Would you abort a fetus if it had Downs Syndrome?

[PyramidHead]

These get pretty close to Dawkins statement that failing to act in way that results in a person with Down's is immoral. I think the biggest difference between my examples and failing to abort a fetus with Down's would be that your inaction results in a negative outcome of a person having Down's, but the is offset by the positive "gift" you've given of them being a person at all. Aborting the fetus would have prevented a person having Down's but it also would have robbed them of the positive outcome of being a person. So, at best and worst, aborting a Down's fetus is a moral wash. But note that this argument requires the idea that abortion robs the fetus of the gift of being a person, which gets awfully close to being a basis for abortion in general being undesirable and somewhat immoral when not to save the mother's life.

The idea that abortion robs the fetus of anything is nonsensical, since a fetus cannot suffer the deprivation of not being a person. And you're right, people use that line of reasoning to argue that abortion is never justified.

A gift that comes with serious obligations is not a gift at all. If I give you a bunch of money, that's a gift. If I give you my job as CEO of a major pharmaceutical company (I'm being hypothetical here), I don't get to say that's a "gift" just because you will be making a huge salary as a result; you also now have to run a huge company.

That's why I don't buy the idea that life is a gift: it's like you're saying, congratulations, yesterday you didn't exist but from today forward you have to worry about food, water, shelter, health, social acceptance, money, natural disasters, crime, allergies, going to the bathroom periodically, getting an education, finding a job, potentially watching your loved ones and cherished pets die, and dealing with your own mortality. That's the healthy fetus born to upper middle-class parents! On top of all that, you're saying to the Downs Syndrome baby, aren't you grateful for this wonderful gift, which by the way comes with a giant ball and chain that decreases your chances of success in all the aforementioned endeavors while simultaneously cutting your lifespan by 2/3? I don't think that's any kind of gift. The child can have some positive experiences, sure, but you've given them a boatload of negative ones that they couldn't have agreed to endure beforehand as part of the deal. And if you simply abort, they won't miss the good experiences anyway. The whole thing just seems like a lot of pointless misery.

 

[Unbeatable]

His statement was not that it's better to abort, or that it's disturbing not to, but that it is immoral to not abort a Downs fetus.

He sounds like a religious mouthpiece with this statement. It makes no more sense to me, and reflects no more respect for choice and autonomy, than the absolutist, invasive shit that comes from the Pope.

It makes no less sense to me than saying that it's immoral to sodomize one's children. It's merely the expression of a value judgment regarding a choice which stands to bring somebody harm. That sort of thing is par for the course when it comes to moralistic statements. As for choice and autonomy, if Dawkins' statement reflects lack of respect for such things, then I'd say that the very practice of moralizing reflects the same and that this is therefore a weak indictment.

Dawkins says it's immoral not to.

This is something that should be left to the potential parents to decide, regardless of what I may think.

It is left to the potential parents to decide, and neither Dawkins nor anyone yet present in this discussion, even those of us who are actual antinatalists, has even suggested that the decision be taken away from the parents. The question of reproductive rights is different from the question of which choices it is "right" for the potential parents to make.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I would.

You're taking a chance that the DS child will be able to eventually live independently...and if they can't? You have a child that will outlive you and will always need care.

A coworker currently has this problem. His DS child is also in a wheelchair and incapable of caring for himself. He and his wife don't have a lot of money and their other children live overseas and show no intention of ever coming back to care for their brother when their parents die. He will probably end up in a home somewhere, cared for by strangers.

Exactly. Why take a chance? Just because it might turn out ok doesn't mean it doesn't have a good chance of turning out very badly.

 

[Observer]

Arguments like, "I [or someone I know] have a disability and I'm glad I [or someone I know] wasn't aborted."

Look people: Forget disabilities and genetic conditions and Down Syndrome. We are ALL happy we weren't aborted. We're lucky as hell. Besides not being aborted, we're all lucky our fathers didn't choose to jack off alone and got our mothers pregnant instead. We're thankful our grandmothers didn't "have a headache" on that one fateful night, and that our great-grandfathers' bosses didn't keep them at work late on the night their children got conceived.

None of the above would have been immoral had they occurred, despite the fact that they would have prevented us from existing.

What I'm trying to say is you cannot judge the morality of any such events based on what the fact that they prevented a potential human being from coming into existence. We, humans, choose or are forced due to circumstances to NOT engage in the process of starting a pregnancy (or continuing it) for a variety of reasons, ALL moral reasons.

