Richard Dawkins = Larry Logic ~ Arse
Discussion
Here's the twitter conversation....
“994 human beings with Down's Syndrome deliberately killed before birth in England and Wales in 2012. Is that civilised?” @AidanMcCourt asked.
“Yes, it is very civilised. These are fetuses, diagnosed before they have human feelings,” Dawkins responded.
“I honestly don't know what I would do if I were pregnant with a kid with Down Syndrome. Real ethical dilemma,” @InYourFaceNYer chimed in.
“Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice,” he tweeted back.
taken from a non lancastrian news outlet...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/richard-d...
He then goes on to embroil himself in some conversation as to what "disabilities" deserve death and which don't.
“994 human beings with Down's Syndrome deliberately killed before birth in England and Wales in 2012. Is that civilised?” @AidanMcCourt asked.
“Yes, it is very civilised. These are fetuses, diagnosed before they have human feelings,” Dawkins responded.
“I honestly don't know what I would do if I were pregnant with a kid with Down Syndrome. Real ethical dilemma,” @InYourFaceNYer chimed in.
“Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice,” he tweeted back.
taken from a non lancastrian news outlet...
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/richard-d...
He then goes on to embroil himself in some conversation as to what "disabilities" deserve death and which don't.
and by you. " deserve death" well done.There are a couple of instances of Down's in my family tree. One I never met, the family have all but shut themselves off, another died as an infant with the parents then divorcing.
When my wife was pregnant with our child the scan didn't suggest a Down's test was warranted and we never took it. Fortunately we have a heathy, happy child now.
I say fortunately deliberately; we thought a lot and discussed at length about what we would do if we were told we had a choice to abort a foetus with Down's. I struggle to cope with having a child that doesn't come with complications and I know a little of the weight it's put on those in the family who've had a child with Down's. Much of the burden would fall on my wife and potentially any other children we had.
In the cold light of day, it probably would be immoral from one viewpoint to continue down that path when you could give that life to a child better placed to take advantage of it and leave the parents better placed to raise other children. But life isn't black and white and there are other moralities. I don't know what we'd have done and I don't think there are any right answers on this one.
When my wife was pregnant with our child the scan didn't suggest a Down's test was warranted and we never took it. Fortunately we have a heathy, happy child now.
I say fortunately deliberately; we thought a lot and discussed at length about what we would do if we were told we had a choice to abort a foetus with Down's. I struggle to cope with having a child that doesn't come with complications and I know a little of the weight it's put on those in the family who've had a child with Down's. Much of the burden would fall on my wife and potentially any other children we had.
In the cold light of day, it probably would be immoral from one viewpoint to continue down that path when you could give that life to a child better placed to take advantage of it and leave the parents better placed to raise other children. But life isn't black and white and there are other moralities. I don't know what we'd have done and I don't think there are any right answers on this one.
FredClogs said:
Pesty said:
Without having ever been in this situation at this moment in time and on the balance of probabilities I would probably choose to abort.
Because of moral reasoning or because it would make your life easier?Grapheme and others have articulated better than I could other aspects including health and ongoing care.
What is your axe to grind here. Are you the parent of a sd child or religious aspect to do with abortion.
Edited by Pesty on Thursday 21st August 10:35
Got to agree with Dawkins. He's not sugarcoating it which is what a lot of people seem to need.
Would you actively chose to have your child suffer from any disability? I don't think anyone would answer yes.
In that case you make a choice to have a child without and it's the one I'd make.
If it happens, undetected, then of course parent will love, cherish and raise their children as best they can - whether they are perfect or not.
But if you can make the choice beforehand one way or the other, nobody pretends its an easy experience but I feel the choice is an easy one to make in my eyes.
By contrast someone close to me has made a different choice in the face of tests showing a good chance of a problem.
My opinion and theirs are both those held by intelligent people - in possession of the same information, in the same place we'd both do different things.
Would you actively chose to have your child suffer from any disability? I don't think anyone would answer yes.
In that case you make a choice to have a child without and it's the one I'd make.
If it happens, undetected, then of course parent will love, cherish and raise their children as best they can - whether they are perfect or not.
But if you can make the choice beforehand one way or the other, nobody pretends its an easy experience but I feel the choice is an easy one to make in my eyes.
By contrast someone close to me has made a different choice in the face of tests showing a good chance of a problem.
My opinion and theirs are both those held by intelligent people - in possession of the same information, in the same place we'd both do different things.
Pesty said:
FredClogs said:
Pesty said:
Without having ever been in this situation at this moment in time and on the balance of probabilities I would probably choose to abort.
Because of moral reasoning or because it would make your life easier?What is your axe to grind here. Are you the parent of a sd child or religious aspect to do with abortion.
I'm not religious in any way but I am what is described in normative ethics as a deontologicalist, that is to say I believe that the correct moral thing to do is that which is adherence with "the rules". Most other people it seems fall into the utilitarian or consequentialist camp - that is to say they believe moral actions are those that raise the greater good and least harm or those where the "ends justify the means".
I think that the debate on aborting disabled children or abortion in general is almost unique (along with assisted suicide and euthanasia) at being able to split open these classical normative ethical positions.
