic?

And by those grounds wouldn't the fact that most women who do have abortions do not consider themselves to be murderers mean that they aren't murderers?

Your logic is really a little faulty, Nathan (and I'm ignoring the whole dig at homosexuality since we've hashed it out elsewhere and it would only sidetrack the discussion.) Moral systems tend to be collections of socially-agreed upon behaviors, but that in its very nature means they are subject to change as our own society changes. What is ultimately relevant is what your moral system is. Where it falls in the scale of the society around you may mean you have a rough time of it, but ultimately people tend to act based on what they think is the right thing to do.

(edited for typo)

>159 jjwilson61: "OK, until sometime somewhat less recently most Christian theologians believed that marriage between the races was immoral but they don't now."

Actually, not so much. The only Christians who believed that interracial marriage was immoral were certain American Protestants in the 18th-20th centuries. Outside of that minority slice of Christian history, miscegenation (which was a word invented for those more recent purposes) played no role in Christian teachings on marriage.

But hey, why bother learning the actual history of something when your prejudiced stereotype works so much better for your argument?

>161 nathanielcampbell: Anti-miscegenation laws were part of American law since before the US was established, at least according to Wikipedia. Are you trying to tell me that religious leaders over that period disagreed with the rest of their society? Isn't that rather naive?

The use of amniocentesis. is I think evidence that a parent does not consider the bringing to term of the fetus to be the number one concern.

>156 nathanielcampbell: the moral relativism that tends to accompany atheism is think widely recognised. there is a tendency to abhor something at home and to dismiss it as a cultural difference when it occurs overseas.

>159 jjwilson61: "most Christian theologians believed that marriage between the races was immoral but they don't now."

That simply is not true.

>164 SimonW11: That simply is not true.

Even in the 18th century? Do you mean that all those anti-miscegenation laws were passed over the objections of those 18th century English pastors?

>165 jjwilson61: "Even in the 18th century?"

Because apparently, the 18th through mid-20th centuries on the American continent constitute "most" Christians.

>166 nathanielcampbell: It's a representative sample. What do you want, a bloody thesis?

A study published in the Lancet shows that between 1995 and 2003, the global rate of induced abortions fell from 35 per 1,000 women each year to 29. This period coincides with the rise of the "globalised secular culture" the Pope laments. When the figures are broken down, it becomes clear that, apart from the former Soviet Union, abortion is highest in conservative and religious societies. In largely secular western Europe, the average rate is 12 abortions per 1,000 women. In the more religious southern European countries, the average rate is 18. In the US, where church attendance is still higher, there are 23 abortions for every 1,000 women, the highest level in the rich world. In central and South America, where the Catholic church holds greatest sway, the rates are 25 and 33 respectively. In the very conservative societies of east Africa, it's 39. One abnormal outlier is the UK: our rate is six points higher than that of our western European neighbours.

From the Guardian by way of atheism.about.com

The correlation is most likely to be between affluence (and health insurance) and lower abortion rates. It's obviously not religion. Which makes sense, because an affluent family in a secular nation has both access to birth control and the assurance that health care for children, at least, won't be burdensome. The US is the exception, because of the lack of access to health care and the expense. Plus other developed countries tend to provide more in the way of child care and other social services.

There's really no evidence that secular morality leads to lower respect for human beings as individuals.

Anti-semitism used to be universal, and not just recently. It's the reason I'm here, and not in Europe.

>167 jjwilson61: "It's a representative sample. What do you want, a bloody thesis?"

Except that it's not a representative sample, because opposition to miscegenation was a uniquely American phenomenon.

What I really don't understand is why you're sticking by a patently false claim. For 17 centuries before American slavery, Christianity had no problem with mixed-race marriages. In most parts of the world of the last 3 centuries, Christianity had no problem with mixed-race marriages.

Why can't you just admit that you spoke out of ignorance?

(By the way: it's that kind of speaking out of ignorance that makes Christians so leery to listen to atheist diatribes against them. Why should we listen to what you have to say when you tell lies about our history and what we believe?)

Actually, there's the example of Spain, where all Muslims (Moors) and Jews were driven out, and Limpieza de Sangre (purity of blood) was the raison d'être of the Inquisition (or at least one of them).

The inquisition had both religious and economic roots. One of the cool rules was that if you ratted on someone, and they were found to be a secret Jew, you got all their stuff. That was a much better motivating factor than, "Jesus will love you more."

You didn't need to be a Jew. You were in deep weeds if your grandmother was a Jew.

Exactly. There were tons of people who could be ratted on. If uniformity is a necessary foundation for modernization, the Spanish found a creative way to get rid of dissidents who would have kept them clinging to remnants of a bygone religion.

I'm not sure that the Jews would have thought of themselves as "clinging to the remnants of a bygone religion". And I would have been pretty sure that nobody, then or now, would have thought "hey, let's torture and kill people who can be nominally distinguished from their neighbors by some accident of birth" would qualify as a "creative" solution to any problem.

Ok, he might not say exactly that, but Cullen Murphy sees it a little differently than many people: http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/gods-jury-the-inquisition-and-...

Would slavery be a better example than miscegenation?

> 177
Kind of. Of course slavery has existed in many places, and the American form of slavery was one of the most brutal. There is no excuse for the Church ignoring, and even condoning slavery. (And while some Christians were actively opposing slavery, many others were using the Bible as a tool to support it.

I dunno. Dawkins begins his book by quoting Lennon's Imagine. In the song Lennon imagines a world without nation states, possessions or religion. Given my druthers, I would like to see people focus on getting rid of nation states (a clear fiction) and possessions. Those are the underlying forces behind much of the violence in the Western World.

The idea that without religion, there wouldn't be wars, or even just fewer wars isn't a tenable position. Nation-states, yes, but most wars are about power and influence. I don't think we'll be able to change our fundamental nature. But religion does give those in power a way to manipulate the people they need to fight for them. If religion were to fade away, there would be plenty of other ideology to use.

>165 jjwilson61: What English Miscegenation laws? What theologians did you have in mind.

We have plenty of examples of countries of the same religion warring with one another.

Getting rid of nation-states wouldn't do much better, since we have plenty of examples of revolutions and civil wars.

Look at Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine wasn't even a country until recently.

>179 RidgewayGirl: "If religion were to fade away, there would be plenty of other ideology to use."

And if we're looking to the future rather than the distant past, I'd note that the Catholic Church under the last century or so of popes has been a leading light in advocating for peace. Pope Benedict XV put every last ounce of effort he had into averting World War I; Pope St. John XXIII's 1963 encyclical, Pacem in terris, called for universal nuclear disarmament, among other radical ideas to promote "Peace on earth;" Pope St. John Paul II used peace to bring down Communism in Poland and crack the Iron Curtain, and strenuously opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq (another area where Nancy Pelosi's "Catholic" identity failed her); Pope Benedict XVI continued such policies, and added what from a secular perspective would be extreme left-wing economic principles to them, in promotion of "integral human development in charity and truth," in his encyclical, Caritas in veritate; and Pope Francis has, by dint of character, simply brought the world's attention even more to his calls for peace through humility and poverty of spirit.

And of course, we are all keenly aware of the fact that our own @johnthefireman does more to advocate for peace in Africa every day than most of the rest of us do in a year, and he does so motivated by his religious faith.

Based on the evidence, getting rid of the Catholic Church would be a detriment to the future promotion of peace and advocacy for the poor.

