Down's syndrome in Iceland

These are precious human beings hand-crafted in the image of God, and no government or person on earth has the authority to rob persons with Down syndrome of their lives,” Godsey told CNA. “Down syndrome is not a death sentence, and it is monstrous to suggest otherwise.”

Catholic Bible Thumping to force their views on others and on other's wallets and quality of life.

Quote: Fleastiff

Nature's way is to eliminate the unfit. .

LOL! Irony, you gotta love it.

Quote: Pacomartin

The 59-year-old actress, Patricia Heaton took to Twitter with a heated reply, taking aim at the wording of the CBS tweet and Iceland in the process.
"Iceland isn't actually eliminating Down Syndrome. They're just killing everybody that has it. Big difference," she wrote.

There is indeed a big difference.

Quote:

Well, you are killing a fetus, not a child. But I understand that you see that as the same thing.

Besides time and development there is no difference. A zygote will only develop into a unique human being and nothing else. All it needs is nurture and time. The words we use to define different stages of human development in the womb are words that describe stages a baby goes through to be born. A fetus is alive and is a developing human person if you kill it you are killing a developing child. I don't see why the different words should not be considered the same thing.

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I know that a friend of mine from high school chose to give birth to a baby that she knew would only live for a few hours or days at most. I am sorry, but that is "extreme" IMHO.

I understand your opinion. Having been with many mothers who chose to do the same thing and I will say that IMHO the extreme option is to cut the child to pieces in the womb and remove the pieces.

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I will retract the word for choosing to give birth to a baby that you know has Down's syndrome. But as Iceland has few or no Catholics or Baptists, I doubt that they have one woman a year that goes through such a pregnancy.

Who cares what religion they are? They are humans with a conscience and a brain. How can you condemn an unborn child to death because they are disabled?!? This is scary.

Quote: FrGamble

Who cares what religion they are? They are humans with a conscience and a brain.

I am not actually taking an advocacy position here. I am just reporting facts. My mother spent decades teaching Sunday school to Down's Syndrome children, and she was very sad that they closed the class since there are so few new children because of combination of abortion and pre-natal testing.

The facts are that about 6000 Down's syndrome children are born in the USA each year. Iceland with 1/1000 the population but with higher rates of genetic testing and near 100% abortion of positive results has 2-3 Down's syndrome children each year.

The media article is kind of glossing over the fact that if Iceland had the same rate as the USA they would have 6 per year, but they have only 2-3. The media article is focusing on the absolute numbers because they are so small,and they can use the word "eradicate".

Quote: FrGamble

How can you condemn an unborn child to death because they are disabled?!? This is scary.

I just think people don't see it that way. While a Down's Syndrome child is not in pain, the parents don't want to raise a child with that many difficulties. This issue is only going to be more severe in future years, as diagnostics get better.

I was watching a video of a teenaged girl explaining that she had Waardenburg Syndrome which misplaces her eyes and gives her a broad nose. It gives her a kind of "elfish look".


In the future parents may be told that their fetus has Waardenburg Syndrome and undoubtedly some will elect to abort.

I think that anti-abortion counselors concentrate on women who just don't want a child, encouraging them to opt for adoption instead. In the future, I suppose that some thought will go into counselling women who have an imperfect pre-natal test.

The CBS article did say that the genetic counseling in Iceland was often "heavy handed'.

>>>>Who cares what religion they are? They are humans with a conscience and a brain.
And hangman's nooses. Concentrate on their intentions.

>>> How can you condemn an unborn child to death because they are disabled?!? This is scary.
Not at all. ALL free health care, free education economies have started off with genetic screening. Sweden once sterilized a girl whose surname put her at the back of the room where all the letters on the blackboard looked the same. She didn't need to be sterilized to protect the public treasury, she needed a pair of eyeglasses. Mistakes happen, but so what?

I was once in a chat room when a woman listed her very full plate of diseases. I asked only one question: was she of Norwegian heritage. When she replied that her father was from Norway I knew that this middle aged woman should have been properly diagnosed around age 12 and given a bottle of B vitamins. Things go wrong and consequences can be severe and prolonged. Deal with it.

Quote: Fleastiff

Sweden once sterilized a girl whose surname put her at the back of the room where all the letters on the blackboard looked the same.

I did not know that.

Quote: Compulsory sterilisation in Sweden occurred between 1934 and 1975.

Originally the aim of the sterilisation policy was to protect society and it targeted the so-called feeble-minded or other individuals who were considered unfit.

This practice peaked in the mid-1940s. In 1944 85% of the sterilisations were performed on eugenic grounds. From the 1950s and onwards the law came to be used mostly in the interest of the individual, for social or medical reasons, under varying degrees of pressure from doctors and social workers.

According to the 2000 governmental report, 21,000 were estimated to have been forcibly sterilised, 6,000 were coerced into a 'voluntary' sterilisation while the nature of a further 4,000 cases could not be determined.