But mostly I think Dawkins is a dick and wanted to see how many on here would agree.
I don't like Dawkins, and I find the fact that he's become some sort of 'archbishop of the church of atheism' rather ironic.
On the subject of Downs Syndrome, I'd have to defer to my mother's view and experience. She has spent over 40 years working as a volunteer with disabled children, both within the riding for the disabled association and at a top special needs school.
It goes without saying that she has loved all the kids who have passed through her care, but she is very well placed to see the strain it puts on the parents and the heartbreak which comes from them seeing other kids achieve those 'life landmarks' which theirs will never reach.
Her view on termination of a Downs foetus is that she would be fully supportive of anyone making the decision to have an abortion where it was known that Downs was present.
On the subject of Downs Syndrome, I'd have to defer to my mother's view and experience. She has spent over 40 years working as a volunteer with disabled children, both within the riding for the disabled association and at a top special needs school.
It goes without saying that she has loved all the kids who have passed through her care, but she is very well placed to see the strain it puts on the parents and the heartbreak which comes from them seeing other kids achieve those 'life landmarks' which theirs will never reach.
Her view on termination of a Downs foetus is that she would be fully supportive of anyone making the decision to have an abortion where it was known that Downs was present.
In this situation I think he's being a dick, not because of his beliefs (I disagree, but he has the right to hold and express them), but the tone of voice. I get the impression a lot of "champions of logic" use the obsession with "rationality" to excuse sucky social skills - they're not mutually exclusive.
If someone's preggers with a Downs syndrome baby, and they're asking you for advice, they are clearly very stressed out.
Your priority should be to calm them down. What he should have done was emphasise the role of personal choice, and of getting advice from someone who knows you as more than a twitter avatar.
"It depends, personally I would abort - but what is right for me may not be right for others. Have you consulted with a doctor or family planner?"
See? Conveys the opinion but doesn't sound so t
ttish (IMO). And I think still slips in at <140 chars.
What he did instead was use a stressed and desperate person to promote his worldview. That's tttish.
If someone's preggers with a Downs syndrome baby, and they're asking you for advice, they are clearly very stressed out.
Your priority should be to calm them down. What he should have done was emphasise the role of personal choice, and of getting advice from someone who knows you as more than a twitter avatar.
"It depends, personally I would abort - but what is right for me may not be right for others. Have you consulted with a doctor or family planner?"
See? Conveys the opinion but doesn't sound so t
ttish (IMO). And I think still slips in at <140 chars.What he did instead was use a stressed and desperate person to promote his worldview. That's t
ttish.TTwiggy said:
I don't like Dawkins, and I find the fact that he's become some sort of 'archbishop of the church of atheism' rather ironic.
On the subject of Downs Syndrome, I'd have to defer to my mother's view and experience. She has spent over 40 years working as a volunteer with disabled children, both within the riding for the disabled association and at a top special needs school.
It goes without saying that she has loved all the kids who have passed through her care, but she is very well placed to see the strain it puts on the parents and the heartbreak which comes from them seeing other kids achieve those 'life landmarks' which theirs will never reach.
Her view on termination of a Downs foetus is that she would be fully supportive of anyone making the decision to have an abortion where it was known that Downs was present.
Indeed, my own mother with 30 years experience as a social worker working with families of disabled children would most likely agree, she will also tell you stories of great achievement by people with Downs, check out the Paralympics, the landmark events which you speak of are all relative, there are plenty of "normal" 40 year olds still at home with mum doing their washing, cooking and cleaning. My father in law with over 30 years in the Police force also voices the opinion that most of the countries population should have been aborted in the womb (I'm never sure if he's serious or not!). These are of course opinions and valid. But when people start talking in terms of what is "moral" and "immoral" as Dawkins did I hope for a little more substantial reasoning.On the subject of Downs Syndrome, I'd have to defer to my mother's view and experience. She has spent over 40 years working as a volunteer with disabled children, both within the riding for the disabled association and at a top special needs school.
It goes without saying that she has loved all the kids who have passed through her care, but she is very well placed to see the strain it puts on the parents and the heartbreak which comes from them seeing other kids achieve those 'life landmarks' which theirs will never reach.
Her view on termination of a Downs foetus is that she would be fully supportive of anyone making the decision to have an abortion where it was known that Downs was present.
Very difficult choice for prospective parents to make and one that is not helped by Dawkins conflating wishing a disability onto a child and allowing one to be born with a disability.
I would like to think I would not "abort" a child on the grounds of a known disability as how we treat others less fortunate than ourselves is probably a truer indication of our worth than the shiny in our garages. To judge some ones life as not being worth living at all and to not given them the chance to live based on an idea of how things might be in the future?
Not a decision I would take lightly and not one I would "carte blanche" with a prospective child has downs = abortion.
The ethics are similar to the reasons for gender-based abortions in various societies (girls' lives are not worth living, difficult for the parents to cope with financially etc.) and whilst I would like to think we all see the absurdity in that comparison can we truly make the right decision if we have never seen the joy in the eyes of a child with downs?