The fact that a man may choose to not have children, is not the moral equivalent of killing his existing children. That's how silly such arguments are.

 

[EricK]

It ought to be born in mind that this statement was a private tweet to an individual, so:

A. Was limited to 140 characters
and
B. Was not written with a wider, potentially hostile, audience in mind.

See here: https://richarddawkins.net/2014/08/...logy-for-letting-slip-the-dogs-of-twitterwar/ for a more full version of what he would have replied to the question he was asked.

In reply to the OP, I think that if you are not going to abort, you shouldn't have the test in the first place. As such, you would never be in the position to have to make the decision.

 

[Unbeatable]

Arguments like, "I [or someone I know] have a disability and I'm glad I [or someone I know] wasn't aborted."

Look people: Forget disabilities and genetic conditions and Down Syndrome. We are ALL happy we weren't aborted.

The VAST MAJORITY of people are happy not to have been aborted, but there are some of us who upon reflection do in fact consider the best case scenario to be one in which we had never been born. I do not think that it would have weakened your point to refrain from overgeneralizing.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

I know a number of people who could have benefitted from getting aborted.

 

[DBT]

If it was possible to make the choice for oneself as a fetus, and I had had DS as a fetus, I would have chosen not to be borne, without hesitation. Personally, the same decision would apply to host genetic defects. Of course, having to make that decision on someone else's behalf is much more difficult.

 

[PyramidHead]

If it was possible to make the choice for oneself as a fetus, and I had had DS as a fetus, I would have chosen not to be borne, without hesitation. Personally, the same decision would apply to host genetic defects. Of course, having to make that decision on someone else's behalf is much more difficult.

Exactly. Since you can never know ahead of time whether somebody would have rather not been born, it's immoral to make that decision for them, thus putting them at risk for harm they wouldn't have consented to if they were able to.

 

[Angry Floof]

If it was possible to make the choice for oneself as a fetus, and I had had DS as a fetus, I would have chosen not to be borne, without hesitation. Personally, the same decision would apply to host genetic defects. Of course, having to make that decision on someone else's behalf is much more difficult.

Exactly. Since you can never know ahead of time whether somebody would have rather not been born, it's immoral to make that decision for them, thus putting them at risk for harm they wouldn't have consented to if they were able to.

I think I'm not understanding you. You're saying that it's immoral to make that decision for them, but then you'd make that decision for them by aborting them? Isn't it true that you're making the decision for them either way? Not only that, but aborting is quite a decisive action, where allowing a pregnancy to run its course to birth is also a choice but a more passive one, erring on the side of life.

 

[Keith&Co.]

You're saying that it's immoral to make that decision for them, but then you'd make that decision for them by aborting them?

I think there's a special plead in there, that the fetus isn't a person, yet, so aborting them is not making the decision FOR a person who doesn't exist, while letting the fetus go to term is a decision that will lead to a person, and that person will suffer some quantity of inescapable harm.
For the purpose of Pyramid's decision, personhood isn't the decision as much as it's a symptom of the consequences of the decision.

 

[EricK]

If one is considering the future person which might or might not exist as the result of your decision, you should also consider the other future people whose existence depends on your decision. eg If a couple could afford to reasonably care for 3 healthy children or 1 disabled child, then by not aborting their first, disabled, child, they are potentially depriving of existence 3 other people.

 

[Angry Floof]

You're saying that it's immoral to make that decision for them, but then you'd make that decision for them by aborting them?

I think there's a special plead in there, that the fetus isn't a person, yet, so aborting them is not making the decision FOR a person who doesn't exist, while letting the fetus go to term is a decision that will lead to a person, and that person will suffer some quantity of inescapable harm.
For the purpose of Pyramid's decision, personhood isn't the decision as much as it's a symptom of the consequences of the decision.

I agree about special pleading, but Pyramid used "making the decision for them" in his argument. In that line of thinking, I'm wondering how the decisive action of aborting is less making a decision for the potential person than allowing life to do its thing.

 

[PyramidHead]

Exactly. Since you can never know ahead of time whether somebody would have rather not been born, it's immoral to make that decision for them, thus putting them at risk for harm they wouldn't have consented to if they were able to.

I think I'm not understanding you. You're saying that it's immoral to make that decision for them, but then you'd make that decision for them by aborting them? Isn't it true that you're making the decision for them either way? Not only that, but aborting is quite a decisive action, where allowing a pregnancy to run its course to birth is also a choice but a more passive one, erring on the side of life.

