[nkrisc]

People born with Down syndrome deserve all the respect and dignity any other person does.

I have two kids. If I could have chosen whether or not they would be born with Down syndrome I would choose would “without” every single time. If either of them were born with it I would love them the same but I would never choose it, if I had the choice to make.

[onion2k]

The point the OP is making is that given the choice parents will always choose a 100% 'perfect' child who will live a happy and long life free from things that make it difficult. Until relatively recently this hasn't actually been a choice though - as much as you'd like that, you've not been about to tell much about the long term future of a foetus so you got what Mother Nature blessed you with.

Increasingly though, parents can check, and they are doing, and that means they're getting to pick whether or not to carry a not-quite-perfect baby to term. Many are choosing to terminate and try again. Right now it's for obvious things like Downs, but the scope for what parents choose to terminate can, and probably will, escalate to other detectable problems.

The question is where that ends. Terminating due to a susceptibility to aggressive cancer? Maybe. Due to lower intelligence? Perhaps. Lower physical strength? Probability of autism? Unsymmetrical facial features (e.g. 'ugliness')?

[mixdup]

>The question is where that ends. Terminating due to a susceptibility to aggressive cancer? Maybe. Due to lower intelligence? Perhaps. Lower physical strength? Probability of autism? Unsymmetrical facial features (e.g. 'ugliness')?

Why/how a pregnancy started (consensually or not for example) or the motivation behind making that choice (just don't want a kid, some genetic diagnosis, etc) are irrelevant. If abortion is bad, it shouldn't be done at all. If it's not bad the reasons behind it should not matter

Always breaks my brain when people argue abortions in case of rape or incest are OK but otherwise a woman should be forced to carry a pregnancy to term, as if it matters to the potential child in the end. Either you're killing a person or not. I'm pro-choice, so it's my opinion that you're not, but the wishy-washy middle ground position is untenable to me.

[fabbbbb]

Well the reasons for a choice do matter, don’t they? They matter in today’s law in many places.

Is aborting because of an LLM „likelihood“ of some genetic issue (that might lead or not lead to an short or unhappy life) the same as aborting after rape for you?

Biggest problem in fact is that people take genetic markers as deterministic and assume the worst outcome. Lots of false abortions happen. That does not happen with rape.

[picofarad]

I am pro-choice, but really I'm hoping there is enough advancement in medicine to "fix" genetic issues and the sorts of things people would terminate after a positive test result.

If that is actually possible someday, legitimately, I am switching to pro-life.

With only rape/incest or mother's certain death as reasons for termination.

I realise this is a weird and nuanced take, but I was adopted and it was back when they forced the mother to keep the kid for 6 months before they'd place tbe kid. Puritanical nonsense?

Make it so accidental pregnancy is 0.0001% (a thousand times less likely than perfect condom and pill/IUD use;) and the above "can fix", and what reason would there be to terminate?

I am anti-death penalty too.

[mixdup]

If you feel that abortion is killing an otherwise viable human being, then you should be pro-life now. Especially if you're anti-death penalty and feel that no one should die for any reason. On the other hand if there are any reasons why abortion would be ok, why aren't all reasons ok? Either it's wrong or it's not, and if you are on the pro-life side why should a child be punished because of how it was conceived? On the other hand, if you believe that a non-viable fetus is not a live human being, the decision to stop before it gets to that point is independent of any reasoning

Having conditions on abortion are completely nonsensical and irrational. I don't get it

[hhjinks]

Neither the OP nor you give a reason for why that's bad. I want my child to have all possible advantages in life. I'm sure most people want that. Why shouldn't we select for that? I'm interested in hearing an argument that doesn't go into anti-abortion territory.

[onion2k]

There are a few reasons why it could be bad:

Access to the tech is probably unequal if it's done privately, which leads to polarization of society where rich people get even more opportunities than poor people. If you want equality of opportunity and an approximately meritocratic society then building a system to prejudice outcomes before kids are even born isn't ideal (although money and education already does this to an extent, those can be countered a bit by government policy; literally growing humans with genetic advantages can't.)

There's a world of potential for choosing foetuses based on criteria that are ethically catastrophic (no girls, no people who are 'impure', etc). You can argue that it's still parental choice even if the parents are terrible people, but normalizing the tech could be a disaster if a future fascist government gets into power. Imagine if the choice was removed from the parents and taken over by the state.

The foetus doesn't get a choice. This is straying very close to anti-abortion rhetoric admittedly, but if you believe that people should get a say in the outcome of their life, then aborting pregnancies based on a possible outcome that might not manifest for decades is very questionable. A baby that gets terminated because current medicine can't stop an aggressive cancer is having the opportunity to wait for medicine to improve taken away from them. Even ignoring the abortion side of things, you can question whether it's right to make that decision on their behalf.

[moron4hire]

It's an anti-reproductive rights argument. You have to first accept the premise that a fetus is a person. Once you've done that, then the premise that a fetus is a person seems obvious.

[hombre_fatal]

Given the amount of love, energy, and attention it takes to raise a kid, I don't see why I should care how selective somebody else wants to be.

[adamtaylor_13]

This sort of thinking is incredibly dangerous to society at large, to say nothing of the danger to your own heart and soul.

Character, beauty, love, sacrifice. Every one of these involves pain and it makes life worth living. You can't avoid pain, so you might as well engage it in service of those you hold dear.

You should very much care about society wielding a sword like this, because historically we do not wield it well.

[hombre_fatal]

The sword being just deciding which embryos you will raise?

It's very easy to demand or promote sacrifices you expect other people to make. But I don't find that to be very empathetic.

I've already seen how society is when we shame and hand-wring about the personal decisions others make, and it's not one I want for my kids. At some point you need to be satisfied with your own decisions and then let other people make theirs.

[adamtaylor_13]

I reject the premise of "live and let live" whereby no one is allowed to suggest I live a better life nor am I allowed to suggest they improve theirs.

I can be both satisfied with my decisions and still wish better for my neighbor; these are not mutually exclusive.

I am not saying, don't choose between embryos. I'm saying, be careful because it's a slippery slope and not a slide you want to ride.

[hombre_fatal]

Let's set the standard at development and genetic disorders.

Eliminating Down syndrome and cystic fibrosis, for example, seems not only reasonable but a moral imperative.

[moron4hire]

There really is no point in leaning into avoidable pain. Pain does not "make you stronger". Pain is not "beauty". These are all bullshit tropes invented by abusers to keep people from questioning things.

[adamtaylor_13]

I agree with you, unnecessary pain is not virtue. But pain does indeed make you stronger, or it can make you bitter, or depressed, or insane. How you choose to work through the inevitable pain you will face is what determines if it makes you stronger or not.

It's easy to hand wave the question of pain away, but much wiser men than you and I have arrived at very different conclusions than you suggest.

[fabbbbb]

Is there such choice? Today parents are not doing that choice but choosing to stop the life of the kid with Down-Syndrome. So I’m not sure they are receiving „all the respect“ today - are they?