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
Dette indlæg blev automatisk arkiveret af Leddit-botten. Vil du diskutere tråden? Tilmeld dig på feddit.dk!
The original was posted on /r/denmark by /u/queen_bs at 2024-03-13 15:12:18+00:00.
No_Individual_6528 at 2024-03-13 18:26:14+00:00 ID:
kut9ji9The question you inspire is: is there lives lived, you'd not choose?
Either for yourself or for others. And are you morally right for choosing so?
In general I think a strategy of reducing future suffering is way better than increasing future positives. Not to stop either. But certainly, it's much easier to oversell future happiness or the American dream, than it is to say, reduce child morality.
Interestingly I think we are happier for choosing the latter strategy.
One last thing. The way you write it, I feel like we are imagining the ghosts of people who never were. Which I think is incorrect of us. Or in that case, your sperm well be hunting you forever? Gets back to when is a life a life. Or maybe it's a life for you to decide.
But I'm perfectly happy that I feel like I can socially expect more of parents, because they decided themselves.
People are amazing, down syndrome or not