Erring on the side of life is not a passive choice, because life is a combination of good experiences and bad experiences. The balance of the two is uncertain, and the suffering each person is guaranteed to endure is by no means trivial, even for healthy fetuses. By carrying a fetus to term, you are exposing a real person to a volatile mixture with unpredictable results.

Nonexistence, on the other hand, provides complete immunity to every kind of harm. It is also a state in which the potential person cannot possibly lament their inability to enjoy the good experiences of life. Nobody is put at risk, and nobody's consent can be violated, because there is nobody there. If one is to err on the side of caution, this is clearly the way to do it. If I'm wrong, and the fetus I aborted would have become a person with a happy life, nobody is worse off as a result, because the person never exists to be worse off. If you are wrong, and the fetus you bring to term becomes a person with a sad life, there are tangible bad outcomes to your choice.

 

[Keith&Co.]

I'm wondering how the decisive action of aborting is less making a decision for the potential person than allowing life to do its thing.

Well, 'making the decision for them' isn't Pyramid's problem. He's carefully structured the argument so that it concentrates on 'harm' experienced by the person.
If we abort, there's no person and no harm.
If we don't abort, there will be a person and they will have harm and that's not fair.

 

[Angry Floof]

I think I'm not understanding you. You're saying that it's immoral to make that decision for them, but then you'd make that decision for them by aborting them? Isn't it true that you're making the decision for them either way? Not only that, but aborting is quite a decisive action, where allowing a pregnancy to run its course to birth is also a choice but a more passive one, erring on the side of life.

Erring on the side of life is not a passive choice, because life is a combination of good experiences and bad experiences. The balance of the two is uncertain, and the suffering each person is guaranteed to endure is by no means trivial, even for healthy fetuses. By carrying a fetus to term, you are exposing a real person to a volatile mixture with unpredictable results.

Nonexistence, on the other hand, provides complete immunity to every kind of harm. It is also a state in which the potential person cannot possibly lament their inability to enjoy the good experiences of life. Nobody is put at risk, and nobody's consent can be violated, because there is nobody there. If one is to err on the side of caution, this is clearly the way to do it. If I'm wrong, and the fetus I aborted would have become a person with a happy life, nobody is worse off as a result, because the person never exists to be worse off. If you are wrong, and the fetus you bring to term becomes a person with a sad life, there are tangible bad outcomes to your choice.

Gotcha.

 

[PyramidHead]

If one is considering the future person which might or might not exist as the result of your decision, you should also consider the other future people whose existence depends on your decision. eg If a couple could afford to reasonably care for 3 healthy children or 1 disabled child, then by not aborting their first, disabled, child, they are potentially depriving of existence 3 other people.

That calculus applies to any couple who decide not to have children. My aunt and uncle are wealthy and childless. Biologically and financially, they could have had many children, either caring for them or putting them up for adoption. But nobody says they did anything wrong by "depriving of existence" the 20 or so babies they decided not to have.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

And why would pouring resources into one disabled child be a less moral choice than using those resources on three healthy children anyways? Those kids don't exist, so why would it matter if their potential existence is deprived in favour of someone else's existence?

 

[PyramidHead]

I'm wondering how the decisive action of aborting is less making a decision for the potential person than allowing life to do its thing.

Well, 'making the decision for them' isn't Pyramid's problem. He's carefully structured the argument so that it concentrates on 'harm' experienced by the person.
If we abort, there's no person and no harm.
If we don't abort, there will be a person and they will have harm and that's not fair.

I don't think of it as a meticulously crafted argument, but an application of the same moral principles we use for real, living people. Put aside the issue of existence vs. nonexistence for a minute. I think it would be wrong to inject somebody with a highly addictive drug without their permission, even if the drug had mostly good effects and only a few bad effects. It could be the case that their lives are improved with the drug, compared to what it would be like without it. The point is that we couldn't have known that beforehand, so we're gambling with somebody else's well-being without consent. I don't think having a baby is very different, and having one with Downs Syndrome may only be different because the drug has more negative than positive effects.

 

[EricK]

And why would pouring resources into one disabled child be a less moral choice than using those resources on three healthy children anyways? Those kids don't exist, so why would it matter if their potential existence is deprived in favour of someone else's existence?

And it is not more moral either. In either case you are considering the potential existence of people.

My point is that as soon as you start considering potential existence of people - as some do when they consider the question of whether or not to abort a foetus - it is inconsistent to not consider all the other potential people affected by that decision. Either potential people are important - in which case consider all of them; or they're not - in which case don't bring the issue up.