Would you abort a fetus if it had Downs Syndrome?

[PyramidHead]

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.

On its face, that seems like a rational way to look at the situation. But the fact that people either exist or don't exist based on the outcome of the decision in question adds a wrinkle to the problem. It may be more apt to say that the interests of potential people should be considered for the choices that result in them becoming actual people. If they don't result in actual people, then the interests of potential people are not a concern: a potential person cannot be affected by any action unless that action causes it to become an actual person. I really think this is a special case that deserves a different kind of reasoning than a blanket principle.

 

[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?

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.

Not really. The fetus is a real thing and you're making a decsion about something that actually exists. That's very different from considerations about potential things which might theoretically exist in the future.

 

[doubtingt]

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.

By that logic, you can never know ahead of time whether somebody about to be killed or to die would rather stay alive, so its immoral to save them. See a child about to step into the street and get hit by a bus, and its immoral to grab their arm. See someone about to get shot, and its immoral to interfere even by calling the cops. See an person have a heart attack or get hit by a car, and its immoral to call an ambulance, not to mention immoral for the EMT or doctors to try and save them, unless the person explicitly requests it.

The obvious silliness of these examples is not because they don't share the same premise and logic or your argument, it is because we all recognize your premise as false. Almost all people want to live. That is why they spend most of their time making sure they continue to do so. It is very easy to die. You don't even have to kill yourself, just left the world do it without trying to stop it. Almost everyone that truly prefers not to exist, doesn't. Even people with suicidal thoughts and even attempts want to live more and more often than not. Outside of extreme suffering context, we can be nearly certain that a person wants to keep living, and that a fetus will become (if we don't kill it) a person that wants to exist.

A fetus is a living think with full human dna that unless we interfere, will become a person with full moral standing who wants to live. There is no rationally denying this fact and whatever ethical implications they hold. Killing a fetus is acting to cause a person's non-existence, which is also true of murder. The difference is that since we decide (reasonably IMO) that the fetus is not a person yet and thus has no rights to live, it is not murder or at all illegal. But ethically, its about as close to harming as you get, without really qualifying (closer than killing an adult chimp).

The non-independence and the presence within the mother's body are sufficient basis to deem abortion a legal act under full control of the mother. But its legality doesn't really impact its moral status nor the likely discomfort and guilt most women would naturally feel about it, even without religious and political rhetoric, due to the reality of causing a person who'd otherwise exist to not exist.

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.

None of those examples other than abortion constitute an act that causes a person to not exist that otherwise would have, and causality is the heart of morality.
This can be highlighted by applying your same examples to acts that impact the continued existence of living adults.
A person down the street has a heart attack on the street around midnight. You were going to walk right by there to go get a taco and might have been able to act to save his life, but you got a headache or had to work late and thus were not there. That is akin to your examples of not having sex, so you didn't make it possible for you to create a life. Now imagine that you see person and you inject them with something that causes their heart attack and they die. Put aside that its murder on legal grounds and just consider the morality. It is immoral because of the direct causal role that your intentional actions played in ensuring a person does not exist that otherwise would have had you not acted to prevent their future existence.

The point is NOT that abortion has the same immoral status as killing a person, but that not doing something that might have led to a person existing has no moral implications, while doing something to stop a person from existing who otherwise would have does.

Anti-abortionists are not wrong for assigning moral value to a fetus or to abortion, but only in equating that morality with the question of legality. Some pro-choicers commit the same error when they try to insist on the complete moral neutrality of abortion as a defense of the legality of the act, even though its legality does not require such moral neutrality.

 

[rousseau]

As long as aborting the fetus fell under normal abortion laws, sure. The essential idea that makes abortion legal is that you're not *taking away a life* (life as in sentient, conscious being), you're *stopping a life from starting*. If someone believes that down syndrome is a good reason to abort the child, then go for it.

What really clouds this type of argument are silly, delusional notions about things like 'sin' and 'hell'. Religion has no place in discussion about abortion, only science does.

 

[DBT]

This probably sounds harsh. If we see an increasing number children surviving (that may not have survived in the past) who have serious genetic defects. who they go on to children of their own this may, over time, significantly increase the degree of genetic defects within the human gene pool, which may become a long term problem from an evolutionary point of view.

