“Funny how Twitter allows paedophiles and other scum. Funny how Twitter doesn’t like my Pro Life pics and blocks them,” she tweeted....
[Fien gave a speech to United Nations delegates in Geneva last March in which s]he likened the growing genocide of Down’s babies to the Nazi euthanasia programs of the 1930s.
“I am not suffering,” she told delegates. “I am not ill. None of my friends who have Down’s syndrome are suffering either. We live happy lives. We just have an extra chromosome... We are still human beings. We are not monsters. Don’t be afraid of us. … Please don’t try to kill us all off.”
April 22, 2018
"Twitter reportedly blocked a British pro-life activist with Down Syndrome for more than 24 hours after she posted pro-life pictures."
"Charlotte 'Charlie' Fien rebuked the social media giant with a trenchantly worded tweet once her account was restored Tuesday," reports Life Site.
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89 comments:
Twitter owner is a leftwing douche bag. Free speech? If a rapist and pedophile is properly leftist, then he can stay.
Never Again! Unless those being exterminated have Downs and the extermination is done before birth.
They abort fetuses not babies. Get that settled first and then you can argue about babies proper, which as far as I know are not killed, regardless of Down Syndrome.
I guess the "common enemy", which apparently cancels out the "othering", is rich people and their websites:
Black pro-Trump bloggers censored by Facebook to testify before Congress
It could be worse, one could be a female fetus inside a womb in India or China.
A woman’s right to choose.
As Hardin has remarked several times, evil is not always easy to spot. The nazis sold themselves as the party of full employment, family values, health (non smoking, vegetarian), unity and so on. Which brings me to Facebook. The Left rants about evil corporations, and corrupt corporate culture, but when they actually meet an evil one close up they love it. We know from internal memos that fb willingly sacrificed every concern and every bit of morality for growth. We know they steal data and lie about it, cooperate with oppressive governments, censors, criminals. Farbenbook.
This story will get about as much media attention as the 11 year-old Parkland student killed during the Parkland Middle School organized walkout. Wrong kids, wrong politics.
EL PASO, Texas - University Medical Center has announced a memorial for the Parkland Middle School student struck and killed Friday.
Police say 11-year-old Jonathan Benko was taking part in Parkland Middle School's organized walkout when he and a group of students left the designated walkout area. Police say around 10:30 Friday morning, the group crossed Loop 375 then attempted to cross it again. Benko was the last in the group to cross and was struck by a Ford F150.
The compound negligence of Parkland officials is breathtaking.
http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0959353516682262
Coyne had a post on Down's and infanticide recently. Want to see some straight up defenses of eugenics? Peruse left wing sites like Coyne's discussing Down's. They don’t call it eugenics, they call it compassion.
Obviously boneheaded move by Twitter. But on the issue, it's obviously a complex issue. I have a great deal of sympathy with couples who choose to terminate pregnancies after receiving a diagnosis of Down's syndrome through amniocentesis. Studies suggest that around 2/3 of women who receive such a diagnosis make that decision. There is also the complicating factor that the parents of Downs children tend to be older than the average parents of non-Downs, and Downs children now on average live to be about 60 years old. Given the likelihood that certain Downs children will outlive their caregivers, they can potentially end up in adult foster care or nursing home settings that are less than ideal. I've seen many such cases in the course of my work.
Rhhardin argues: They abort fetuses not babies. Get that settled first and then you can argue about babies proper, which as far as I know are not killed, regardless of Down Syndrome.
If the subject is a 'baby' after being extracted by a Caesarian procedure, is it a 'fetus' mere seconds before?
rhhardin said: They abort fetuses not babies. Get that settled first and then you can argue about babies proper, which as far as I know are not killed, regardless of Down Syndrome.
The day that the human "fetus" comes out as a frog, I'll believe it was not a baby before birth. Where do you think the term "she's carrying a baby" comes from? Why do you think the person responsible for killing a pregnant woman is charged with 2 (or more in some cases) murders? Babies don't suddenly enter babyhood upon release from their pre-born environment. What you're doing is called rationalization--finding a reason to get rid of an unwanted burden. Semantics does not change reality, and it's certainly NOT science.
@mockturtle:
If the subject is a 'baby' after being extracted by a Caesarian procedure, is it a 'fetus' mere seconds before?
The law must always necessarily draw arbitrary lines. Does a single 24-hour period make a difference between consensual and non-consensual sex? It does in every legal jurisdiction in this country.