(Unless, of course, evidence isn't necessary when it comes to calling for an end to religion, since ideology alone will do suffice.)

woops, skipped WWII

>183 RickHarsch: Well, the case of Pius XII is a bit more complicated. On the one hand, he did push hard on the diplomatic side to keep the peace in the late '30's; and he did shelter hundreds of Jews fleeing the Nazis in Vatican City (they often slept in the Sistine Chapel). On the other hand, the Catholic Church in Germany chose limited cooperation with the Nazi regime over complete persecution (though how much control Pius exerted over the decisions of the local bishops is a matter of dispute); and Pius did, in the end, adopt a policy of official neutrality that kept the Nazis (at first via the Italian fascists, and then later in their own right) from simply occupying the Vatican and destroying the Church as an international structure in Europe.

The question that looms large is whether he was able to do more good by such a policy, insofar as the Church could continue to operate and do things like shelter Jews in the Sistine Chapel; or whether he could have had a greater symbolic effect by opposing the Nazis through and through, and going to his death because of it.

(I'll note that many Catholics did go to their deaths because of it, including Sts. Edith Stein and Maximilian Kolbe.)

>182 nathanielcampbell: Based on the evidence, getting rid of the Catholic Church would be a detriment to the future promotion of peace and advocacy for the poor.

How about getting rid of religiosity altogether? A plus or minus for the potential for peace, do you think?

Mind you, as others have said, I think religion is a useful tool for those who want the justification for their actions, but in the end aren't all wars really about who gets to control the land? I don't know that religion contains any special magic directive to make that territorial instinct disappear, any more than any particular political ideology does.

>170 nathanielcampbell: Why can't you just admit that you spoke out of ignorance?

OK, It was a bad example, I'll find another example of religious opinions changing with the times when I have a chance.

>185 southernbooklady: "I don't know that religion contains any special magic directive to make that territorial instinct disappear"

(I'm intentionally writing "off the top of my head" here, so the following may contain some hidden flaws that I'm not seeing at first glance and that I will later regret, but...)

"Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also." --Matthew 6:19-21

(I could cite other passages where Jesus warns against earthly wealth, e.g. the parable of Lazarus and the Rich Man, or the advice to the young rich man who asks what to do to be perfect; but this passage will suffice for our current purposes.)

By setting life in this material world as a "pilgrimage" or "exile" from our true homeland (heaven / the City of God), Christianity seeks to break that attachment to territory and other material forms of possession and power, for it recognizes precisely the ways in which "the love of money" (and here money stands for that whole gamut of earthly wealth, power, prestige, etc.) "is the root of all evil."

>186 jjwilson61: "OK, It was a bad example, I'll find another example of religious opinions changing with the times when I have a chance."

Actually, support for the immorality of miscegenation among American protestants is precisely an example of religious opinions changing with the times, since they basically invented the religious support for such inhumane doctrine out of whole cloth, in order to match the times in which they lived.

>187 nathanielcampbell: Eh. That's a little too facile for me. When I say land, I do mean land. Not land as a stand in for material wealth. Land it at the basis of our sense of home, our sense of identity, our sense of who we are. Why else would exile be so terrible a punishment? Why else would refugee status be so awful a condition that causing it is regarded as a human rights violation? Really, I think we are where we live, even in a supposedly fluid country like America.

With the possible exception of Buddhism, religion (any religion) isn't about rejecting this world, but about learning what it means to live well in it. Tim once suggested that Christianity's approach was to expand the notion of the who belongs in "the tribe" to all human beings on earth. It's a good theory, but it relies on everyone wanting to be part of the tribe, so it does have it's problems in implementation.

>188 nathanielcampbell: Actually, support for the immorality of miscegenation among American protestants is precisely an example of religious opinions changing with the times,

OK, if you'll accept the example, doesn't that negate your dismissal of biologically or socially based morality because it changes over time?

One does not need to separate morality out into neat categories to have a comprehensive moral theory. In fact, none of the categories (Philosophical, biological, religious, or social--and there are probably more) are sufficient in and of themselves to both explain and provide a comprehensive moral theory.

I have no problem with some aspects of morality being social or biological. That does nothing to diminish my belief in religious moral theory.

>191 Arctic-Stranger: I was responding to Nate in >156 nathanielcampbell:.

How does a moral code differ from a legal code? What would happen if we were to expunge the concept of morals and replace it with the concept of laws? As--no more Ten Commandments, we've got the US Constitution?

Well, I would call that The U S of A.

The ten commandments are NOT part of our legal code; the constitution is. So, take a good look at congress. That is what you get! (I am not saying that the Ten Commandments would make for a better congress.)

We also get the Bill of Rights. (this is me, waving around my gun).

>193 IreneF: How does a moral code differ from a legal code?

In almost every way imaginable, I'd think. In what ways are they similar?

I'm grappling with the concept of morality because religious interests often want to "teach morals" or "bring the 10 Cs back into X" (the classroom, the courthouse, whatever), whereas we've already got laws that are, we hope, enforceable. I can't do much about my neighbor's covetous or lustful nature, but I can call the cops if she steals my car or tries to videotape my minor children with their legs spread. Etc. etc.

But we're told all the time that you can't legislate morality.

>198 jjwilson61:
Conversely, if we could teach morality, we wouldn't need laws; but I would rather deal with amorality than lawlessness.

>194 Arctic-Stranger: I wouldn't at all say that our government takes the separation of church and state seriously. There are legislators trying to put up the ten commandments in state houses, others saying that the founding fathers were all fundamentalists and based the Constitution on the Bible and every single Republican Congressperson claims that they are very serious Christians.

The current mess we are in is, in part, because we've worded our differences in religious, rather than secular terms.

One of the things that most christian theologians share is a belief in natural law. they believe that that moral behaviour is universal. They may vary in what they consider that behaviour to be but they think it applies universally. Many admit to uncertainty as to what precisely that moral code is and most will tell you that interpretations have changed. and only the more patriotic will claim their countries interpretation is the best possible. indeed they will point to none christian societies to praise their moral codes. the first circle of hell is full of none christians who obeyed gods law because that is what man was created or evolved to do.

All societies they say condemn stealing eschew killing. punish wrongdoers.. noble savages are held up as examples of catholic (note the small c) values. Christians went on the crusades and came back with a bunch of new laws copied from muslims (charities and trusts for example) because they saw them as more right, closer to Gods will than the laws that they had constructed. Consequently when they see an alien society in which they do not see their core values reflected they are much stronger in their condemnation of that aspect of the society.

And dismiss those who do not join in the condemnation as moral relativists.

>198 jjwilson61: But we're told all the time that you can't legislate morality.

It might make more sense to say that legislation is an attempt to apply collectively the moral principles we apply individually. Laws are a kind of consensus of the community's moral opinions, but with different priorities. "Self-sacrifice for the benefit of others," for example, is regarded as a good moral virtue at an individual level, but it not a virtue at a national level.

You might say we put laws in place to ensure that everyone can follow their own moral code to the best of their ability, without infringing on others seeking to do the same. So "the public good" is not always the individual good.

I think it's a grave mistake of logical and critical thinking to impute the motives of a small, select group of Christians who keep trying to push the 10 Commandments into public spaces (and usually creationism into the schools while they're at it) to the majority of religious believers. Many of us who are deeply committed to our faiths are also deeply committed to the protections of a pluralistic society, both on principle (freedom is, in fact, a moral good) and on pragmatism (we may find one day that, though we have enjoyed the security of being the majority up until now, we ourselves need those protections against a political tyranny).

