Are Autistics whom are Pro-Abortion hypocrits?

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Well there are groups out there that support using abortion to "cure" autism and down syndrome. Basically if you support abortion as a socially acceptible way of dealing with the "unwanted babies" then really how can you have a problem with abortion being used to kill off children that have autism before they are born?

Last month ACOG recommended that all pregnant women, regardless of their age, be offered screening for Down syndrome because improved diagnostics now more accurately detect Down syndrome earlier in pregnancy. Conveniently, this makes the option of choosing abortion easier. Or, as ACOG delicately puts it, screening allows OB-GYNs "to best meet the needs of their patients." Here, of course, getting rid of the mother's pregnancy is the "need" that has to be met.

The reality is that once a Down diagnosis is given, counseling of the parents is often biased against completing the pregnancy. Parents are much more likely to be told that a Down child will have a low quality of life or that he will require expensive medical care over his entire lifespan. A positive counterbalance is rare.

Essentially, ACOG's latest recommendation has taken a giant leap toward making the abortion of preborn children with Down syndrome socially acceptable, using the "it's for the best" excuse.

The tragic result? More of these children's lives are ended before they even draw their first breath than ever before.

Unborn Down children now are considered a medically negative symptom of pregnancy.
http://www.cafemom.com/journals/read/16 ... n_syndrome

Article continues:

Parents and other advocates have fought long and hard to have people with Down included in all aspects of society. Their efforts have meant increased tolerance and respect for the differences associated with the syndrome. Today, people with Down in the U.S. are arguably better served and included than ever before. Their increased public visibility has helped us all become more mindful of our common humanity.

Yet these humanitarian gains may be slipping from our grasp. Times have changed, and not for the better. If recommendations such as those of ACOG are followed, children with Down syndrome, in increasingly large numbers, will literally disappear - from our schools, our malls, our businesses, and our lives. In the oxymoronic world of "bioethics," this entire group of people would be denied the right to exist because they are unable to make the case for why they should even be born.

So, is ACOG really trying to rid the world of people with Down syndrome? Undoubtedly.

In fact, we can safely say that they finally have found a perfect cure: Without exception, every case of Down syndrome can be cured by abortion. What better way to address the dreaded symptom of an imperfect pregnancy than to simply get rid of it?

This is exactly what ACOG's recommendation makes clear: This defect must be eradicated. Entirely. Killing as a preferred medical treatment. Killing for the greater good. What's not to like?

So, for an increasing number of Down children, their individual and group identity is being obliterated by the zealous over promotion of unblinking medical tests. The justification of whether they live or die is made for them - without their consent - by medical organizations like ACOG who've added a sophisticated insanity to the now-quirky notion of "Do no harm."

By Mark P. Mostert, Ph.D.

http://www.cafemom.com/journals/read/16 ... n_syndrome

Then there is this:
The other major source of concern is Wright's focus on prevention and cure. This upsets Virginia Bovell, founder of TreeHouse, the charity hosting the lecture, who is currently studying for a DPhil on whether the quest to prevent and cure autism is morally justified. "Where would prevention lead - to ante-natal testing and abortion?" she asks. "The thought of a world without all the people I have met with autism is not a world I would want to live in. I would rather people said: 'They are here, autism is here - how can we help these children fulfil their potential; how can we support their parents?'"
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/33566 ... utism.html

We can't pick and choose arbitrarily here, cause we're looking at people endorsing eugenics.

There is no hypocrisy. One just has to look at autism as a neutral result of pregnancy or part of a set of acceptable outcomes, or even a personally negative but globally positive outcome, while believing that Downs Syndrome is just negative.

One could even be a eugenicist and support the existence of autistic individuals.

Finally, your very threat title is easily answered "No, of course not" because having a condition does not entail having a set of beliefs. An autistic can believe most things without being a hypocrite.

I support pro-choice, but I don't support aborting a baby for the sole reason of wanting to get rid of a kid with a disorder.

Well then, do you consider children being killed in the womb because they have autism to be okay? Do you consider it okay for people that are doctors, to recommend that children in the womb that test positive for autism or down syndrome to be put down?



And that's just sad.



Well how can you support a child in the womb being killed for having one condition yet it isn't okay if they have another condition, and it is okay if they are a Neurotypical.

So yes it is hypocritical.

Personally? I don't consider them children in the womb, and I would have to say that I haven't done any hedonic calculation on autism enough to say. One can still value an HFA over a person with downs syndrome though.

Do I think it is ok for a doctor to recommend an abortion though? well, actually I think it can be, so long as the opinion is informed.


Ok? Technically, I promote the idea of human manipulation of our genetics for the goal of improvement.


Well, technically being autistic doesn't entail supporting anything. It entails being autistic.

Even further, the position of "it is ok to abort condition A, not ok to abort condition B, and ok to abort condition C" is not inconsistent. One could hold that the numbers of people with condition B should be higher in the population. One could hold that condition B is objectively better than A and C. There are a lot of rationales.