 

[Tigers!]

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,

You are making a (immoral) decision for them - you are having them killed.

thus putting them at risk for harm they wouldn't have consented to if they were able to.

You have no idea whether they would have or would have not consented as you have removed from them their opportunity to decide for themselves.

Ooops - noticed that post 30 said the same thing.

 

[Tigers!]

If we don't abort, there will be a person and they will have harm and that's not fair.

How do you know they will have harm? Isn't that their decision to make and not yours? But you are eliminating any chance of them making that decision.
Who made you judge of what is fair for other people esp. life and death decisions?

 

[Keith&Co.]

If we don't abort, there will be a person and they will have harm and that's not fair.

How do you know they will have harm?

You do realize i was trying to restate someone else's argument, not making one of my own, right?
That said, suffering is a condition of being alive. They will experience harm. They will suffer. It is inescapable.
Whether or not there is too much harm to bear is a value judgment. Pyramid would say that any amount of suffering above zero is too much to inflict on someone without their consent, making it immoral to have kids.

Isn't that their decision to make and not yours?

Why would that be?
That's not a factor in morality.
Morality is doing the right things for the right reasons.
It does not depend on whether or not someone else will thank you or condemn you for it.
If Pyramid is convinced that it's immoral to inflict ANY harm on someone else, then that's their moral code, whether or not a sadist or a masochist or a physical fitness guru or a baby would eventually say they were okay with the act.

But Pyramid's entire point is, even if it is their decision to make, they have no say in the decision made before they even exist. They cannot vote to be or to not be, so the entire question is upon our shoulders.

But you are eliminating any chance of them making that decision.

Right now, they have no chance to make the decision. Which is fine, it's not their decision to make.
I have to live with the consequences of my own decisions and how they impact my self-image. Am i the sort of person who kills babies?
Am i the sort of person who exposes innocent lives to Justin Bieber, disease, starvation, war and having to make moral decisions about having their own babies?

Who made you judge of what is fair for other people esp. life and death decisions?

The question is not about what's fair for others.
The question is and all moral questions are about my actions. My motivations for my actions. And my conscience. Is having a baby the right thing to do? Are my reasons sufficient for my moral code? Am i being selfish in hoping that i'll have a kid that won't hate me?
And who made me judge of my own actions?
Whatever chain of events resulted in me apparently having free will....

 

[Keith&Co.]

This probably sounds harsh. If we see an increasing number children surviving (that may not have survived in the past) who have serious genetic defects. who they go on to children of their own this may, over time, significantly increase the degree of genetic defects within the human gene pool, which may become a long term problem from an evolutionary point of view.

The fact that their genetic defects are no longer lethal also shows an evolutionary change. As long as society retains the technology to keep such people alive, then the 'would have been lethal in the past' issue isn't an important one.
Of course, no one ever mentions that in the post-apocalypse movies. Right after we lose most major health care due to the zombies/aliens/Godzilla/robots, people are going to be dropping like flies and/or their infants facing a mortality rate that makes the Dark Ages look like a utopia.
Or, maybe that's happening in the background, while the supermodels and weightlifters run around in front of the camera having plot and stuff?

 

[doubtingt]

If we don't abort, there will be a person and they will have harm and that's not fair.

I realize you're mocking, but it is about net harm relative to gains and to the alternative choices. If most people want to live, then the harm to that person for being alive is countered by the gains. Also, the principle only applies to people, and fetuses are not people under the ethical assumptions of most pro-choicers. Thus, if aborting a fetus is not unethical (as many pro-choicers would assume), the aborting a fetus and creating a new one instead is not unethical. That means, that a mother could prevent creating a person with all the harms of Downs' and create a person without those harms without any harm to any person (since the aborted Downs' fetus is not a person). That would seem little different than doing something while pregnant that you know will result in a baby with Downs'.

Note that I don't buy this, because I reject the notion that aborting a fetus has zero ethical implications (despite being completely pro-choice).
I am just trying to explicate what I think the underlying reasoning is behind Dawkins' comment and to demonstrate that his comment is not outrageous, and is consistent with the assumption of many pro-choicers that aborting a fetus has no ethical implications.