I don't think the 10 Commandments should be posted in public places -- though I do think that posting prolific copies of the Constitution might not be a bad idea. Perhaps also Lincoln's second inaugural.

>202 southernbooklady: "So "the public good" is not always the individual good."

Indeed. The NBC Nightly News ran another story last night about the rising dangers of unvaccinated kids (they've resorted, rightly in my opinion, to running a version of this story about once every week or two). It included an interview with a pediatrician who turns patients away if the parents are going to refuse vaccines on non-medical grounds. Her rationale centered on valuing "the common weal" -- a value she sees as frighteningly in abeyance these days. (Where are those "values voters" when you need them?)

ETA: >195 southernbooklady: Trying to imagine you with a gun would have made me laugh out loud if the baby weren't asleep!

>204 nathanielcampbell: Trying to imagine you with a gun

I have a staple gun kicking around here somewhere.

Richard Dawkins needs to explain to these parents why their son is a burden on them and why it was immoral for them to let him live:

College hopeful receives letter of his dreams (CBS News):

All over the country, at this time of year, young men and women are heading off to college for the first time. It's a safe bet none of them is filled with more excitement and anticipation than this freshman.

For the past 20 years, Danny Holcombe and his wife, Sue, have kept a secret from their son. They have never told Rion, who has Down syndrome, that there are some things in life he will never be able to do.

Which is why, when some of Rion's friends left for college last year, he just figured he would go too. His parents say he even picked the college.

"Then he just started telling people he was going to go to Clemson," says Sue. When asked if they braced him for disappointment, Danny says, "We kept telling him, yeah, but he continued."

Although the Holcombes didn't know it at the time, Rion's dream wasn't entirely out of the question. Clemson University does have a program for people with intellectual disabilities, but it's highly competitive. Every year more than one hundred people apply for less than 10 openings.

Still, since Rion wasn't getting the hint, they let him apply. The letter from admissions arrived a few months ago. And after sneaking a peak, Danny and Sue recorded a home video of him opening his acceptance letter with much excitement.

"We are just waiting to see how he will react when it hits him," says Danny. "And he says, 'I got accepted.' And I think those words mean an awful lot ... It was just total, absolute joy."

When asked if he is still as happy as he was that day, Rion responds, "Oh, yeah."

Last weekend, Rion packed-up for Clemson. The two-year program will teach him job skills and how to live independently, which I'm sure his mother especially will appreciate. Rion says it will be very challenging, but he is up for it.

Twenty years ago there was no room on a college campus for someone like Rion. But today, more than 200 universities across the country offer some kind of program like this.

And Rion, for one, couldn't be more grateful for the opportunity. He took instantly to college life.

But his parents, on the other hand, feel like they are losing their baby.

Sue says, "I've always been able to control what he hears, what he sees, who he spends time with..."

Danny agrees saying, "It's not going to be easy."

Proof that, although Down syndrome can be overcome, empty nest syndrome remains incurable.

I suspect that if Dawkins felt the "need" to do anything of the sort he would say that his point still stands. "Not being born" renders all the what ifs that might have come afterwards irrelevant.

>207 southernbooklady: If I were to kill you today, it would render all the what ifs that might come afterwards irrelevant?

That's got to be the most ridiculously, outrageously immoral thing I've come across in a long while! Good God, if that's how Richard Dawkins approaches the world, he's a certifiable psychopath!

>208 nathanielcampbell: "Amoral" rather than "immoral," I think. But you are assuming that a fetus is a person. Dawson isn't. That's why the charge "but what if your mother had aborted you?" is an absurd question to pose, and why "when does life (or personhood) begin?" remains the core conflict in the abortion debate. You are surely aware of this.

Still, time only moves in one direction for us, and the future is always unknown. So as a rule we tend to render judgment people for the actions they take in the here and now, and not usually for "what could have been." "What could have been" is a very ephemeral construct.

>202 southernbooklady:
"Self-sacrifice for the benefit of others," for example, is regarded as a good moral virtue at an individual level, but it not a virtue at a national level.

We call it "conscription".

>209 southernbooklady: Yes, it all hinges on the question: who qualifies as a human person, worthy of the protections of life?

We used to say that if you had black skin, you weren't worthy of all those protections, rights and dignities. We used to say that if you were a woman, you weren't worthy. We used to say that if you were gay or transsexual, you weren't worthy.

(You yourself fight tooth-and-nail against laws that restrict civil rights to gays and lesbians, and you are commended today for doing so.)

Gestational age, apparently, is a physical difference upon which we are still happy to discriminate.

(Yes, I know, I'm playing a bit of rhetorical card here; yes, I know, we've had many conversations before about why the infant-in-the-womb is a more complex case because her life is inextricably linked to her mother's; yes, I know that I'm simplifying those complexities considerably for rhetorical effect.)

BUT: why is the passionate fight for the rights of the unborn less worthy of respect than the passionate fight for the rights of gays and lesbians, or women, or people of different skin colors (provided that such a fight also respects the mother -- yes, I know, pro-life activists often seem to come off poorly in that respect)?

Why, in a conversation about abortion, are we supposed to default to the view of the Dawkins' of the world, that unborn children are owed no modicum of respect or protection?

No one is supposed to "default to the view of the Dawkins' of the world" except Richard Dawkins. But your phrasing suggests that you do think people who don't agree with you must therefore agree with him. That makes any discussion doomed from the start, don't you think?

Nor does your emotive language appeal to me. Telling me that I think "unborn children are owed no modicum of respect or protection" is another way to say that I am a baby murderer. I've heard that language before. It wasn't convincing then, it isn't convincing now. In fact, all it really does is convince me that the argument over where/when personhood begins is futile. Far better to sidestep the argument altogether by reducing the reasons a woman would want or need an abortion.

Which...to bring this back, again, to Dawson and the reality of Down Syndome children, would mean creating other options -- good options -- for people who can't take care of or aren't prepared for having a Down Syndome child. Then, everyone is satisfied. You are satisfied because the child is not aborted. The birth parents are satisfied because they do not have to bear the burden they were wholly unprepared for, the child is satisfied because whatever the alternative option was, he or she is happy and well-cared for. And even Dawkins is satisfied because the no one is suffering.

I'm all for committing our social resources and capital towards creating more options for pregnant women, not fewer. But I remain implacably opposed to any policy that prioritizes a fetus over the woman that carries it.

>211 nathanielcampbell: Why, in a conversation about abortion, are we supposed to default to the view of the Dawkins' of the world, that unborn children are owed no modicum of respect or protection?

But your the one wanting us to default to your position at the risk of being labelled immoral, as you did to Dawkin's views in >208 nathanielcampbell: in most colorful language.

Dawkins is a wuss. What if individuals were not born? Bah, I say.

What if the entire human race had not come into existence? The balance of our planet would be much healthier. It is not the birth of DS kids that is immoral. It is the birth of HUMANS in general!

Hence, Dawkins (and my birth) is immoral.

And if none of us were born, that would take care of ALL the what ifs.

>214 Arctic-Stranger:

No, it's not that simple. Dawkins is talking about the morality or immorality of informed decisions (and to be precise, he has addressed ONE HYPOTHETICAL, to one person, who then agreed with him). He has NOT, anywhere that I've seen, proposed eliminating the disabled.

He is also aware that we are all, or almost all, going to experience various forms of disease and disability before we die, so I'm fairly sure he is not "wussily" envisioning life with no pain whatsoever. His ideal, rather, seems to be limiting the pain that we knowingly may or may not (pending decision) introduce into the world.

