Down Syndrome Disappearing In Iceland

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If it's provable with genuine hard science, I'll accept it.

One identical twin being Autistic and the other twin being NT could be evidence against environmental poisoning causation. I would think identical twins would be often exposed to similar environmental poisons when they were infants and toddlers.

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/865043

Found the article, btw, there is a difference between "cause" and "provoke". Lung cancer existed before cigarettes, but smoking does PROVOKE lung cancer.

Last week’s CBS News report on the virtual eradication of Down Syndrome in Iceland shed rare and necessary light on the growing threats to the dignity of life across the West and in Northern Europe in particular. With new tests that can detect chromosomal abnormalities earlier in the pregnancy and with greater precision, an entire category of human beings faces extermination in societies that claim to prize tolerance and diversity above all.

Well, not if Charlotte “Charlie” Fien has something to say about it.

The 21-year-old from Surrey, England, is fast emerging as one of Europe’s most important anti-eradication advocates. Her activism is especially compelling because Fien is living proof against the argument, frequently proffered by those who support systematic prenatal detection and abortion, that people with the disability are miserable.

Fien has Down Syndrome (and autism), and she is happy to tell you that her life is enjoyable, interesting, and worth living. “I’m happy,” she says in a Skype interview. “I’ve got an amazing life. I’ve got a boyfriend, a lovely sweet boy. I got a job as a golf coach, to teach kids how to play golf.”

She has an active social life. “My friend William, he has Down Syndrome. He has an amazing life. He has a girlfriend. He has an amazing job. Aimee loves her life. She likes to work. She likes to go out dancing. She lives with her housemate Laura, who also has Down Syndrome.” Fien loves cooking, especially paella. She and her friends go to the pub on Thursdays and to a dance club on Fridays. Life is good.

I didn’t know mums aborted us,” she tells me. “I didn’t know what abortion is.”

She became active online and began taking public-speaking courses. In March, she addressed the United Nations in Geneva. “We just have an extra chromosome,” she told delegates. “We are still human begins. Human beings. We are not monsters. Don’t be afraid of us. We are people with different abilities and strengths. Don’t feel sorry for me. My life is great … Please do not try to kill us all off.” Her address received a long standing ovation.

People with Down Syndrome are “people of the heart,” as the Canadian humanitarian Jean Vanier says. If Down Syndrome is “eliminated,” if the new eugenicists succeed, the rest of us will lose the joy that they bring into our lives and with it the chance to encounter human difference in all its richness and vulnerability. To avert that bleak prospect, start by listening to people like Charlie Fien.

Iceland must be pleased that it is close to success in its program of genocide, but before congratulating that nation on its final solution to the Down syndrome problem, perhaps it might answer a question: What is this problem? To help understand why some people might ask this question, meet two children. One is Agusta, age 8, a citizen of Iceland. The other is Lucas, age 1, an American citizen in Dalton, Ga., who recently was selected to be 2018 “Spokesbaby” for the Gerber baby food company. They are two examples of the problem.

Now, before Iceland becomes snippy about the description of what it is doing, let us all try to think calmly about genocide, without getting judgmental about it. It is simply the deliberate, systematic attempt to erase a category of people. So, what one thinks about a genocide depends on what one thinks about the category involved. In Iceland’s case, the category is people with Down syndrome.

Average life expectancy is now around 60 years, up from around 25 years four decades ago, when many Down syndrome people were institutionalized or otherwise isolated, denied education and other stimulation, and generally not treated as people.

Highly (almost but not perfectly) accurate prenatal screening tests can reveal Down syndrome in utero. The expectant couple can then decide to extinguish the fetus and try again for a normal child who might be less trouble, at least until he or she is an adolescent with hormonal turbulence and a driver’s license.

In Iceland, upward of 85 percent of pregnant women opt for the prenatal testing, which has produced a Down syndrome elimination rate approaching 100 percent. Agusta was one of only three Down syndrome babies born there in 2009.

An Iceland geneticist says “we have basically eradicated” Down syndrome people, but regrets what he considers “heavy-handed genetic counseling” that is influencing “decisions that are not medical, in a way.”

Because Iceland’s population is only about 340,000, the problem (again, see the photos of problem Agusta and problem Lucas) is more manageable there than in, say, the United Kingdom. It has approximately 40,000 Down syndrome citizens, many of whom were conceived before the development of effective search-and-destroy technologies. About 750 British Down syndrome babies are born each year, but 90 percent of women who learn that their child will have — actually, that their child does have — Down syndrome have an abortion. In Denmark the elimination rate is 98 percent.

America, where 19 percent of all pregnancies are aborted, is playing catch-up in the Down syndrome elimination sweepstakes (elimination rate of 67 percent, 1995-2011). So is France (77 percent), which seems determined to do better. In 2016, a French court ruled that it would be “inappropriate” for French television to run a 2½-minute video (“Dear Future Mom”) released for World Down Syndrome Day, which seeks to assure women carrying Down syndrome babies that their babies can lead happy lives, a conclusion resoundingly confirmed in a 2011 study “Self-perceptions from people with Down syndrome.” The court said the video is “likely to disturb the conscience of women” who aborted Down syndrome children.

In 2016, a French court ruled that it would be “inappropriate” for French television to run a 2½-minute video (“Dear Future Mom”) released for World Down Syndrome Day, which seeks to assure women carrying Down syndrome babies that their babies can lead happy lives, a conclusion resoundingly confirmed in a 2011 study “Self-perceptions from people with Down syndrome.