The fact that their genetic defects are no longer lethal also shows an evolutionary change. As long as society retains the technology to keep such people alive, then the 'would have been lethal in the past' issue isn't an important one.

It is still important if the only way they stay alive today is by depending upon other people's resources. If its just the parents' resources, then it doesn't matter. If the parent won't are cannot provide all those resources and then turns to society and expects help providing resources for a child that they knew would need them and that they could have prevented. The impact of having a kid on other people is another layer to the ethics. It is unethical not to abort a fetus that you cannot care properly care for and others will have to do it for you.

 

[Keith&Co.]

If we don't abort, there will be a person and they will have harm and that's not fair.

I realize you're mocking, but it is about net harm relative to gains and to the alternative choices.

Not mocking at all. As near as i can tell, Pyramid rejects any suggestion that we can gauge the net suffering of the individual, at least with respect to making a decision to create a being who will suffer, through no fault of their own, and without having had a say in the matter.

If most people want to live,

But that's P's point. The person doesn't exist, yet, so the person doesn't have a want, yet, so the burden is on us to decide if they should live.
And P is stepping up from the question of bringing a Downs Syndrome child to term, up to questioning whether it's moral to bring any child to term.

 

[credoconsolans]

So far in the poll, given the choice, most all of us would choose to abort.

 

[DBT]

This probably sounds harsh. If we see an increasing number children surviving (that may not have survived in the past) who have serious genetic defects. who they go on to children of their own this may, over time, significantly increase the degree of genetic defects within the human gene pool, which may become a long term problem from an evolutionary point of view.

The fact that their genetic defects are no longer lethal also shows an evolutionary change. As long as society retains the technology to keep such people alive, then the 'would have been lethal in the past' issue isn't an important one.

It's not an issue of keeping them alive, that is not the problem. But it may be question of the quality of life for the individual (the degree of impairment) and how our humanitarian policies may the gene pool in the long run. There are basically two issues, one from the humanitarian point of view and the other from an evolutionary perspective.

 

[purple_kathryn]

I don't think it's immoral to continue with a DS pregnancy as such. It's entirely up to the parents whether they want to continue with the pregnancy or not and if they don't feel they are emotionally, financially or physically capable of caring for what could be a potentially severely disabled child it's better to abort.

 

[Rhea]

A fetus is a living think with full human dna that unless we interfere, will become a person with full moral standing who wants to live. There is no rationally denying this fact and whatever ethical implications they hold. Killing a fetus is acting to cause a person's non-existence, which is also true of murder. The difference is that since we decide (reasonably IMO) that the fetus is not a person yet and thus has no rights to live, it is not murder or at all illegal. But ethically, its about as close to harming as you get, without really qualifying (closer than killing an adult chimp).

Eggs and sperm are living things with human DNA and the potential to become a person should the right conditions be provided. The argument you outline is the same one used by the quiverfull folks to say that failing to have sex when you are ovulating deprives a potential human of life and is immoral. There's no difference in the argument. In neither case is an actual "person" already present, just the potential.


I denied life to many humans by taking birth control. I made choices what kind of DNA my kids would have by choosing their father. Having amniocentesis was no different than deciding to have a child with this sperm contributor rather than another. And one of my kids is directly a result of another human not being carried to term - a miscarriage that resulted in a different pregnancy 3 months later. That second pregnancy would never have happened if not for the demise of the first. Some people would have me mourn for the loss of one while the other needed that loss in order to exist.

It's a cycle of applying personhood to things that are not persons and it's not logical or consistent.

If the person has not yet developed, any choices in deciding to get to that point of personhood do not affect any person who exists. Choosing to be a biological parent when you know you have a certain debilitating disease is choosing to give that disease to a child. And one could argue reasonably, I think, that it would be immoral to knowingly choose to give a child Down Syndrome or any other dibilitating disease.

I think sometimes people romanticize the idea that a "soul" exists with a "fate" and if you do something to prevent that pregnancy or person from getting "their" chance at life you have done something wrong to an actual being. But I agree with teh argument that there is no being to be done to, therefore it is not possible to do anything to "her/him" before "s/he" exists.