Let's posit a society of limited resources. Do we want to allocate an extra amount to the care of certain people? Or should everyone get the same amount? Does allowing a family with a disabled kid more resources mean some other family isn't going to get as much?

In the here-and-now, poor kids don't get what they need, yet some people think poor people shouldn't have kids if they can't afford them. Should there be a means test for pregnancies?

>216 IreneF:

Should there be a means test for pregnancies?

I don't see the point--people can go bankrupt, or, I'm told, win lotteries. Rich aunts die, debilitated parents come to live with one, someone loses a job, the market crashes... the situation changes all the time.

"Life" is unfair and will always be unfair. The question is really only what *you* are going to do with the information and means allotted to *you*. That would include knowledge of what kind and degree of support your environment is likely to give you. Do you live in a country with advanced medical care? that is available to you? so that your child will have at least that advantage? Or not.

In most countries, the daughter of our friends would have been dead within weeks, and that would have been that.

The cost of her survival is not calculable in material terms alone.

Of course, IRL there's no point, but some people seem to think there ought to be. I wish there were some way to prevent certain people from becoming parents. Alcoholics, for example.

Also, IRL, there is de facto rationing of resources.

I was not referring to Dawkins in particular, but to several posts here where people wanted to do away with the tenuous "What ifs." Dawkins seems, as far as I can tell, to think that having a DS child is cruel. I think you can make a valid case that having any child is cruel. It is cruel to the earth, it is cruel to the parent and it is cruel to the child. The child could die, causing more pain to a parent than they could ever know. The child could turn out to be a mass murderer, or worse yet, could be the person who single-handedly brings back disco from the dead.

And given the way we treat the planet as humans, I think our time as come and gone.

Of course I am over reacting.

But it is a point worth considering. At what point can we say with any integrity that any person would be better to not be alive? (This conversation brings to mind Sarah Palin's death panels, a fiction in her head, but I see people moving toward that here.)

I read an interview with Arlo Guthrie several years ago. He was asked what were the odds that he had ALS. 50/50 he answered. And his children? If I have it, 50/50. If i don't have it, zero.

Why did you have children, knowing that they could die one day? asked the clueless reporter.

All children die, he answered. and then he said, "Woody had me. I ain't complaining about that.

Of course this was before he knew whether he had it or not. As it turns out, he does not.

Who the hell has the power to tell any other person they have no right to be born!

It wasn't ALS, it was Huntington's Disease. Different genetics. There is now a prenatal test for HD.

Oops. I have ALS on the brain. You are absolutely right. The test did not exist when Arlo had his kids of course.

>216 IreneF: Wow. A society in which poor people are forbidden to have families, and the disabled are dismissed because they take too many resources away from the able-bodied?

Are we seriously having a conversation in which such a distopia is suggested as a good idea?

>222 nathanielcampbell: Are we seriously having a conversation in which such a distopia is suggested as a good idea?

>216 IreneF: is not described as either good or bad, but as hypothetical.

>222 nathanielcampbell: Are we seriously having a conversation in which such a distopia is suggested as a good idea?

No, we are not. Well, you might be, but the rest of us are not.

>223 southernbooklady: But the hypothetical follows as the logical conclusion of the utilitarianism that you think Dawkins is employing.

>225 nathanielcampbell: and yet in the 200+ posts in this topic, no one has labeled Dawson's view "good." We've been talking about the implications.

>222 nathanielcampbell:
No, we are theorizing about a society that has certain disturbing parallels to life in the US.

E.g. https://www.facebook.com/pages/If-you-cant-afford-the-kids-you-haveSTOP-MAKING-M...

Some people view having children as a privilege and not a right. Poor women are still sterilized:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alex-stern/sterilization-california-prisons_b_3631...
The doc who did the operations thought he would save the state some welfare dollars:
"Dr. James Heinrich, who performed tubal ligations of women in prisons, stated that this practice saved the state money because his involuntary clients were likely to have 'unwanted children as they procreated more.'"

So, if you are a welfare recipient, can the state insist that you have prenatal testing, and demand that you abort a child that's not healthy?

>226 southernbooklady: Actually, I think Dawkins' view is perfectly defensible, and I would not advise anyone I loved any differently, if they asked my advice on the matter. It's also a view that many reasonable people disagree with, so don't think it's one I would insist that others should follow, but if the decision were mine, I could not act other than "abort it and try again" and think I were acting morally.

>219 Arctic-Stranger: "But it is a point worth considering. At what point can we say with any integrity that any person would be better to not be alive?"

Dawkins was not considering this. He was considering whether it was better to have never been born.

>228 kiparsky: Amniocentesis has a 1 percent chance of causing a miscarriage. Any informed person who has this test has already decided that there are more important. things than bringing a foetus to term.

Any couple of child-bearing age makes decisions of life and death all the time. Every month they use birth control, they've potentially prevented someone from being born. It doesn't mean that we need to extrapolate out to "what if everyone used birth control all the time, how would you like the world then, eh?" silliness. Most fertilized eggs fail to implant in the uterus. Is this a bloodbath of (sorry) Biblical proportions?

And yet we don't look at these potential parents as murderers, and they don't look at themselves that way either. People have to make these decisions. We don't live in a world anymore where it was considered normal for a woman to just have as many babies as her body could manage, and luckily the older ones could bring up the youngest ones once she died. And it's a better world for that, isn't it?

A couple being told that their expected child has Down's syndrome has an awful lot to process. If you've wanted a baby, it feels real even before it's conceived. That they would be able to look at all the factors involved and decide that they can't do it, is not a good time to start going on about dystopian governments and bleak futures. The more compassionate response would be to support them no matter what they chose, to comfort them and to be supportive.

Of course, instead of that, we live in a society where people will feel obligated to tell them that they are baby killers, to wave offensive signs at them as they walk in the clinic, to do their best to make an already difficult situation infinitely more painful.

>230 SimonW11:

Maybe the phrasing in that post is throwing me off...

There are risks associated with innumerable things we do daily, beginning with getting in and out of shower. It doesn't mean we hold our lives cheap in the bathroom.

Amniocentesis carries some (small) risk of miscarriage. Women who submit to it are a sub-category of pregnant women with known age- or inheritance-related risks of conceiving children with genetic defects, orders of magnitude higher than the risk of losing a foetus to amniocentesis.

It is completely distorting to say that these women don't care about "bringing the foetus to term". They care a LOT.

>231 RidgewayGirl: Any couple of child-bearing age makes decisions of life and death all the time. Every month they use birth control, they've potentially prevented someone from being born. It doesn't mean that we need to extrapolate out to "what if everyone used birth control all the time, how would you like the world then, eh?" silliness.

This. Thank you for bringing sanity back to the conversation.

Every zygote is sacred!

>231 RidgewayGirl: " That they would be able to look at all the factors involved and decide that they can't do it, is not a good time to start going on about dystopian governments and bleak futures. The more compassionate response would be to support them no matter what they chose, to comfort them and to be supportive. "

I don't think anyone here is suggesting otherwise than to respond to parents with compassion, comfort, and support as they make that difficult decision. I know that I've indicated that I would not judge harshly the individual couple who found themselves in that agonizing position, because it's a situation that simply cannot be prejudged. It is only a decision that can be made in the moment, by those who are living its complexities.

