Richard Dawkins Abort It and Try Again
Another day, some other hurtful Professor Dawkins tweet with the tact of an online troll.
In response to a lady request virtually aborting a foetus if it was screened to take Downward'south, he replied:
"Suffering should be avoided. Cause no suffering. Reduce suffering wherever you can", which does has a superficial appeal until you lot realise that the logical extension is – take no kids; breed no more than.
Some other tweet, sparking and then much anger and anguish amid parents of those with Downward's said, "Abort information technology and try over again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you accept a selection."
Immoral? Why? With so many people with Downwards's syndrome living joy-filled lives, denying them life would surely not be saving them from suffering, information technology would be denying them what each of usa seeks.
Yet this story is not about abortion, or at to the lowest degree it doesn't have to be. Information technology's near "difference" and our artificially synthetic perception of what is "perfect".
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If you are born with Downwards'southward syndrome, you lot are considered past many to exist "different" or "imperfect". Yet these supposedly "less than perfect" people are just like the residual of united states: they work (yes, they do), they play, they make friends, they cry, they get depressed, they laugh and they joke.
They may wait unlike, they may learn at a slower pace and they may live slightly shorter lives, so what?
If I was to compare myself to Usain Bolt, does the fact that I could never run 100m in 10 seconds make me somehow "imperfect"?
Down's syndrome does not follow a unmarried pattern. Although some face very difficult and challenging times, many others atomic number 82 lives filled with joy and laughter. Nigh children with Down'due south go to mainstream schools, are capable of piece of work in some form and are some of the happiest, most life-enhancing people I know.
If you don't believe me, then a little net surfing should convince y'all. The first stop is Albuquerque, New Mexico and the eating place owned by Tim Harris, who only happens to take Down'south syndrome but serves breakfast and tiffin with hugs. This video is a must-watch if you want to see how much joy those with Downward'southward experience and how much they bring to others.
The second is an commodity in our local paper featuring 1 of the students from the charity I work for, Action For Kids. Hisba Brimah is a immature adult female with Down'southward syndrome. She works hard, has always wanted to achieve and has done so with a smile on her face.
What she told the local paper says it all, "My job and the people I work with make me happy and blithesome." And since then she has started a paid job – real work for real money. Is that any "different" from you and me?
I don't know where Dawkins gets his views of inability but it feels like he has watched the film Rain Man likewise many times.
And so, in one of his more bizarre intellectual contortions, Dawkins asserted a non-existent "difference" between people on the autistic spectrum and those with Down syndrome.
For a man so fond of reason, it is rather dubious to suggest that, "People on the spectrum have a cracking deal to contribute, maybe even an enhanced ability in some respects. [People with Down's syndrome are] … not enhanced".
I would exist the first to contend that almost people on the autistic spectrum take a great bargain to offer – far more than society will allow them to give. Yet, for some, autism cannot, in whatsoever way, be described equally "enhancing".
Their families go through hell just to provide them with a loving, caring home through a lifetime filled with assailment and intense frustration at non existence able to engage with the world.
Contrast that with the fulfilled lives lived by so many people with Down's syndrome.
Through all of this, I am left wondering whatever happened to the quondam, iconoclastic Dawkins who made a virtue of continuing up for the unpopular, the unfashionable? Now he justifies himself by tweeting "Apparently I'm a horrid monster for recommending what actually happens to the great majority of Downwards syndrome foetuses. They are aborted."
The same argument was used 225 years agone to justify slavery. It would be funny if it wasn't and so tragic.
The Dawkins' thesis appears to be based on the supposition that having Down's syndrome is always so unutterably atrocious that it merits a future person being automatically deleted from the future of the human race. Yet that but does not reverberate the facts.
Parents receiving a pre-natal diagnosis of Down's syndrome are faced with an atrocious dilemma and need our care and support. They practice non demand bullying with pseudo-morality, pseudo-philosophy and outdated stereotypes.
Lots of parents take the decision to go on their baby and alive to reap the rewards. Accept another look at Tim'south video and tell me if Dawkins is right.
Update: 22 Baronial, 6pm
Richard Dawkins has published a fuller version of his remarks on his website, in which he explains his position at greater length, and says he regrets "using abbreviated phraseology which caused then much upset".
Source: https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2014/08/why-richard-dawkins-abort-it-and-try-again-comments-about-down-s-syndrome-babies-are
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