Dawkins sparks outrage for saying Down Syndrome babies should be aborted

[Aractus]

I don't think it's a matter of value. People have value, diseases and genetic defects do not; I doubt you'd find many people with Down's syndrome who'd willingly accept it as a choice, for example. The person has inherent worth, but you're not eliminating a person when you abort a fetus, there is no soul that was unique to the Down's baby that then doesn't have a chance to ever be alive if you abort it. When you abort, the person that fetus may have become doesn't shuffle off from some spectral plane, having lost his chance to exist.

You aren't reading the same thing I am.

This is Cato's statement:

What a stupd thing to say. Aborting a defective fetus is not eugenics.

He is labelling a foetus with Down's as "defective". That is just the same as labelling a Jiggaboo foetus "defective" or a Jewish foetus "defective".

And when we're talking about a fetus? That's not even a discussion you need to have. Because there's no person there at all, and by aborting you're just making sure the child you do have is given a better set of starting conditions.

If the foetus is 8 months old when it's diagnosed as being a Wolf wouldn't you say that's a different matter? What if it's not diagnosed until 6 years old, can it still be aborted then? The line is very fuzzy - I don't think that you're going to get very many foetus's diagnosed as Wolf before the 20 week mark. And diagnoses can happen at any time - it can happen 20 minutes before delivery. And those that are wouldn't be a 100% certain diagnoses either. So the argument can't be expected to be concentrated on an undeveloped foetus.