The extrapolation to dystopian governments isn't based on the complexities of those individual decisions. Rather, it is based on the utilitarian presumption that says from the outset that if that individual decision is to carry the child to term, it's immoral. Dawkins has prejudged the morality of the decision; though not a parent of a child diagnosed with DS in utero, he presumes to pontificate on the morality of the decisions made by those parents. Dawkins' approach to making decisions says that children with DS like Rion Holcombe in >206 nathanielcampbell: are not worthy of being born, period, end of story, because they take up too many resources. That's what leads to the dystopia -- the creation of a blanket statement that those whose care is "burdensome" ought never to be born at all.

One thing that I thougt was interesting about the CBS report in >206 nathanielcampbell: was the note that more than 200 American universities now have programs specifically devoted to the education of the mentally disabled. I wonder what Dawkins, as an academic and educator, thinks of those? Are they a "waste of resources"?

>235 nathanielcampbell: The extrapolation to dystopian governments isn't based on the complexities of those individual decisions. Rather, it is based on the utilitarian presumption that says from the outset that if that individual decision is to carry the child to term, it's immoral.

That extrapolation can be reversed: we currently live in a world where the prevailing assumption is that an individual decision not to carry a child to term is immoral. So..just a different kind of dystopia, do you think?

>235 nathanielcampbell: "though not a parent of a child diagnosed with DS in utero, he presumes to pontificate on the morality of the decisions made by those parents."

So you think that only women should ever opine about abortion?

>235 nathanielcampbell: Dawkins' approach to making decisions says that children with DS like Rion Holcombe in >206 nathanielcampbell: nathanielcampbell: are not worthy of being born, period, end of story, because they take up too many resources.

I don't think that Dawkins actually gave us his reasoning for why it would be immoral. It's equally likely that he thinks that the child itself will lead a life of suffering.

Here in the UK Amniocentesis is offered to all expectant mothers.

"It is completely distorting to say that these women don't care about "bringing the foetus to term". They care a LOT." Yes that is a complete distortion of what wrote had I meant that I would have said that.

Amniocentesis is an elective choice. One elects to take a small risk of not having a child. In return for knowing if that child would have any of a wide range of disorders some a lot less "cute" than Downs Syndrome.

Why take that risk?

I think it is because they desire to have healthy child.

I think they are willing to risk losing that foetus to find out if it healthy.

Why do you think they take this risk?

I do not think they would take that same risk if the test was performed on a child. Indeed I think it would be unethical to take this risk on a child. Therefore I assume that any ethical person who takes this test has already decided that a foetus is not a child.

In the US, parents can sue for wrongful birth, and affected children can sue for wrongful life.

Wrongful birth is a legal cause of action in some common law countries in which the parents of a congenitally diseased child claim that their doctor failed to properly warn of their risk of conceiving or giving birth to a child with serious genetic or congenital abnormalities.1 Thus, the plaintiffs claim, the defendant prevented them from making a truly informed decision as to whether or not to have the child. Wrongful birth is a type of medical malpractice tort. It is distinguished from wrongful life, in which the child sues the doctor.

--Wikipedia

The chance of miscarriage from amniocentesis is less than 1%. A really quick google search yields a risk of 1 in 300 to 1 in 500.

>241 jjwilson61: NHS tells me
If you have amniocentesis after 15 weeks of pregnancy, the chance of having a miscarriage is estimated to be about 1 in 100. The risk is higher if the procedure is carried out before 15 weeks.

>239 SimonW11:

Therefore I assume that any ethical person who takes this test has already decided that a foetus is not a child.

I think this is a fair assumption.

We turned down the offer precisely because we thought our child was a child. After hearing her heartbeat, I don't think I could have ever thought anything else, and reason be dammed. Hell, I would have died before I let that heartbeat stop.

But clearly my feelings are not universally held.

>239 SimonW11:

I have NO IDEA why amniocentesis should be offered to every pregnant woman (doesn't sound likely to me, tbh), but I can't address the policies of the UK health system. But, I take it that it's not FORCED on anyone. Point is, you are still exaggerating the risks of amniocentesis and still completely ignoring the very reason for the test, which is the high incidence of chromosomal defects in pregnancies at risk.

Why take that risk?

I think it is because they desire to have healthy child.

Right, exactly. That is why women undergo genetic testing--because the risk is worth taking to them. (And remember that every case is individual, every case involves different considerations, with only the baseline risk known.) And like I said, the risk of losing a child to amniocentesis is orders of magnitude LOWER than the risk of a chromosomal defect in pregnancies of certain classes of women.

Therefore I assume that any ethical person who takes this test has already decided that a foetus is not a child.

(Weirdly, you seem to (and #243 does it straight out) have bizarrely equated amniocentesis with abortion. You do realise that would be complete bollocks?)

The woman who takes the test has decided that the risk of the test is WORTH it--to her. That's all you can know--everything else is the baggage YOU are tacking on, for what reason I do not know. What's your problem with this, if there is a problem?

If you are implying that exposing a foetus to the risk of testing is unethical... well, actually, in that case I'm not having any further conversations. I know too many women who underwent genetic testing in their struggles for children, and do not care to see them pissed on by twats on the internet.

If you are not implying that, then this is a trivial observation whose relevance eludes me. No, a foetus is not a child, strictly speaking. A foetus may develop into a child. People do feel differently about foetuses to how they feel about a toddler. So apparently does God, the abortionist supreme.

In older pregnant women, there are very real risks of chromosomal defects that can result in a baby being born who will then live in physical agony for days, weeks or even a few years. Women deciding to undergo an uncomfortable procedure that is safe (99%, at the most dismal reckoning) because they do not want to cause their longed for and already loved offspring to die in agony can hardly be considered to be selfish. Both spina bifida and anencephaly are detected in an amniocentesis, along with many other severe disorders. It's not all just not wanting to deal with a child with mild Down's Syndrome.

Here's an account of an ultrasound that indicated Dandy Walker Syndrome.

http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/ivf-life-pregnancy-embryo-a-...

While some children born with the mildest form of Dandy Walker Syndrome may have normal cognition and only moderate physical disabilities, Smith’s neonatal neurologist informed her that those like Alice are doomed to a short life of interminable suffering. “Her brief life was going to be a tortured existence,” says Smith, who explains that her daughter would have needed a feeding tube from the start and that she would have thrown up and seized constantly. “The counselor told us that Alice would not be able to sleep comfortably, even with medication,” Smith says. “When I heard that my baby wouldn’t even get peace from the pain in her sleep, that was it for me.”

It's just a lot more nuanced than "she must not love her baby" kind of rhetoric. Which is why it should be left to a woman to make these decisions with her family and doctors, and to not be subject to sweeping value judgements.

>244 LolaWalser: That is why women undergo genetic testing--because the risk is worth taking to them. (And remember that every case is individual, every case involves different considerations, with only the baseline risk known.)

It seems to me that medical advances like genetic testing strain the feasibility of the "life begins at conception" position. It's a black-and-white approach to a reality that is increasingly nuanced thanks to medical science.

Speaking of maternal age (and it might be useful to recall that there are conditions associated with increased paternal age as well), here's a chart:

http://php.med.unsw.edu.au/embryology/index.php?title=Genetic_risk_maternal_age

Notice the risk for "any" chromosomal abnormality going from 1 in 526 for a 20-year old to 1 in 8 for a 49 year old mother. Or 1 in 66 at 40.

THIS is why some might feel testing is worth it.

>246 southernbooklady:

And to think that embryology is considerably older than genetic testing--people have known there is development, with different stages, for a very long time. I don't think this is an issue for anyone other than those who believe there is "ensoulment" going on.

Not that I meant to get into another **shudder** abortion debate--it's just that I can't stand to see genetic testing talked about as if it amounted to abortion.

