Posted by yxibow on September 30, 2009, at 0:33:39
In reply to Re: Regarding PBC on Sarah Palin, posted by Dinah on September 29, 2009, at 22:23:57
You can't argue with religion scientifically.
So I won't attempt to.
Please don't interpret my above essay as though I were not educated about what Down Syndrome is or have no compassion for those.
As I noted, there were two such children (actually overgrown because of developmental difficulties and their grade/ages being offset) in my elementary school and the best we could, people were told or knew not to treat them any differently than the other children.
I'm sure you can list a number of -higher functioning- Down Syndrome people in the entertainment industry, elsewhere, etc... just like you can say that Marlee Matlin has been very successful despite her profound deafness.
You can say that by late age, when schizophrenia usually dies down, John Nash is once again active in mathematics and chooses to deal with the illness by basically ignoring what isn't real.
And I did discuss the slippery slope of "eugenics".
But as I say, I can't and won't try to argue with what really boils down to a religious decision.I think scientifically and rationally it is unethical to bring a child who you do not know how profoundly their mental incapacity or disability will be, into this world.
Yes, the anguish of having to terminate, to have an abortion, I do not deny, that even for those who believe in the choice of it, and I do, is not a profound issue for women terminating a fetus because of the attachment and bonding that has developed.
Like a number of conditions in women who have late life pregnancies, the risk goes up. The risk also goes up if two people with Down Syndrome, or especially one female attempt to have children.Severe mental retardation can occur in those cases.
And I think that would be doubly unethical to bring such a child into the world.
From a rational standpoint, the costs of carrying to term and having a birth of a Down Syndrome child for life is staggering. The costs of raising a child through college these days is a quarter of a million.
Factor into that instead, disability issues, special education care, that may or may not be paid by the government, and no matter how much love there is, a child that you do not know whether they will be mildly or severely impaired, may require lifetime care because they don't have the capacity to understand certain key things in life.Sarah Palin can choose to do so because through her husband they are independently wealthy by Alaska standards more than anyone in Wasilla, which I can tell you having driven through there personally while I was in Alaska, is not a particularly inticing place to live.
Anyhow, I end this debate -- as I said, I cannot debate the existence of God in science.
Fin.
poster:yxibow
thread:918937
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20090827/msgs/919093.html