For what it's worth, I have always thought the most pragmatic settlement to the abortion debate is to legalize it in the first trimester and illegalize it thereafter. But given the extreme ends that have come to define the debate (opposing IUDs and morning after pills on one side and supporting partial birth abortion on the other).
J. Farmer said...
"... they can potentially end up in adult foster care or nursing home settings that are less than ideal."
Yeah, it's pretty obvious that they'd be better off never having lived. You would too, by the way. Just saying. Sometimes you can't tell yourself, you need a normal to tell you how much better off you'd be if you had never existed.
Althouse:
I wish you good fortune as you attempt to put the toothpaste back into the tube. We all support the obvious and foreseeable results of our actions and beliefs.
You are no different.
@Jupiter:
Sometimes you can't tell yourself, you need a normal to tell you how much better off you'd be if you had never existed.
I'm not telling anyone anything. It is up to each couple facing that situation to make that determination. And what I also was that the decision was a "complex," pretty much the opposite of "pretty obvious."
he day that the human "fetus" comes out as a frog, I'll believe it was not a baby before birth. Where do you think the term "she's carrying a baby" comes from? Why do you think the person responsible for killing a pregnant woman is charged with 2 (or more in some cases) murders? Babies don't suddenly enter babyhood upon release from their pre-born environment. What you're doing is called rationalization--finding a reason to get rid of an unwanted burden. Semantics does not change reality, and it's certainly NOT science.
Good, the right argument.
A fetus is human (i.e. not wolf), but not a human.
It becomes a baby when it has a relationship to others, as usuage goes.
That might be:
1. The parents have plans for it, set up a nursery, bought a tiny baseball mitt and bat, and so forth.
2. It's cute, either by ultrasound or something, in which case society has a relationship to it.
Lacking one of those, it's a clump of cells and a medical condition.
That is, to see if it's a baby, you don't look closely at the thing but at others.
When others change is when it changes.
That's the reality because language is the reality in this matter.
You can say also it's a human in embryo, without going against the language.
It would be a joke to say, of a newborn, "He hardly seems human."
What the joke draws on is that you learn to be human.
Babies get a lot of say-foring until they pick it up.
"He hardly seems human" of a mass killer talks about his lack of relationship to others.
Ken B said...
Coyne had a post on Down's and infanticide recently.
You've posted dishonest implications about Coyne before; here you're apparently implying that he supports the infanticide of Down syndrome kids, but he doesn't.
Want to see some straight up defenses of eugenics?
Everyone practices eugenics when they select mates. It's not a scary idea.
Female infanticide could be justified by the statistical probability that she might end up in an abusive relationship or be subject to sexual harassment. Black infanticide because he/she could be subject to racism. By all means, let's apply the 'compassion' argument to usher in all kinds of well-meaning measures on behalf of those without a voice.
I hate hall monitor shit heads.
LuAnn Zieman said...
The day that the human "fetus" comes out as a frog,
Deal with it, tadpole
Parents want kids with every advantage. I know I did for Eric and Don Jr. And Ivanka. It's almost selfish to say that all that matters is their own happiness. Then you're just having them for the sake of making you smile. If we valued happiness over success then they wouldn't have voted for me.
Rhhardin,
You seem to be saying that a baby's humanity depends on how others regard him or her. That is, you send be saying that it's perfectly moral to have an abortion if you don't care at all about the baby, but immoral if you are conflicted. The seems fraught with perverse incentives, and is very different than how we encourage people to think about one another in general, yes?
Royal said...
"Rhhardin,
You seem to be saying that a baby's humanity depends on how others regard him or her."
I think rh is talking "is", not "should be". He is saying that this is, in fact, how we do things, even if we claim to be doing it some other way.
Certainly, he is correct as a matter of biology. It takes a very advanced society to regard a child whose family does not want him to live as having a right to life. Infanticide has always been common, and was only recently made illegal in certain societies. Abortion "rights" are a rare (oh, so rare!) example of a situation where the Left sides with biology.
Bonespurs and Titcomb.
Because reasons.
You seem to be saying that a baby's humanity depends on how others regard him or her. That is, you send be saying that it's perfectly moral to have an abortion if you don't care at all about the baby, but immoral if you are conflicted. The seems fraught with perverse incentives, and is very different than how we encourage people to think about one another in general, yes?
There's your relationship or lack of it, and there's society's relationship or lack of it. The former depends on plans, and the latter on cuteness, the way we've evolved.
