Dawkins sparks outrage for saying Down Syndrome babies should be aborted

[Esquilax]

What Richard Fucknuckle Dawkin says is absolutely offensive, small-minded, discriminatory, intolerant, it's just plain obscene. There is absolutely nothing constructive, healthy or redeemable about it.

The reason is because in most first world countries - you may well be fortunate like me not to have the issue of disability care affect you or your personal family - but it is a very real issue that affects a huge number of people in our society. And we absolutely don't do enough - firstly because we're not helping these people reach their potential as a resource of society, but secondly because they're treated like second-class citizens. You may as well point and call them Wolves. A return to laissez-fair, Eugenics or any other slippery-slope model is the wrong direction. Disabled people shouldn't be a problem for any first world country - we're wealthy enough to make sure they're comfortable, happy and free to live their lives, participate in the workforce - and - not be a burden upon their families. Dawkin's dumbass opinion is based on the fact that he thinks that Wolves are a drain on society and on their families. That isn't true, what is true is that society currently doesn't give them a fair go when they should be afforded that.

I think you're adding a lot that was never said, into your summation of Dawkins' opinion. But you needn't: the man himself expanded on what he was saying in a blog post later on, and in fact addressed the fact that what you think he was saying... wasn't, in his summarized list of the kinds of people who got offended at his tweet:

Those who took offence because they know and love a person with Down Syndrome, and who thought I was saying that their loved one had no right to exist. I have sympathy for this emotional point, but it is an emotional one not a logical one. It is one of a common family of errors, one that frequently arises in the abortion debate. Another version of it is “The Great Beethoven Fallacy” discussed in Chapter 8 of The God Delusion. I combated it in a tweet as follows: “There’s a profound moral difference between ‘This fetus should now be aborted’ and ‘This person should have been aborted long ago’.” I would never dream of saying to any person, “You should have been aborted before you were born.” But that reluctance is fully compatible with a belief that, at a time before a fetus becomes a “person”, the decision to abort can be a moral one. If you think about it, you pretty much have to agree with that unless you are against all abortion in principle.The definition of “personhood” is much debated among moral philosophers and this is not the place to go into it at length. Briefly, I support those philosophers who say that, for moral purposes, an adult, a child and a baby should all be granted the rights of a person. An early fetus, before it develops a nervous system, should not. As embryonic development proceeds towards term, the morality of abortion becomes progressively more difficult to assess. There is no hard and fast dividing line. As I have argued in “The Tyranny of the Discontinuous Mind”, the definition of personhood is a gradual, “fading in / fading out” definition. In any case, this is a problem that faces anybody on the pro-choice side of the general abortion debate.

It's a pragmatic argument sure, and one he phrased in what I fully acknowledge was a stupidly generalized and blunt manner, but it's not the one you think it is.

Oh yeah, you guys "handicap" is really rude. That hasn't been used since the nineties.

Sorry Quill, I didn't know that. Is there a preferred term to use, for future reference?