I'm an American but studied abroad in Denmark for around 6 months. When I was there, I found out that the Nordic countries have virtually eradicated down syndrome by testing pregnant people for it. 99% choose to abort. How do you guys feel about this?
Personally this is quite disturbing to me. I've known people with down syndrome who live happy, quality lives. Even if it is up to the mother whether or not to abort, when it happens 99% of the time, is it not cultural eugenics? It seems the culture is almost afraid of taking care of a child with down syndrome. Especially in one of the wealthiest countries in the world, where the resources to take care of them are more widely available. If you could test for other things like autism, or even something like extreme depression, would yall do the same thing?
EDIT: I am strongly pro choice and I have talked to many American people on both sides of the political spectrum about this and they unanimously agree with me. On an individual level, I support everyones right to make their own decisions, but when it gets to the population level it becomes more of a cultural issue. There seems to be a cultural agreement that children with down syndrome are too difficult to care for. Does that make it ok to eradicate them? I honestly don't know
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The original was posted on /r/denmark by /u/queen_bs at 2024-03-13 15:12:18+00:00.
TeosPWR at 2024-03-13 16:49:55+00:00 ID:
kupc6otI have two kids, we discussed this extensively at home before having those tests made:
Before first child we were in doubt about what we would do, we never had to really decide, test was fine.
Before second child we were 100% sure we would elect abortion, firstly it would be unfair to the first child that we deliberately brought in a sibling with severe handicaps that would take the attention off him completely, secondly at this time we had some experience with the welfare state and now knew that everything you thought you would get automatically was false, you would need to fight, and fight, and fight, to get what we previously considered the bare minimum of care for a handicapped child.
Edit: I dont consider scanning for and offering removal of fetuses with obvious genetic errors and flaws to be eugenics, its just common sense that we use the technology available in the service of helping people have healthy babies.