 

[PyramidHead]

I think the important distinction here should be, as David Benatar says, between a life worth starting and a life worth continuing. We have good prima facie reason to assume that everybody who is currently alive wants to stay that way, even people with Downs Syndrome. This is not sufficient to establish that all lives are worth starting, since most people in this thread (and probably many people generally) would believe it is better to abort a fetus that will have severe birth defects if brought to term.

Actual persons have a stake in their continued survival. They have plans for the future and emotional bonds with others. What makes murder wrong, in my opinion, is that it violates the interests of the victim. As social animals, we are constantly communicating among ourselves about what we want to do with our lives. This forms the basis for treating others as we (or they) would want to be treated, and not depriving them of something they currently are striving for.

Since potential people cannot communicate their interests, and since there is no danger of depriving them of something they are currently striving for, we do no harm to a child by preventing it from being born--whether via abortion, abstinence, birth control, or simply doing something else other than copulation. By causing a child to be born, we expose it to suffering it would not have experienced otherwise, and in the case of Downs Syndrome, that suffering is much more severe.

Comparing the two options, I have yet to be convinced that the second choice is morally superior to the first. If we can infer that starting a life is justifiable based on people's ubiquitous desire to continue living, we can justify injecting somebody with heroin based on addicts' ubiquitous desire to continue taking heroin.

 

[doubtingt]

A fetus is a living think with full human dna that unless we interfere, will become a person with full moral standing who wants to live. There is no rationally denying this fact and whatever ethical implications they hold. Killing a fetus is acting to cause a person's non-existence, which is also true of murder. The difference is that since we decide (reasonably IMO) that the fetus is not a person yet and thus has no rights to live, it is not murder or at all illegal. But ethically, its about as close to harming as you get, without really qualifying (closer than killing an adult chimp).

Eggs and sperm are living things with human DNA and the potential to become a person should the right conditions be provided. The argument you outline is the same one used by the quiverfull folks to say that failing to have sex when you are ovulating deprives a potential human of life and is immoral. There's no difference in the argument. In neither case is an actual "person" already present, just the potential.

There is a massive difference. Neither the sperm nor the egg have the complete biology that would allow it to develop into a person. Also, you completely ignored most of my argument about the critical role of causality and inaction versus action, where I explained how failing to act in order to do the things needed for a person to exist is not at all the same as acting to prevent a person from existing that otherwise would if you did not engage in specific acts to stop the process. It is the same difference as failing to hang out at the Golden Gate bridge everyday, so you can talk each person who comes to jump out of jumping, versus going there in order to push people off the bridge.

In addition, there is no valid scientific basis for defining a human being based upon which side of the birth canal it is on. The idea that a "person" is so defined is purely a political definition of a "person" that serves (validly IMO) to demarcate the legal issues and recognize that the fetus doesn't have individual rights until it is no longer physically inside the mother's body over which she has the rights. Scientifically, a 6 month fetus and a newborn baby are far more in the same category of living thing than is a 6 month old fetus and a sperm.

It's a cycle of applying personhood to things that are not persons and it's not logical or consistent.

I have been clear that "personhood" is a purely legal construct and not what I am talking about. I am talking about ethics as they relate to the scientific and causal realities of killing a fetus just before it leaves the womb versus just after it has left. It is quite logical and consistent to impart the act of killing a fetus some moral status, even if it not at all illegal to kill it due to its lack of legal rights as a "person" and to the mother's rights as a person to control her own body.

If the person has not yet developed, any choices in deciding to get to that point of personhood do not affect any person who exists.

True, as long as you recognize that that whether a "person" has developed is not at all a scientific position, but a purely legal one.
But even then, the act of abortion has very direct causal impact and is essentially THE neccessary and sufficient cause of the person not existing in the near future who otherwise would have. The fact that no person yet exists is what makes it not legal murder, but does not make it an entirely non-moral issue for any remotely coherent and principled ethical system.

Choosing to be a biological parent when you know you have a certain debilitating disease is choosing to give that disease to a child. And one could argue reasonably, I think, that it would be immoral to knowingly choose to give a child Down Syndrome or any other dibilitating disease.