There's a good claim that you ought to welcome a baby and so think of it as a baby, but it's a claim made by older people. That's the area to argue in, and not in a denial of language.
The language does what it does, though, and it's the language that you think with. Go with it rather than against it.
Jupiter asserts: Certainly, he is correct as a matter of biology. It takes a very advanced society to regard a child whose family does not want him to live as having a right to life. Infanticide has always been common, and was only recently made illegal in certain societies.
So, by your own contention, we have become a regressive society.
Of course pro choice people recognize that the fetus is a potential baby and it’s certainly human from day one. There are millions of people who are pro choice who would not have an abortion themselves. Who are we to force a woman to carry and give birth to their baby? How would this be accomplished? Abortion has been around for hundreds of years and before that infanticide which is far more aggregious.
Farmer has a point, why are some anti abortion groups attacking IUDs and birth control? Isn’t the idea to prevent abortion? Is it considered abortion even before the zygote implants?
As for Down’s Syndrome people not being considered human and the medical field promoting abortion in the case of Down Syndrome, I haven’t seen it, at least in this country. In the cases of two couples I’ve known who found out they were carrying a child with Down’s, they were not encouraged to carry or abort, what was promoted was that the choice was theirs and they would be supported in their choice either way. Both couples aborted and haven’t doubted their choice
“Yeah, it's pretty obvious that they'd be better off never having lived. You would too, by the way. Just saying. Sometimes you can't tell yourself, you need a normal to tell you how much better off you'd be if you had never existed.”
You’re “normal”?
Chuckling.
Sprinkling PREEN on your garden doesn't kill weeds? Fetus as tumor? Sheesh.
Did it "reportedly" or did it?
Abortion has been around for hundreds of years and before that infanticide which is far more aggregious.
So has murder and rape. They're still illegal.
It takes a very advanced society to regard a child whose family does not want him to live as having a right to life.
We used to be one of those advanced societies.
Howabout:
I have a great deal of sympathy with couples who choose to terminate pregnancies after receiving a diagnosis of homosexuality through amniocentesis?
hey abort fetuses not babies. Get that settled first and then you can argue about babies proper,
There are people serving sentences in prison for killing what you insist on calling fetuses and normal people call babies.
I believe women have been convicted for doing things while pregnant that could damage those fetuses/babies also.....You know using crack while pregnant etc.
"I have a great deal of sympathy with couples who choose to terminate pregnancies after receiving a diagnosis of homosexuality through amniocentesis?"
Bingo!
Down syndrome people generally have a much happier life than most homosexuals.
They are definitively much more beneficial to our society.
One problem with the "progressive" POV on abortion is the question of symbolic power. If abortion is not a sin, an abominable act, then the woman contemplating it will be more likely to go through with it. There is a cost-benefit calculation even for intangibles.
The more they do, the more likely others are to follow. There is an enormous difference in rates of abortion depending on its cultural perception. The anti-abortion movement has had a considerable effect in this, reducing rates over time.
These things are not solely, or even predominantly, individual questions but communal ones.
Infanticide used to be typical in Europe, for babies that did not measure up. That scene in "300" was indeed based on daily fact.
And this was of course global, human.
Christianity gradually turned it into a sin and an abomination. As also slavery.
We aren't doing too well in the sex-education classes in school. One of the consequences of sex is, obviously, a baby might be made. Anyone willingly having sex is consenting to the possibility of that consequence. As modern people are apparently too lacking in personal responsibility to deal with this, we as a society spend billions trying to prevent conception, and when that fails, millions of babies each year are killed to avoid the inconvenience of known consequences of certain actions.
There is a reason we tend to talk about abortion in euphemisms and focusing strictly on the mother - having people think about the baby and what's happening to them hurts the cause. If people actually had to watch the gory details of an abortion, public support would plummet. That is why everything depends on keeping the public from thinking about what is happening to the baby, especially anything having to do with visuals.
Eventually though, I suspect things will turn. There is only so long we can imprison people for cruelty to animals before eventually enough will wonder why we can still legally be so cruel to the one animal excepted from our legal regime of rights.
Twitter is a time-sucking abomination. It will not exist in 10 years. Something else, something better, will have replaced it.
Children with Down Syndrome are deemed unworthy, and are a conflict of interest with Planned Parenthood and affiliated parties.
Infanticide is a different question than abortion.