We are not a race on the edge of destruction where every resource is limited (no matter what the club of Rome following UN believe) and it is this very false sense of hopelessness that leads to these wrong kinds of decisions. We live in a world of plenty if we all allowed ourselves to see it - fear of scarcity it what leads to scarcity.
I would like to think I would not "abort" a child on the grounds of a known disability as how we treat others less fortunate than ourselves is probably a truer indication of our worth than the shiny in our garages. To judge some ones life as not being worth living at all and to not given them the chance to live based on an idea of how things might be in the future?
Not a decision I would take lightly and not one I would "carte blanche" with a prospective child has downs = abortion.
The ethics are similar to the reasons for gender-based abortions in various societies (girls' lives are not worth living, difficult for the parents to cope with financially etc.) and whilst I would like to think we all see the absurdity in that comparison can we truly make the right decision if we have never seen the joy in the eyes of a child with downs?
We are not a race on the edge of destruction where every resource is limited (no matter what the club of Rome following UN believe) and it is this very false sense of hopelessness that leads to these wrong kinds of decisions. We live in a world of plenty if we all allowed ourselves to see it - fear of scarcity it what leads to scarcity.
Pesty said:
FredClogs said:
Pesty said:
Without having ever been in this situation at this moment in time and on the balance of probabilities I would probably choose to abort.
Because of moral reasoning or because it would make your life easier?
paranoid airbag said:
In this situation I think he's being a dick, not because of his beliefs (I disagree, but he has the right to hold and express them), but the tone of voice. I get the impression a lot of "champions of logic" use the obsession with "rationality" to excuse sucky social skills - they're not mutually exclusive.
If someone's preggers with a Downs syndrome baby, and they're asking you for advice, they are clearly very stressed out.
Your priority should be to calm them down. What he should have done was emphasise the role of personal choice, and of getting advice from someone who knows you as more than a twitter avatar.
"It depends, personally I would abort - but what is right for me may not be right for others. Have you consulted with a doctor or family planner?"
See? Conveys the opinion but doesn't sound so tttish (IMO). And I think still slips in at <140 chars.
What he did instead was use a stressed and desperate person to promote his worldview. That's tttish.
The person who asked it, isn't pregnant, so the whole situation was hypothetical.If someone's preggers with a Downs syndrome baby, and they're asking you for advice, they are clearly very stressed out.
Your priority should be to calm them down. What he should have done was emphasise the role of personal choice, and of getting advice from someone who knows you as more than a twitter avatar.
"It depends, personally I would abort - but what is right for me may not be right for others. Have you consulted with a doctor or family planner?"
See? Conveys the opinion but doesn't sound so t
ttish (IMO). And I think still slips in at <140 chars.What he did instead was use a stressed and desperate person to promote his worldview. That's t
ttish.I also find Dawkins arrogant and dislikeable but I do like his forthright manner which it seems a lot of people aren't able to handle. He has given his opinion and, unsurprisingly, some especially stupid people are upset by it.
I can't imagine why anyone would want to have a child with Down's syndrome, knowing full well that the child would be so limited and that it would be very difficult to raise him.
I can't imagine why anyone would want to have a child with Down's syndrome, knowing full well that the child would be so limited and that it would be very difficult to raise him.
ClassicMotorNut said:
I also find Dawkins arrogant and dislikeable but I do like his forthright manner which it seems a lot of people aren't able to handle. He has given his opinion and, unsurprisingly, some especially stupid people are upset by it.
I can't imagine why anyone would want to have a child with Down's syndrome, knowing full well that the child would be so limited and that it would be very difficult to raise him.
Do you think any especially stupid people might be upset by your opinion?I can't imagine why anyone would want to have a child with Down's syndrome, knowing full well that the child would be so limited and that it would be very difficult to raise him.
http://www.downsyndromedaily.com/2011/08/toms-para...
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/swimming-this...
Do you even care?
Do you think you can swim 25m butterfly in under 18 seconds? Aren't we all a bit "limited"?
ClassicMotorNut said:
I also find Dawkins arrogant and dislikeable
Lots of people seem to. But the problem that the opponents of Dawkins face, especially in arguments over the existence or otherwise of God, is that regardless of how obnoxious he may be, he is right, and his opponents are wrong. That's a pretty big hurdle to overcome when debating him.
TwigtheWonderkid said:
Lots of people seem to. But the problem that the opponents of Dawkins face, especially in arguments over the existence or otherwise of God, is that regardless of how obnoxious he may be, he is right, and his opponents are wrong.
That's a pretty big hurdle to overcome when debating him.
That's a pretty bold statement - do you have evidence that god doesn't exist? And remember, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence That's a pretty big hurdle to overcome when debating him.
TTwiggy said:
TwigtheWonderkid said:
Lots of people seem to. But the problem that the opponents of Dawkins face, especially in arguments over the existence or otherwise of God, is that regardless of how obnoxious he may be, he is right, and his opponents are wrong.
That's a pretty big hurdle to overcome when debating him.
That's a pretty bold statement - do you have evidence that god doesn't exist? And remember, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence That's a pretty big hurdle to overcome when debating him.
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