Strangers aside, three of my friends had children first in their forties. I saw their hopes and fears up close and personal. And yes, they wanted healthy children, and yes they feared genetic defects, and yes they tested. As it happens, not one of their pregnancies, four in all, had a problem (past conception, which is a different story). But the very idea that there is something unethical or cavalier about their behaviour... I can't say how much the opposite is true. How much hope, care, strain, anxiety went into it. How much it cost them.

>248 LolaWalser: But the very idea that there is something unethical or cavalier about their behaviour... I can't say how much the opposite is true.

Do you think there is a parallel between genetic testing (when warranted) and being vaccinated? Would it be unethical (perhaps Dawkins would say "immoral") not to test if you knew there was a risk?

I don't see that. DS and other genetic disorders are not catching. If you don't vaccinate your children, they can be a danger to other children.

My ex and I chose not to have amneo for our last child. We were both in our early forties, and neither of us were crazy about abortion as an option for us. But we did have them vaccinated. One was a personal choice, and we were not posing a danger to other kids. The other was a community issue.

One could say that if you have disabled children you are drawing on community resources, and in that sense it is a community issue. But there is a big difference between needing help to raise a disabled child and putting other kids in danger.

>250 Arctic-Stranger: Well, I admit, Arctic, I wasn't considering the possible danger to other children, but the potential suffering of the actual child involved, who you are certainly endangering when you ignore certain medical realities.

If you are talking about DS, then I am not sure you can say there is inevitable suffering. Other genetic disorders, maybe or probably.

As a parent though, I know that my children will suffer. And it hurts to watch. Usually in little ways, but I know that I cannot protect from LIFE. From the time bullies were mean to my three year old, who came home crying that people were not supposed to act that way, to living in a dysfunctional household, to their parents divorce, to the day when they may lose their jobs and become homeless, get cancer, lose a spouse tragically...who knows.

One thing I did when I was a hospital chaplain--I stood beside a lot of beds where the person in the bed, or the people beside the bed woke up and thought it would a normal day. Now they were either in the bed, suffering or dying, or beside the bed, looking at a loved one who is dying.

There is no way to protect from that, it is probably that most people will encounter some form of that kind of suffering in life.

I don't know it this is true or apocryphal, but I heard or read that Augustine lost a best friend. He vowed never to love again, because the pain was so deep.

That, IMHO is no way to live. We take the risks, and we live.

What if they were to identify a gene that made people prefer same sex lovers. You find your fetus has that gene? As a parent, knowing that your child may suffering bullying, discrimination, and other things, would you think it might be desirable to abort that child, hoping to spare them future possible suffering?

Now granted there is a big difference between being gay and having DS, so the scale is really different. But for some parents, that might be the one thing that could convince them to have an abortion.

(For the record, I would never choose abortion in that case.)

Gattaca.

>252 Arctic-Stranger: I know that I cannot protect from LIFE.

No, but your ability to protect them from some things does evolve. We don't deliberately expose our children to harm if we have any other option. Medical science has opened other options for people...a multiplicity of options, since as you say a confirmation of Down Syndrome is a vastly different matter than other more serious and hopeless genetic disorders.

But a "life begins at conception" doesn't allow one to take advantage of those options. At least in theory. Life is life.

Advances in medicine frequently bring up these kinds of ethical considerations, and traditional moral constructs aren't always sufficient to deal with the situation, which is why I asked.

>253 nathanielcampbell: We aren't discussing genetic engineering.

>244 LolaWalser: the NHS routinely offers the test because the majority of things it tests for are not linked to any particular group. or to such diverse groups that anyone is likely to benefit from it.

We did not consider it unethical when we took the test.

"A foetus may develop into a child. People do feel differently about foetuses to how they feel about a toddler."

You are mistaken. as evidence I offer post >243 hf22: Some people consider them different some do not.

I am unable to refute your opinions about mythical beings. but really are they relevant?

Well, as society evolves, I can protect them from more and more. I probably do not have to worry that the Lord of Manor will take my children to make them his personal slaves. Examples are countless.

Of course this raises an interesting question; What SHOULD I protect my children from? If I try to shield them from all suffering I am not doing them a favor. On the other hand, exposing them to smallpox is stupid.

What are the acceptable risks?

In older women the risk of not having another child is raised simply because the window of opportunity is closing. Balancing the risks is never easy.

As to genetic disorders. I would think long and hard before passing them on even as regressive traits. Sickle cell anemia. (to pick something else tested for by amniocentesis) is one hell of a time bomb to land your descendents with.

>256 Arctic-Stranger: What are the acceptable risks?

Medical advances changes the answer to this question on a regular basis.

>252 Arctic-Stranger:
Aborting someone who might be gay is just as bad as sex-selective abortion, even though the future for girls is fairly grim in certain areas.

The only justification for sex-selective abortion would be if the mother carries a gene for a sex-linked disorder for which there is no prenatal test. In that case, she would abort her male children.

The only justification for a sex selective abortion is the choice of the mother. At least, if we still assume it is always a woman's choice, and that is the moral stance.

>258 southernbooklady:

I was talking about more than medical risks. How will our children's children fare under climate change? There is a good chance that the California drought will become more severe and a life long event. Imagine if California can no longer sustain its own population.

My children will probably not do better in life, financially, than my parents.

If any of my children are gay, they will be bullied at some point in their lives.

And, as I said before, my children will experience emotional, if not physical suffering some time in their lives.

>249 southernbooklady:

Would it be unethical (perhaps Dawkins would say "immoral") not to test if you knew there was a risk?

It's the same question, is it not? Refusing to test in spite of knowing that a pregnancy is high-risk logically means that you are wiling to raise, or at least care for (as far as possible) even a child with abnormalities. (At least I hope that is what people who refuse testing think, that they are not just relying on odds or counting on a miracle. That they ARE as willing to care for a sick as for a healthy child. @kiparsky suggested a thought experiment on this but it's notable that nobody of the anti-Dawkinses took it up.)

So we're back to "is it unethical/immoral to knowingly bring into the world a sick child". I don't think there's a right or wrong answer. Only personal morality matters here, and people with opposite opinions can act out of the same impulses to "do good".

>260 Arctic-Stranger:
So sex selective abortion, as practiced today in parts of the world, is okay with you?

>244 LolaWalser:

(Weirdly, you seem to (and #243 does it straight out) have bizarrely equated amniocentesis with abortion. You do realise that would be complete bollocks?)

No, just proceeding on the basis it carries a risk of miscarriage, which is a much higher risk than I can accept for the life of what I consider to be my child.

>261 LolaWalser:

Refusing to test in spite of knowing that a pregnancy is high-risk logically means that you are wiling to raise, or at least care for (as far as possible) even a child with abnormalities.

Yes, that it what it means.

Why subject a pregnancy to amniocentesis, a test which carries the risk of miscarriage (we got told 1 in 200), when the information it provides is useless to you (i.e. would not abort anyway)?

> 260

No, but if the basis for abortion is the woman's choice, then how can I oppose it? If a woman wants a boy, and not a girl, then how can I say her abortion is in any way immoral?

Unless of course there is a higher standard for why someone would choose to have an abortion. But according to the law, and the basic pro-choice stance, there is no higher standard.