In that case it's born and it's cute and society takes an interst. It's past the question of being (deemed) a human. Even the mother sees it's a human.
Abortion ought to be fought out on the grounds of welcoming a birth rather than rejecting it, unless you want to move to considering what other humans might be usefully killed.
The abortion argument ought to be fought about welcoming before it's a human.
Go with the actual way langauge works or you'll lose.
fetus (n.)
late 14c., "the young while in the womb or egg" (tending to mean vaguely the embryo in the later stage of development), from Latin fetus (often, incorrectly, foetus) "the bearing or hatching of young, a bringing forth, pregnancy, childbearing, offspring," from suffixed form of PIE root *dhe(i)- "to suck."
In Latin, fetus sometimes was transferred figuratively to the newborn creature itself, or used in a sense of "offspring, brood" (as in Horace's "Germania quos horrida parturit Fetus"), but this was not the basic meaning. It also was used of plants, in the sense of "fruit, produce, shoot," and figuratively as "growth, production." The spelling foetus is sometimes attempted as a learned Latinism, but it is not historic.
-- etymonline.com
Semantic games to avoid the reality of human evolution. While Pro-Life recognizes humanity, Pro-Choice recognizes opportunity. In any case, this is a cheap evasion of a scientific fact. So, the question is: when and by whose Choice, does a human life acquire and retain the right to life?
we have become a regressive society
Progressive or [unqualified] monotonic change.
You think in language so it's all the reality there is.
The same thing happens with rights.
Rights are actually backwards. They're something you give to the other guy, not something you fight him for. They become moral because they require something of you and make you unique an irreplaceable, the latter being the moral aspect.
In the case of the fetus, if it's not cute yet, and it's not your fetus, there's no other guy. Same langauge problem. It's not a guy.
The dogmatist operates on a picture rather than language.
At the point of conception, a soul is added, and it's that soul that has to be protected.
That's a picture, not reality.
Look at what Cavell has to say about the problem the picture gives right away:
It may be that the sense of falsification comes from the way I understand the phrase ``have a body.'' It is really a mythological way of saying that I am flesh. But I am not satisfied with this myth, for it implies that I also have something other than a body, call it a soul. Now I have three things to put together: a body, a soul, and me. (So there are four things to be placed: I plus those three.) But I no more have a soul than I have a body. That is what I say here and now. People who say they have a soul sometimes militantly take its possession as a point of pride, for instance William Ernest Henley and G.B.Shaw. Take the phrase ``have a soul'' as a mythological way of saying that I am spirit. If the body individuates flesh and spirit, singles me out, what does the soul do? It binds me to others.
The picture doesn't give you that resolution of reality. It dogmatizes it away.
You can't think with it.
The Progressive cause believes in the perfectibility of man. This is partly achieved by controlling what kind of humans are allowed to exist.
There is an ongoing scandal of sorts in Hamburg, where the Staatsoper has dismissed the Pamina in its production of Mozart's Magic Flute because she is four months pregnant; their story is health-and-safety, that of the outraged that there could have been minor changes in the staging to accommodate Miss Fuchs etc etc, terrible prejudice against women etc etc. I had wondered-- well, I wondered first why this is only an issue now, instead of when the contracts were signed-- how much in the background, as it were, everyone's attitudes to procured abortion will have been shaping the arguing (abortion is legal to 14 weeks at will in France-- Julie Fuchs is a French citizen-- and in Germany in the first trimester; after those times only with medico-legal hocus pocus etc).
I have a great deal of sympathy with couples who choose to terminate pregnancies after receiving a diagnosis of redheadedness through amniocentesis?
are we Really doing gingers any favors, forcing them to experience life?
</sarc
“I am not suffering,” she told delegates. “I am not ill. None of my friends who have Down’s syndrome are suffering either. We live happy lives. We just have an extra chromosome... We are still human beings. We are not monsters. Don’t be afraid of us. … Please don’t try to kill us all off.”
She is more intelligent, eloquent and ethical than any nationally elected Democrat and any Democrat potential presidential nominee.
While I doubt it the he meant to, Rhhardin makes a great case for abolishing mandatory child support for men.
My wife was pregnant in her thirties. The doctors asked whether or not she wanted the test. I asked her what for? What are you going to do with the information? The answer only has value if one is predisposed to kill a life not worthy of life. Nazi's embrace that mentality.
rhhardin,
They abort fetuses not babies. Get that settled first and then you can argue about babies proper, which as far as I know are not killed, regardless of Down Syndrome.