No, that is inconsistent with your stance that "it is not possible to do anything to "her/him" before "s/he" exists". According to your premise, any choice you make, even one to drink and give the fetus downs' is not immoral. Allowing any fetus to continue cannot be immoral. Only after the baby is born does any choice take on any moral implications. So only the choice not to kill a newborn with Downs' could be immoral.
If this feels wrong to most people and likely to you, it is because it is the logical consequence of your utterly arbitrary moral dichotomy in which killing a newborn is one of the most heinous act possible, but killing the same organism 1 minute earlier just because it is still in the birth canal has zero moral implications.
Arbitrary cutoffs are what law is all about, but it doesn't fly with any sensible moral code.

I think sometimes people romanticize the idea that a "soul" exists with a "fate" and if you do something to prevent that pregnancy or person from getting "their" chance at life you have done something wrong to an actual being.

It isn't "fate", it's scientific causal determinism. If you didn't deliberately kill the fetus in order to prevent it from reaching a legal boundary to qualify under the law as a "person", then it would have become a person as a product of deterministic causal forces already set in motion.

But I agree with teh argument that there is no being to be done to, therefore it is not possible to do anything to "her/him" before "s/he" exists.

The part I bolded is false. There is no legally recognized "person", but there is definitely a "being" and if not already a "human being" by an reasoned scientific criteria, then as close to that as any being in the universe can be (and arguably closer than conjoined twins and born infants with major defects).

Basically, the parts of your argument that are valid apply at least as much if not more to adult chimps as to human fetuses. So, to be valid your arguments must apply at least as well to adult chimps (who unlike fetuses are not developing humans and have zero probability of reaching "person" status).
Just like with a fetus, killing a chimp is not killing a person and thus it is not murder, but doing it for reasons other than those seen as vital for human life would be widely viewed as unethical.

In addition, for your argument to be valid, it must also treat drinking and doing drugs while pregnant as at least as morally neutral if not more so than abortion.

 

[Juma]

There is a massive difference. Neither the sperm nor the egg have the complete biology that would allow it to develop into a person.

Neither do the fertilized egg: it requires a womb to develop.

In addition, there is no valid scientific basis for defining a human being based upon which side of the birth canal it is on.

True. That is why nobody believes that. Why bring up such a strawman?

 

[Keith&Co.]

In addition, there is no valid scientific basis for defining a human being based upon which side of the birth canal it is on.

True. That is why nobody believes that. Why bring up such a strawman?

True.
Maybe there's a scientific basis for that point in fetal development when the womb stops being the woman's womb?

 

[PyramidHead]

Basically, the parts of your argument that are valid apply at least as much if not more to adult chimps as to human fetuses. So, to be valid your arguments must apply at least as well to adult chimps (who unlike fetuses are not developing humans and have zero probability of reaching "person" status).

You place undue importance on DNA, in my opinion. I think we have much more of a moral duty to an adult chimp than to any fetus. My morality is based around the consequences to (and interests of) the parties involved, and I don't see how any moral system can fail to take those into account. Why is a conscious creature with the ability to feel pain, experience complex emotions, form social bonds, and express desires less deserving of moral consideration than a fetal human, which has none of these traits? Obviously the answer will be subjective, but I cannot understood why DNA is such a special feature in your morality.

Just like with a fetus, killing a chimp is not killing a person and thus it is not murder, but doing it for reasons other than those seen as vital for human life would be widely viewed as unethical.

What is widely viewed may not be well-reasoned. Ordinarily, the prevailing opinion in matters of morality is that inflicting great harm is less permissible than inflicting little harm. In a case where no harm is inflicted, such as aborting a fetus early in development, the rational extension of the same norm would deem it perfectly ethical. You have to add extra considerations, such as the potential person argument, the action vs. inaction distinction, and so on, to claim otherwise. Those considerations are not widely agreed upon.

In addition, for your argument to be valid, it must also treat drinking and doing drugs while pregnant as at least as morally neutral if not more so than abortion.

Drinking and doing drugs while pregnant is morally neutral if the person knows that the fetus will be killed before it becomes a person. That is almost impossible to know, so in practice, those acts are usually not morally neutral; it is precisely because they may have some effect on the PERSON that is born with a debilitating condition that I feel that way. If a woman becomes pregnant and somehow guarantees that she will have an abortion in two months, she isn't harming anybody by drinking and smoking in the meantime.