>264 Arctic-Stranger: And there's the logical rub with the popular stance among pro-choice politicians that they want abortion to be, "safe, legal, and rare." The question is, why would they want it to be rare? If a fetus is just a clump of cells in a woman's body, for her to do with as she pleases, than what possible reason would a politician have to want one of her choices about what to do with that clump to be "rare"? IT shouldn't matter to them whether abortion is rare or not, just as it shouldn't matter to them whether a woman dyes her hair blond or black, or pierces her navel or her ears, or gets breast implants or breast reduction surgery. Each of these decisions are made out of the woman's sovereign rights over her body, and the pro-choice politician should have nothing whatsoever to do with those decisions.

The answer, of course, is both blindingly obvious and yet difficult for the pro-choice side to admit: we have an innate impulse to place some higher value than "random clump of unimportant cells" to a human fetus. Try as they might, pro-choice politicians still cannot keep their basic humanity from seeping into their supposedly disinterested support for "a woman's right to choose." In the end, their basic need to recognize the inchoate humanity of the fetus forces its way into their views on abortion, despite their best efforts to choke it out.

ETA: I should make it clear, again, that I am not calling for the illegalization of abortion, as I believe it would do more harm than good. I do not want women in desperate circumstances to be forced to seek out the proverbial back-alley crone with a coat-hanger.

I think there is a middle ground between a fetus as a fully developed human with full political rights and just a blob of protoplasm (or whatever).

A fetus is a potential life, unlike my appendix. On the other hand, a fetus is not a human.

If a doctor ever came to me and said, "Your wife is in danger; we either save her or her baby," I would not hesitate to tell the doctor to save my wife.

On the other hand, when my ex and I found out we were pregnant, in our early 40s, we chose not to have any testing because abortion was not an option for us.

I am of the "save, legal and rare" school, for a variety reasons.

Women will have abortions. Let's not kill them in the process. Making it illegal will be about as effective as making pot illegal. But we are talking about a potential human life, so let's not treat a fetus like an appendix.

>265 nathanielcampbell: The question is, why would they want it to be rare?

Because women who have more sexual education, more access to health care and contraception, more control over their sexual lives, are less likely to become accidentally pregnant and thus less likely to find themselves in a situation where they need to have an abortion.

And contrary to what you say, I think the pro-choice side of the debate is well aware of the moral dilemma posed by abortion. Their advocacy--sex ed, contraception, etc--has probably done more practical good than the conservative abstinence-based approach.

>264 Arctic-Stranger: No, but if the basis for abortion is the woman's choice, then how can I oppose it? If a woman wants a boy, and not a girl, then how can I say her abortion is in any way immoral?

How, indeed? I guess you have to let her make her own decisions - which is kind of the point. You might stand on your soapbox and say that "such and such an action is immoral", and that's fine. (in that case, you're more or less the same as Dawkins, just taking a different perspective, and nobody listens to him when it comes to making these decisions either)

Of course, there's another problem when someone takes that soapbox and puts it between a person and the choice they've made. Then we're getting into coercion, assault, and all sorts of other rudeness, and decent people simply don't do that. But that's a kettle of fish of a different color.

>265 nathanielcampbell: The question is, why would they want it to be rare?
The simplest answer to that is, we'd like to minimize the sorts of interventions we have to do. If a woman would prefer not to be pregnant, we'd prefer to prevent the pregnancy because that's better for all concerned. Another simple answer to this is that "rare" is just an observable consequence of "safe and legal". In general, when women have more control over their own fertility, there are fewer abortions. (so your caveat about not calling for tighter regulation on abortions is welcome)

>264 Arctic-Stranger:
There are people who think abortion is okay in certain cases, such as rape or incest. I don't understand that logic, because if the fetus is a human being and has rights, then those rights aren't abrogated by the circumstances of its conception.

Sex-selective abortion, as practiced in China, India, and some other countries, is sexism, pure and simple, because boys are valued more than girls. It's not a matter of maternal preference for frilly pink dresses vs. denim overalls. It's social pressure.

ETA: I find that immoral.

Hm. I suppose I should ask: does "X is immoral" imply that "X should be forbidden"?

For me, it does not. For me, a judgement of morality is a statement about me: I feel a certain way about an act or a class of acts. I might feel revulsion about a person who commits that act, but still, that's my problem and not theirs unless they value my good opinion for some reason. Since others can have differing views on morality, and there's no reasonable way to determine whose morality is right, morality just isn't a reasonable basis for law - at all. And obviously law and morality don't really have anything to do with each other in practice. Some things are both immoral and illegal, like murder. Other things are perfectly fine, morally speaking, but illegal and reasonably so (jaywalking). Other things are morally unacceptable and legal (I'm sure we can find examples in the banking industry). And of course, many things are both legal and morally acceptable, as we'd hope.

Under this view, Dawkins' statement is perfectly acceptable. He is discussing a point of ethics, making an argument about what he feels is the best action to take in a particular situation, and anyone is welcome to take a different view. Someone in the situation that he's talking about can consider his views, and either be moved by them or not.

But for anyone who takes the contrary view, and believes that law should be based on judgements of morality, Dawkins' statement sounds very different. In that case, it sounds like he's advocating some sort of sanction on people who do not abort fetuses that he considers "defective". And of course that's a horrifying concept. If I thought he were advocating any such thing, then I too would find his position repulsive.

Is this the root of the problem? Is there anyone taking the latter view of Dawkins' statement?

I think it is biology. In those cultures boys earn the money. Less boys, less money. A girl will cost you more.

I am not sure what ethic you are using to say it is immoral. If abortion is not immoral, then on what grounds do you say, "Yes, it is your choice, but since I don't like the choices you are making, YOUR choice is immoral."

The rape and incest objection is one reason why I don't find it convincing that abortion is immoral in every case. If the fetus IS a human life, then no matter how it was conceived, it has every right to live. If the mother's life is in danger, you do not have the right to kill another human to save her. (t would be like mom needs a new liver, and her son becomes the unwilling donor.)

However, believe it or not, I am actually with you on sex selected abortions, at least in America. "Choice" in the end, is not real compelling basis for an ethical argument.

>271 Arctic-Stranger:
My ethic? Denigrating half the human race as less worthy to be born, to have a life, is not immoral?

There's no demographic evidence that sex-selective abortion happens much in the West, but it happens enough in China and India to skew sex-ratio numbers in the two most populous countries in the world. It's illegal in India, but that doesn't stop it from happening.

Monument Seeks to End Silence on Killings of the Disabled by the Nazis
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/03/world/europe/monument-seeks-to-end-silence-on-...

Design comment: blue glass wall gives impression of old B&W photos that suggests commonality of visitors with victims of the Nazis.

273> ...which has nothing to do with this topic.

>272 IreneF:

There is a difference between abortion as a legal issue and abortion as a moral issue. If sex selective abortions are illegal, then they are illegal. I will not dispute that. They are not here in the U.S. of A.

You are saying it is wrong for a fetus to be "less worthy to be born" just because it is female.

Most pro-life people say that it is wrong to say that ANY fetus is less worthy to be born. You seem to be in at least half agreement with them.

The immorality is not the abortion, it's the sex selection. It's an act of gender oppression, a cultural and social prejudice that leads parents to make the decision to abort when they otherwise wouldn't. It's not a free choice. Far different than a decision made for truly personal reasons.

>276 IreneF::it's not the abortion it's the sex selection?

This is a crystalized nugget, a perfect specimen, of specious and absurd modern pop-ethics. "It isn't the crime that so abhorrent, it is the motive!"

Good grief. The act of abortion kills its victim, regardless of status, gender, health, abilities. That's the immorality, and there are no circumstances (read, "personal reasons") that mitigate that truth.