But of course they are. They are killed, after birth, by refusal of surgery to correct necessary removal of intestinal blockages so that they can, you know, eat food. (Look up "Infant Doe," who was starved to death in exactly this way.) They are killed by being tucked away in institutions where they have no attention, no parental love, not remotely the kind of affection most people give their pets. They are killed by being refused later heart surgery, also necessary.
Seriously, do read up on this. Of course, a lot of the killing is done in utero; Iceland recently proclaimed that it had eradicated Down Syndrome, by aborting every last fetus having it before birth. But that isn't the end of the trail here.
J. Farmer,
Given the likelihood that certain Downs children will outlive their caregivers, they can potentially end up in adult foster care or nursing home settings that are less than ideal. I've seen many such cases in the course of my work.
Look, "less than ideal" is less than ideal. But it's not "dead," which is what you are implicitly wishing on these children.
Don't exist. Don't be. Read the linked article again. Does that sound like someone who would rather not exist, not be? (And, yes, I do think she had some help writing it. But the bottom line is that she is healthy and happy, whereas you think she'd probably be better off torn apart before birth, because otherwise her parents or siblings might someday have to worry about where to place her.)
This past weekend, my six-year old, who has Down syndrome, and is non-verbal, was playing by himself with his letter magnets. He likes a particular video on YouTube which sings the Bingo song and displays the letters B-I-N-G-O as they are sung. He separated out those letters from the rest and spelled the word out on his cabinet.
In the case of a human life, our source is conception, the beginning of a chaotic process (i.e. evolution). Fetus refers to both a baby and stage of development. The progressive and liberal sects of the Pro-Choice Church adopted its usage to force dissociation, to give comfort, to couples who contract and patrons of Planned Parenthood et al. The only solution consistent with science and human rights is to prevent conception before a human life is deemed unworthy, inconvenient, or profitable without her consent or right to resist, right to persist.
Birkel Small-Brain said:
Because reasons.
Translation: "I just don't understand the reasons!"
@gilbar:
I have a great deal of sympathy with couples who choose to terminate pregnancies after receiving a diagnosis of redheadedness through amniocentesis?
are we Really doing gingers any favors, forcing them to experience life?
Except redheadedness does not mean a lifetime of socio-medical trouble and a need for long-term care by other adults for your entire life, often outstripping your family's ability to provide.
@n.n.
The only solution consistent with science and human rights is to prevent conception before a human life is deemed unworthy, inconvenient, or profitable without her consent or right to resist, right to persist.
If protection of a fertilized egg is the goal, then I don't see how you can support the use of oral contraceptive, emergency birth control, or IUDs. All have the potential to prevent a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterine lining.
Michelle Dulak Thomson said...
Look, "less than ideal" is less than ideal. But it's not "dead," which is what you are implicitly wishing on these children.
I am wishing nothing for "these children," one way or the other. I said it is a complicated decision, and I am not prepared to cast moral aspersions on people who make the choice to terminate a pregnancy or on people who make the choice to carry a pregnancy term. I think it is an intensely personal decision.
But I am also describing the reality of the lives that many Down's syndromes people suffer. I witness it first hand. Many people would not be comforted by the fact that their adult children would have to spend remainder of their lives without family and under care of indifferent paid caregivers.
The notion that we do society a favor by eliminating those of questionable ability is very Naziesque. J. Farmer, I often think you and Dr. Mengele would have hit it off famously.
@mockturtle:
The notion that we do society a favor by eliminating those of questionable ability is very Naziesque. J. Farmer, I often think you and Dr. Mengele would have hit it off famously.
You're generally a thoughtful and intelligent person; I am surprised at this guttersnipe attitude towards me simply because I have a different point of view than you. First, Mengele committed cruel and brutal experimentation on imprisoned children. Do you honestly think that's my value system? Second, who said anything about "we?" Where did I advocate aborting fetuses diagnosed with Down's syndrome? I've said repeatedly that's a decision to be left to the family and not you or me or anyone else. And as I also said before, more than two-thirds of women who receive a diagnosis of Down's syndrome terminate their pregnancies. I don't think these women are all Nazis.
Inga: "Of course pro choice people recognize that the fetus is a potential baby and it’s certainly human from day one."
LOL
Pay no attention to those pro-choicers not saying that. Those aren't the pro-choice comments you were looking for...
