RE: Ohio bans doctors from performing Down Syndrome abortions
December 22, 2017 at 10:54 pm
(This post was last modified: December 22, 2017 at 10:55 pm by AFTT47.)
Oh, boy. Of all the moral conundrums, I find the issue of abortion to be one of the most agonizing.
The first point to address is that of baby vs. fetus. The OP doesn't mention gestation and I don't know if the Ohio law does or not. I don't care what man's law says here - only about scientific knowledge. We can't say for certain when consciousness begins but we sure can say beyond reasonable doubt that if the higher brain has yet to develop, there is no consciousness. If the fetus has no more awareness that it even exists than a brick does, it has nothing to lose. It is NOT a baby and it is ridiculous to claim it is such. In that case, it doesn't matter what infirmity it has or doesn't have. It has no rights because it is not a conscience being and has never been conscience.
If the fetus is past the point where it even MIGHT be conscience, I am much less comfortable with abortion. I am aware of pro-abortion arguments even at this stage. I do not personally believe it would be moral (not going to address whether or not it should be legal) to abort at this stage.
Addressing Down's Syndrome specifically: Oh, boy. One might argue that it is an affront to human dignity to live that way. But my personal observations have been that people so stricken tend to be very joyful. I used to be a SCUBA instructor and boat captain and know of one adult male who was taught to scuba dive (not by me). He always wanted to drive the boat out to the dive site and I (as Captain) let him do it several times. He did it safely and competently under my supervision. In one case, he handled a 40' boat which had particularly bad steering issues. It tended to wallow back and forth and pull particularly hard to the right. He compensated for the issue. This was a male in his thirties or so who was definitely compromised - perhaps with the mind of an 8-year-old.
Some of us (me included) highly value the lives of lower animals with even lesser intelligence than that of the typical Down's patient. Sometimes, we love them like people. I am particularly aware of this now as we just lost an elderly cat this December and it hurts.
In the end, my opinion is to treat a Down's fetus as any other. If they are prior to the stage of higher brain development, they have no more to lose than a brick has to being pulverized. Neither has any awareness and therefor no life to lose.
If a Down's fetus is at the gestation point where it MIGHT be conscious, I would consider it no more moral to abort than a fetus without any issues.
The first point to address is that of baby vs. fetus. The OP doesn't mention gestation and I don't know if the Ohio law does or not. I don't care what man's law says here - only about scientific knowledge. We can't say for certain when consciousness begins but we sure can say beyond reasonable doubt that if the higher brain has yet to develop, there is no consciousness. If the fetus has no more awareness that it even exists than a brick does, it has nothing to lose. It is NOT a baby and it is ridiculous to claim it is such. In that case, it doesn't matter what infirmity it has or doesn't have. It has no rights because it is not a conscience being and has never been conscience.
If the fetus is past the point where it even MIGHT be conscience, I am much less comfortable with abortion. I am aware of pro-abortion arguments even at this stage. I do not personally believe it would be moral (not going to address whether or not it should be legal) to abort at this stage.
Addressing Down's Syndrome specifically: Oh, boy. One might argue that it is an affront to human dignity to live that way. But my personal observations have been that people so stricken tend to be very joyful. I used to be a SCUBA instructor and boat captain and know of one adult male who was taught to scuba dive (not by me). He always wanted to drive the boat out to the dive site and I (as Captain) let him do it several times. He did it safely and competently under my supervision. In one case, he handled a 40' boat which had particularly bad steering issues. It tended to wallow back and forth and pull particularly hard to the right. He compensated for the issue. This was a male in his thirties or so who was definitely compromised - perhaps with the mind of an 8-year-old.
Some of us (me included) highly value the lives of lower animals with even lesser intelligence than that of the typical Down's patient. Sometimes, we love them like people. I am particularly aware of this now as we just lost an elderly cat this December and it hurts.
In the end, my opinion is to treat a Down's fetus as any other. If they are prior to the stage of higher brain development, they have no more to lose than a brick has to being pulverized. Neither has any awareness and therefor no life to lose.
If a Down's fetus is at the gestation point where it MIGHT be conscious, I would consider it no more moral to abort than a fetus without any issues.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former.
Albert Einstein
Albert Einstein
