Dawkins sparks outrage for saying Down Syndrome babies should be aborted

[Esquilax]

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".

I was responding to your post to Losty, where you said that accepting Down's syndrome as a defect required that you place less value on any given person with Down's syndrome as you would on anyone else. It doesn't, so long as you're not conflating biology and physicality with personhood.

As to your actual position here, that very much depends on the quality of the argument one brings to bear: with Down's syndrome one can point to very real harmful effects that aren't present in the other two. In fact I doubt very much that one could even furnish an argument as to why the other two are harmful that didn't rely on special pleading or factual inaccuracies to do so.

I'm always interested when these types of conversations about biology turn to Judaism too; it's so obvious what parallels the claimant wishes to draw when they make that case, but it's also obviously inaccurate. "Jew" isn't a race, since one isn't formally identified as Jewish solely through ancestry. One can convert to Judaism, meaning that the biological component isn't required or, indeed, necessary. Hence, "Jewish fetus" is as inappropriate an appellation as "Christian fetus," or "Hindu fetus."

If the foetus is 8 months old when it's diagnosed as being a Wolf wouldn't you say that's a different matter?

Wait, are you saying eight months into fetal development, or eight months old? If it's the former it's almost a moot point given how few abortions actually take place at that stage, and if it's the latter then it's a person and my argument regarding fetuses no longer applies.

What if it's not diagnosed until 6 years old, can it still be aborted then?

Six year old= person.

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.

I don't think nuance invalidates the argument. Of course the position should change based on the available facts, but that has nothing to do with what I was originally responding to.