J. Farmer wrote:
"But I am also describing the reality of the lives that many Down's syndromes people suffer. I witness it first hand. Many people would not be comforted by the fact that their adult children would have to spend remainder of their lives without family and under care of indifferent paid caregivers."
There are many people who end up under the care of indifferent paid caregivers and most of them do not have Down syndrome. Visit any nursing home and you will see people who might have been useful and loved members of society at one point, but they are ending their lives alone and neglected. Maybe their children don't visit them, or their children live in a different state or they've outlived their kids or never had any to begin with. Maybe they have outlived their spouses, siblings and friends.
Deciding that someone does not deserve to live because they might have a rough go of it later on in life is a cop out. If tests were able to predict that your child would have a good chance of getting, say, pancreatic cancer (one of the most fatal kinds) in his or her 40's, would that provide justification for getting an abortion? Hey, you are saving your child from the pain of dying young from a horrible disease. Better not to live at all?
J.Farmer, IOU an apology. It is true that you probably aren't a Nazi and were arguing [in a reasonable manner] your POV. My POV, which obviously differs from yours, is that we [in the collective humanity sense] cannot predict the quality of life of anyone and, even if we could, we have no right to cut that life short based on that knowledge.
"Deciding that someone does not deserve to live because they might have a rough go of it later on in life is a cop out." Yes! This is a point where some parts of the progressive and libertarian parties descend into gross immorality: basing a decision about a human life upon the convenience of those who must nurture or care for it. No society can cultivate 'individuality' and 'individual rights' to such a degree and long survive.
Given the likelihood that certain Downs children will outlive their caregivers, they can potentially end up in adult foster care or nursing home settings that are less than ideal. I've seen many such cases in the course of my work.
Given that I am a single male with no children, the odds are pretty good this will happen to me. I'm still glad I got to live my life.
Except redheadedness does not mean a lifetime of socio-medical trouble and a need for long-term care by other adults for your entire life, often outstripping your family's ability to provide.
Do we really want to start down this road? Because your description covers much of the people born in inner cities today.
And excuse me for being so parenthetical. ;-)
@exiledonmainstreet:
Deciding that someone does not deserve to live because they might have a rough go of it later on in life is a cop out. If tests were able to predict that your child would have a good chance of getting, say, pancreatic cancer (one of the most fatal kinds) in his or her 40's, would that provide justification for getting an abortion? Hey, you are saving your child from the pain of dying young from a horrible disease. Better not to live at all?
Let me approach it from this direction. Can you imagine a moral human being choosing to abort a Downs syndrome child? If so, then we're not really disagreeing. Perhaps there are parents who desire for their children the widest possible array of opportunities. Perhaps for some couples the prospect of a child who can never live independently, never pursue a meaningful career, never create and sustain a family and produce grandchildren of their own is an extremely difficult prospect for parents to face.
Look, the topic of an abortion is a complicated matter. As I've said, if (a) we are going to define human life as beginning at the time of fertilization of the egg by the sperm; (b) we say that the government has a legitimate interest in protecting that life, then you cannot support legal access to birth control. Oral contraceptives and IUD's all have the ability to prevent fertilized eggs from implanting successfully. Women that rely on these methods of birth control are relying on the occasional destruction of a fertilized egg in order to prevent pregnancy. Is that a justifiable reason to destroy a human life? Isn't that embryo just as deserving of life as the Down's embryo?
@mockturtle:
It is true that you probably aren't a Nazi and were arguing [in a reasonable manner] your POV.
Probably aren't? Gee, thanks :)
...we have no right to cut that life short based on that knowledge.
Is there any "knowledge" that would you give the "right to cut that life short?"
@Gahrie:
Given that I am a single male with no children, the odds are pretty good this will happen to me. I'm still glad I got to live my life.
Probably not starting in your mid-30's.
Is there any "knowledge" that would you give the "right to cut that life short?"
Not to my knowledge.
never create and sustain a family and produce grandchildren of their own
Is this so? I understand that sexuality and pregnancy among this population are a live issue. Does Down's breed true? I understand that two midgets breeding can and usually will have normal sized offspring. If two high IQ people have a baby and it has Down's because of aged gametes or whatever, would the predominantly good genes bred true around this knothole in the family tree?
@Bad Lieutenant:
Is this so? I understand that sexuality and pregnancy among this population are a live issue. Does Down's breed true?
