Those who can make you believe fallacies can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire

Humanity just refuses to stop shoving itself down the toilet hole...

I just finished making Grilled Cheese sandwich's for Felix a boy with downs who is now 5. My wife has been his nanny since he was 1 1/2. He is a happy loving boy. His parents and family love him and the neighbors and locals treat him like a celebrity, he is a joy to be around. He has
a ton of potential. His parents would say he is the best thing in their lives.

The "encouragement" to terminate a pregnancy
because of Downs Syndrome or just encouragement to abort is sad.

Olafsdottir responded, "We don't look at abortion as a murder. We look at it as a thing that we ended. We ended a possible life that may have had a huge complication... preventing suffering for the child and for the family. And I think that is more right than seeing it as a murder -- that's so black and white. Life isn't black and white. Life is grey."

Life is black and white not grey! You are either dead or alive.

"We ended a possible life that may have had a huge complication... preventing suffering for the child and for the family"

What a crock of $H1T, with that philosophy all humans should be aborted due to possible suffering and complications.

I am not anti-abortion.
I am an advocate for using your brain.
If you are smart enough to know where the man puts his thing in you, you should be smart enough to use birth control to prevent an unwanted pregnancy.

Well, it is a solution in the sense that the woman won't have to raise that particular child. I agree it doesn't guarantee that future fetuses might not have the same condition.

I have a "Special Needs" daughter, confirmed immediately at birth, a developmental disorder (learning delayed). While attending two different unit reunions, both times we discovered that just about about half of our comrades have similar offspring and even grandchildren with similar (not specifically defined) disabilities. The only thing we from all over the US have in common is the males Vietnam service and we were all artillerymen from the same locations of battle. Of course the government still denies any correlation to Dioxin (Agent Orange). She is now 36, lives at home with us as a family member. She has specific duties, responsibilities around the house, never has to be reminded, and has the most wonderful disposition of any human being I have ever known. Abortion was also an option for us, but we would have never known the joy we would have missed had we given it a second thought.

Dang, now I see a-1. Gave you a +1 here.
That being all I can do.
Sheesh! Christian me is not even considered a full-fledged objectivist here in the Gulch.
"A Modest Proposal" by Jonathan Swift. Me old dino read that a long time ago.

I'm A RED HEAD and Irish but I'll still give a +1

How do Herman Cain's views have anything to do with Objectivism? Ayn Rand didn't consider abortion to be murder, that's more of a core belief of "social conservatives" like Cain who are perfectly okay with an invasive government forbidding women from voluntarily choosing to terminate their pregnancies.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10...

If genes are a determining factor could the same practice be applied to liberal democrats?

The problem is that although its a woman's choice, what if she wants a blue eyed baby and this one is brown eyed? Leaves open room for a lot of stupidity.

I agree. it should be the woman's choice.

A woman's informed choice to abort a defective fetus is her right, and hers only. Forcing her into a life of servitude to a handicapped child would be disgusting and obscene, even immoral, and a relic of the religious notion that the pleasure of sex deserves punishment. Forcing her to abort is equally immoral.

People who wish to take care of the "sweetest" defective children, either their own or adopted, should not be stopped. Down Syndrome is not hereditary, not a genetic misprint in the DNA, only a chance occurrence that affects reportedly 1 in every 1000 children. Iceland is not monstrous but enlightened to give women the knowledge and freedom to decide about their own lives. Remember, it's not mandatory to abort, nor mandatory to go full-term. Isn't that what individual rights and freedom mean?

Stupid and ignorant. The problem is in the genes of the parents, so killing the offspring isn't a solution. Thankfully, genetic engineering is progressing, and fixing genetic disorders at the early fetal stage is going to be possible in the near future. The question is whether or not testing for the most common problems will be affordable. I would be amenable to helping parents with the cost of fixing the problem, since the result will be reduced medical expenses.

I actually thought about pointing out that this was a "A Modest Proposal" However.......considering the average intellectual requirement in order for someone to be on an objectivist website, I decided it was unnecessary and could be insulting to the reader.

You do not deserve a 0. Me dino gets your sarcasm. +1 at least for teaching me~
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unterme...
This from an old dino who watched Holocaust on TV during the 70s, saw Schindler's List and a lot of movies like that plus History Chanel stuff on the subject.

I thought it amazing that Patricia Heaton (The Middle, Everybody Loves Raymond) caught so much flack for pointing out this very fact. "Shoot the messenger, and don't listen to the message!!"

Why is this such a surprise? My wife and I were warned about the issue of Downs syndrome, back in 1986, with her first pregnancy. Even then, we were being given abortion as a possible alternative.

There's nothing new in this article.

Wow, this article is misleading.

The country isn't going around finding people with Down Syndrome and killing them.

It is giving pregnant women the choice to terminate their pregnancies if they find the fetus has Downs, and the vast majority of them are making this choice.

I would have made the same choice.

Do you believe women shouldn't have that choice? Is it only about Downs? Under what conditions do you think a woman should be allowed to terminate her pregnancy?

Normally, genes come in pairs. Down's Syndrome is also known as Trisomy 21 because in someone with that condition there is a third gene present which manifests with the distinctive physical features and mental handicap. Scientists have found that the risk of Trisomy 21 increases especially in pregnancies of women over 40, but though it emanates genetically, it is not passed genetically (mostly because Trisomy 21 commonly causes sterility). Trisomy 21 has been associated with significantly shortened lifespan (many die before age 40), but many are now questioning this because most affected by it were institutionalized. Psychologists now theorize that human affection has a dramatic effect on lifespan - largely in part due to observation of those with Down's Syndrome.

I have an uncle (13 years older than me) who has Down's Syndrome. He has held a job as a stocking clerk in the same grocery store for more than 30 years - even despite the store changing ownership. Those affected with Down's Syndrome are probably not going to be winning Nobel Prizes and they do require supervision their entire lives, but the notion that they should be summarily executed in this fashion is symptom of grave moral deficiencies in the Icelandic culture and laws.

Wait till they start eliminating all the other "Untermenchen" Just like Margret Sanger envisioned it. I mean we don't want all those pesky Downs Syndrome people...next the people with less than 60 IQ, next the criminal types...I'm sure we will develop a test for that...then people with Congenital Defects, the Jews, the Mexicans the drunken Irish, people who have brown eyes then the people with less than 80 IQ, Then the Slavs, Then people with club feet , Sickle Cell, then the people with less than 100 IQ, then the Negroes, Red headed people.....yeh...that's the ticket!,

Eventually, you'll see this done with children who have autism. Difference is that children don't get autism until well after they're born. You get the idea, don't you?...

It can't be eliminated by killing everyone! How stupid can they get...wait...I take that back...stupid grows when stupid doesn't know.

What ever happened to finding out Why this happens...is it incompatible RH factors, incompatible heritages?...is there something we can do besides doing even more harm? Education maybe? duh!

As far as I am concerned and have observed, down syndrome kids have the ability to produce and create more value than the average government worker!..
Hows that for telling it like it IS!

I remember worrying that these tests would show a possible genetic condition like this. Fortunately they didn't, and our kids were born very healthy. I hope what someone said most people do would not have affected our decision.

When I read the second half of the article, I do not think CBS is cheering it. It shows a picture of a healthy child with Down's near a quote from her mother asking "What kind of society do you want to live in?"

I am in Iceland next week for the first time. I think of them as a kind people who like mythology about elves and speak a language similar to a precursor of English from a 1000 years ago. This thing about Down's is an interesting, sad fact to learn.

sickening.