Finally, unless the position is that we need to take additional efforts to avoid aborting autistics, this is not the proper framework. I would think that the framework being used here is "abortion on the basis of condition A is ok, abortion on the basis of condition B and C is not ok" Which involves no inconsistency and instead is more trying to hold B and C(autism and NT) as equal.

Then I guess in your view it is okay for people to value a NT over someone with HFA, and we should have less rights than a NT.



Generally, it is biased toward doing away with what they consider "undesirable."



We are not a science experiment for other people's amusement.



So in your view the holocaust was just a way of weeding out genetically inferior individuals? This isn't a comparison I make lightly, but what you said is chillingly close to flat out saying the Nazis were right when they perpetrated one of the most heinous crimes in world history.



What makes us more valuable than a person with Down Syndrome or a person with Cerveral Paulsy (sp?) like what Stephen Hawkings has? We can't simply pick and choose who is desireable and who is not.

Godwin's law.

It depends on what you mean by "rights". An NT may make more money, which shows his perceived greater usefulness.


Ok, sure, whatever.


No, the Nazis picked arbitrary characteristics. they freaking tried to kill Jews, who are the master race.


Better traits. More usefulness. The list can go on and on.

Saying something is possible isn't saying something is agreeable.

Does not apply in this case, if you actually knew your history and/or actually looked up Godwin's law, you would know it is actually kind of spelled out in Godwin's law that this would qualify as an exception to Godwin's law.

The law and its corollaries would not apply to discussions covering genocide, propaganda, eugenics (racial superiority) or other mainstays of Nazi Germany, nor, more debatably, to discussion of other totalitarian regimes, since a Nazi comparison in those circumstances may be appropriate. Whether it applies to humorous use or references to oneself is open to interpretation, since this would not be a fallacious attack against a debate opponent.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law



You know this is why my comparison to the Nazis actually falls under an exception to Godwin's law.

Last edited by Inuyasha on 04 Mar 2011, 1:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

You're assuming all women that undergo such screenings would abort if a defect is found. This is simply not true.

And no, pro-choicers on the spectrum are not hypocrites. Frankly, I don't see how Autism has anything to do with this.

As one of the articles I sourced notes, doctors try to pressure the parents into having an abortion if the screenings show that a child is likely to have Down Syndrome when born. So while some people may be like Sarah Palin and tell the Doctors they can go jump in the Artic Ocean, how many of them will actually listen and follow the doctor's advice because they are afterall a doctor.



Because abortion is being pushed as a solution "cure" to Down Syndrome, kill them off before they are born and there will end up being no more people with Down Syndrome.

Abortion is being pushed the same way as a "cure" for Autism, kill them off before they are born and there no more people whom have Autism so the "disease" is gone.

It is eugenics pure and simple, just like the Nazis pushing for their master race. I actually looked up Godwin's Law, and something like this is spelled out as an exception to Godwin's Law.

I had both of my kids screened and I'm personally against abortion. One of my children was given a 'likely will have DS' prognosis from the screening, and I was never pressured into anything. I was told it was an option, nothing more.

No, this is not eugenics. This is about parents having the capability to raise a special needs child and having the choice not to continue the pregnancy where DS is concerned.

Eugenics would be forcing an abortion on any woman that had a positive result.

You however have experience concerning differences, how many parents or prospective parents do not.

You don't actually have to physically do anything to the woman to force her into deciding to have an abortion, there is such thing as psychological pressuring and saying things like: "it is for the best," or "their lives will be nothing but misery for themselves and for the family."

It can still be eugenics even if the woman isn't forcibly strapped down and an abortion is performed while she lays there screaming. She may think it is her decision, when in fact it is the doctor's decision and he just used psychological pressuring to make her think it is her decision.

Actually, I wasn't aware that I may be on the spectrum until after I had my children.

You don't actually have to physically do anything to the woman to force her into deciding to have an abortion, there is such thing as psychological pressuring and saying things like: "it is for the best," or "their lives will be nothing but misery for themselves and for the family."

It can still be eugenics even if the woman isn't forcibly strapped down and an abortion is performed while she lays there screaming. She may think it is her decision, when in fact it is the doctor's decision and he just used psychological pressuring to make her think it is her decision.

I understand this. I'm very aware of psychological coercion. I'm not going to say it doesn't happen, either, because it often does. Usually, though, the father of the child is part of it. Doctors standing alone have very little power in this area unless you're talking about a single and emotionally fragile woman.

For it to be eugenics, most of the fetuses showing signs of DS would have to be aborted. Even if this were the case, DS is a genetic defect and that can't be bred away simply by eliminating the fetuses that exhibit the symptoms. Many don't show any in the womb, and even of all did the genes for the potential can be passed to children that do not have DS.

So... we would essentially have to genetically test every couple and bar them from procreation of the chances of having a DS baby is high enough. Obviously, that's not going to happen.

Hence... not eugenics.

Do we have any information that is suggests that most children with DS are born rather than aborted?