Downs syndrome suffers typically have reduced rates of fertility but are capable of producing offspring. If one partners is Downs, the likelihood is somewhere around one-third to 50%. If both partners are Downs, the chances of them having a Downs child is well over 50%. But the issues of Downs syndrome individuals having children is not one of biology. The issue is that the overwhelming majority of Downs syndrome sufferers do not have the capacity to properly care for and raise children. They also have very limited financials means. An average Downs syndrome adult has a mental age of around 8 or 9 years old. How capable do you think 9-year-olds are at raising children?
@mockturtle:
Not to my knowledge.
Do you oppose oral contraceptives, as well?
J. Farmer, my answer was a play on 'knowledge'. I forgot you have no sense of irony.
Oral contraceptives? Medically risky, whether or not they cause abortion.
mockturtle:
J. Farmer, my answer was a play on 'knowledge'. I forgot you have no sense of irony.
Yes, I got the play on words, which has nothing to do with irony, but I also presumed that was your honest answer to the question.
Oral contraceptives? Medically risky, whether or not they cause abortion.
Bit of a squirrely answer there, but I think this thread has run its course.
OK, so 'knowledge' was not irony but, in truth, I didn't know what else to call it at the time. Still don't.
Oral contraceptives are bad from every perspective. Does that answer your question? Birth control? Here's a novel idea:
A woman gets married before having sex.
She and her husband have the number of babies they want.
One of the couple has a sterilization procedure.
Where are you getting these ideas that oral contraceptives are "bad" or supposedly risky? Are other hormonal, non-oral contraceptives inherently better or less risky? Somehow more evil than non-hormonal barrier methods?
I don't presume to know if people in this thread are male or female, but I feel like it skews extremely male right now because of this talk. Oral contraceptives do not cause abortion, that would be the "morning-after pill", used in case other methods failed.
@mockturtle:
Does that answer your question?
Not really. Should contraceptives be legal?
A woman gets married before having sex.
I agree with the ideal. But I also recognize that I live in a world where around 95% of women have sex outside of marriage.
One of the couple has a sterilization procedure.
Well the Catholic Church, for one, opposes sterilization.
@funsize:
Oral contraceptives do not cause abortion, that would be the "morning-after pill", used in case other methods failed.
The "morning-after pill" is just a month's worth of birth control pills taken in a single or dual dose. Its, like the pill's, primary method of action is to prevent the release of an egg from the ovary. However, in the event that an egg is present in the fallopian tube and becomes fertilized, the pill can work by preventing implantation in the line of the uterus. This has not considered an abortifacient by the medical community, because successful implantation is often considered the critical stage rather than mere fertilization. However, if you accept the notion that an egg becomes a potential human life deserving of protection from destruction, then I do not see how one could morally support things like oral contraceptives or IUDs, which all have the potential to destroy human life.
I'm not convinced of the abortive properties of oral contraceptives but am convinced that they put women at risk for heart disease, stroke and thromboembolism. There is also possibly a higher risk for breast cancer.
Presumably, a faithful Catholic wouldn't use oral contraceptives, either. I'm certainly not advocating that everyone adhere to any prescribed method of birth control and believe oral contraceptives should remain legal for the time being. I should also hope young women would be dissuaded from using them just as they should avoid smoking.
@mockturtle:
I'm not convinced of the abortive properties of oral contraceptives...
The abstract from "Postfertilization effects of oral contraceptives and their relationship to informed consent" published in the Archives of Family Medicine:
"The primary mechanism of oral contraceptives is to inhibit ovulation, but this mechanism is not always operative. When breakthrough ovulation occurs, then secondary mechanisms operate to prevent clinically recognized pregnancy. These secondary mechanisms may occur either before or after fertilization. Postfertilization effects would be problematic for some patients, who may desire information about this possibility. This article evaluates the available evidence for the postfertilization effects of oral contraceptives and concludes that good evidence exists to support the hypothesis that the effectiveness of oral contraceptives depends to some degree on postfertilization effects. However, there are insufficient data to quantitate the relative contribution of postfertilization effects. Despite the lack of quantitative data, the principles of informed consent suggest that patients who may object to any postfertilization loss should be made aware of this information so that they can give fully informed consent for the use of oral contraceptives."
Still not convinced. Fifty percent of all fertilized eggs are lost before implantation anyway, not reaching the blastocyst stage. So there is sufficient question as to whether or not pre-implanted fertilized eggs constitute a viable fetus.
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