"You want to kill your child? Sure, but you have to have a good and socially approved reason for doing so. Just check this box."

The central issue about having abortion can be for many reasons.

We ask yourself.

Is abortion a right thing to do?

1.Governed by religious ethics ?

2.Valid Personal reasons? - Teen (unmarried mothers) pregnancy, "economical" reason (not ready to be a mother), someone's else baby and etc..

3.To prevent in having future burden to bring up an sub-normal baby to adulthood - retarded,down syndrome, gender of the fetus you wish not to have, conjured (Siamese twins) twins, "disfigured" fetus, " blind, deaf or dumb", "sick" fetus
and etc.

Here we are faced with an issue of "legality" and "moral ethics".

The "would be" mother will have to decide whether it is a right and wise decision to go ahead with the abortion.

There are medical risks and dangers to the "mother" undergoing the abortion's procedure especially by the "unqualified".

Adoption is another option instead of abortion , this will make a childless couple wanting to bring up the child as her own.

>277 enevada: It isn't the crime that so abhorrent, it is the motive!

As a rule, we think motives matter. That's why killing someone by accident, or in war, is not considered as immoral as killing them so you can have all their money.

You want to kill your child?

And we are back to whether or not the fetus is a child. You think so. Others don't.

>277 enevada: Abortion isn't a crime.

>280 jjwilson61:: thanks for the update.

http://www.catholicnews.com

Search: Abortion

" Every unborn child,though unjustly condemned to be aborted,has the face of the Lord, who even before his birth,and then as soon as he was born,experienced the rejection of the world. " - Pope Francis, 2013

" And every old person,even if infirm and at the end of his days,carries with him the face of Christ.They must not be thrown away!" - Pope Francis,2013

Are these statements justified in a moral context?

Demographers estimate that about 100 million women and girls are missing from Asia because of sex-selective abortion and infanticide. Their potential membership in the human race is obviously less important than their gender.

No doubt infanticide has always got widespread condemnation across most cultures
and religions,but abortion has always been a controversial issue, Roman Catholics are against abortion.So,what do you think? Is a fetus a person?

Think hard.This question and debate could go on.depending on what a person's
particular perceptions and religious beliefs are.

Abortion was made safe by legalization in some countries to facilitate the medical safety for women and young girls who are pregnant many times without their consensual consent or not to have a "husband" by marriage.

When one believes that the developing fetus is a person or not,we know that the woman or young girl carrying the fetus is indeed a PERSON who has the LEGAL RIGHTS regarding how her body will be "intruded" or "used" in a sense to get rid of the unwanted fetus.

It is a hard decision for them to abort her baby or not. It is a matter of one's decision of a pregnant woman or young girl.

When a pregnant woman or young girl is killed or murdered, there is a count of "two" lives lost in a legal sense in most cases, I might be wrong.

Yes, a fetus especially close to the final stages of pregnancy is indeed to be called
" a person " even though not really "living" as a human being or baby.

The female gender is never popular among the Asian communities especially the Chinese and Indian races.When a woman is married, her family does carried the family "surname" and thus lose the ancestry's root, while a son married having male children and reproducing male grandchildren for the patriarch,the ancestry's root will have better chances to prolong and continue the family's tree.It is more attuned to the Asian's cultures and tradition.

Legal:

www.legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Fetal+Rights

Click: Fetal Rights at (Search)

>284 razzamajazz: The female gender is never popular among the Asian communities

One exception exists in Thailand, at least. According to U Michigan researcher, most Thais desire two kids, a boy and a girl. The custom there is for youngest daughter (and husband) to care for her parents at end of life and to inherit the house. I don't recall reading that parents are burdened with crushing dowries, so that may also be a factor.

Depressingly, girl relatives also have value in the sex industry for some unsavory types. Another study found that middle daughters are more common there.

It is a custom for an Indian's couple having a daughter will be a financial burden as her parents have to give dowry for a hand in marriage to a groom's parents especially if the prospective bride's parents are poor and of the lower caste system.
It is practise for an Indian's family regardless whether their religion is Hindu,Muslim or Christian in any part of the world.

Whereas as in the poorer families in other Asian's countries such as Cambodia,Laos,Myanmar(Burma), Vietnam , they will sell off their young daughters to be servants or slaves in rich households and into the sex industry to get money as they are very poor to fend themselves and other members of the family.It is really pathetic.

www.internationalpolicydigest.org/2013/07/30/indias-dowry-culture/

Pathetic, yes, and an outcome of extreme income inequity that we in the west should bear in mind.

In South-East Asia ( India,China,Cambodia and others) especially in the lower rung of their communities, women are being treated very badly as the underclass in the societies.

Sexism is so obvious.

Startling how common abortion of fetuses with Down's Syndrome has become in western society. The parents' choice, to be sure, but no doubt influenced by non-invasive blood tests and attitudes/lack of supports in larger society. Processing:

Iceland Eliminates People with Down Syndrome
Alexandra DeSanctis | August 16, 2017

...Ninety percent of women in the United Kingdom who receive a positive Down-syndrome diagnosis choose to abort. In the U.S., that percentage falls somewhere between 67 and 90, according to a recent meta-study of Down-syndrome termination rates over the last few decades. In Europe as a whole, somewhere around 92 percent of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted. This targeting of individuals with Down syndrome is borne out not just in astronomical abortion rates, but in a cultural attitude that often regards them as less than human...

http://www.nationalreview.com/article/450509/down-syndrome-iceland-cbs-news-dist...

________________________________________________

"What kind of society do you want to live in?": Inside the country where Down syndrome is disappearing
Julian Quinones, Arijeta Lajka CBS News August 14, 2017, 4:00 PM

...Geneticist Kari Stefansson is the founder of deCODE Genetics, a company that has studied nearly the entire Icelandic population's genomes. He has a unique perspective on the advancement of medical technology. "My understanding is that we have basically eradicated, almost, Down syndrome from our society -- that there is hardly ever a child with Down syndrome in Iceland anymore," he said.

(CBS News correspondent Elaine Quijan) asked Stefansson, "What does the 100 percent termination rate, you think, reflect about Icelandic society?"

"It reflects a relatively heavy-handed genetic counseling," he said. "And I don't think that heavy-handed genetic counseling is desirable. … You're having impact on decisions that are not medical, in a way."

Stefansson noted, "I don't think there's anything wrong with aspiring to have healthy children, but how far we should go in seeking those goals is a fairly complicated decision."

According to (Hulda Hjartardottir, head of the Prenatal Diagnosis Unit at Landspitali University Hospital, where around 70 percent of Icelandic children are born), "We try to do as neutral counseling as possible, but some people would say that just offering the test is pointing you towards a certain direction." Indeed, more than 4 out of 5 pregnant women in Iceland opt for the prenatal screening test.

...at Landspitali University Hospital, Helga Sol Olafsdottir counsels women who have a pregnancy with a chromosomal abnormality. They speak to her when deciding whether to continue or end their pregnancies. Olafsdottir tells women who are wrestling with the decision or feelings of guilt: "This is your life — you have the right to choose how your life will look like."

..."We don't look at abortion as a murder. We look at it as a thing that we ended. We ended a possible life that may have had a huge complication... preventing suffering for the child and for the family. And I think that is more right than seeing it as a murder -- that's so black and white. Life isn't black and white. Life is grey."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/down-syndrome-iceland/?linkId=40953194

________________________________________________

"I didn't know I would be able to love her the way I do"
Marguerite Reardon | March 20, 2015

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/down-syndrome-mothers-story/