Your partner is pregnant...

[EliteLennon117]

Sadly I'd probably have the fetus aborted. I don't think that I would be able to handle the massive amount of responsibility that it takes to be a parent who has a child with disabilities. It would be unfair to the child to have a parent that is incompetent in raising a disabled child. Maybe giving the child up for adoption would be a better option. Respect to all the parents that raise kids with disabilities.

[phrex]

keep of course!!!

down syndrome is nothing bad for the one who suffers from this genetic modification. down syndrom children are in general just as happy if not even happier.
also i live in switzerland/europe. i will be able to take care of the kid as the state will pay a good load of money for medication or anything.

[Mason]

Abort definelty, don't think it would be fair to knowingly bring a child into the world with quite a life changing disability.

Had a pregnancy scare with a girl when i was like sixteen cos she didn't have her period for long and we both decided we would abort it if she was pregnant, i really don't buy into the whole anti-abortion argument.

[wilson]

Edit: Actually nah, would need to have a better think. Shouldn't have voted!

[Richard Ross]

As long as it was male I'd keep it and make it lace lex luger beats.

[Lye_Form]

You're about to have your first child. You get a test done, and it says that your child will have severe down syndrome. It's still early enough to abort the pregnancy.

Would you abort or not? Why?

Da fuck wub.

I dont want to be making such decisions

[Genevieve]

Abort. Not for the kid because he wouldn't know any difference, but because I wouldn't want to deal with it.

[titchbit]

Abortion. this is the way I think of it - say you want to have one and only one child. you know this particular one will have down syndrome. If you choose to keep it, instead of aborting it and having another child sometime in the future, then you are effectively "killing" the chance of that future child ever being alive. This only holds true if you want only have one child and not two or more. So, either way, if you do or don't abort the first baby, one of these potential babies is not going to have a life.

Thus, I am of the opinion that it is optimal to have a baby that will have the best possible life you can give it. If you have a kid that you know will suffer his or her entire life from down syndrome or another horrible disease, I think that the most humane thing to do is actually to have an abortion and instead get pregnant again and have a healthy child. I think that modern medicine allows us to now make these sorts of decisions in a responsible fashion, although many people will deny this and liken it to hitler and the n.azis (for some reason the filter blocks that word).

[Genevieve]

Abortion. this is the way I think of it - say you want to have one and only one child. you know this particular one will have down syndrome. If you choose to keep it, instead of aborting it and having another child sometime in the future, then you are effectively "killing" the chance of that future child ever being alive. This only holds true if you want only have one child and not two or more. So, either way, if you do or don't abort the first baby, one of these potential babies is not going to have a life.

Thus, I am of the opinion that it is optimal to have a baby that will have the best possible life you can give it. If you have a kid that you know will suffer his or her entire life from down syndrome or another horrible disease, I think that the most humane thing to do is actually to have an abortion and instead get pregnant again and have a healthy child. I think that modern medicine allows us to now make these sorts of decisions in a responsible fashion, although many people will deny this and liken it to hitler and the n.azis (for some reason the filter blocks that word).

According to statistics, 99% of all people with Down's syndrome are happy and 97% say they like who they are

I think that's a lot more than people without the condition. So tbh, you'd actually be ensuring yourself that you'll be raising a happy child. If we judge a 'good life' by our standards, by our definition of what makes us "happy"and then project those standards on people with Down's, then yeah, you're not raising a happy kid. But ultimately, people have the right to decide for themselves if they're happy. And a person with Down's has that same right. Who are we to argue with that?

If you care about the happiness of your kid, then you wouldn't abort but be pretty estatic that he's got Down's.

Imooooo.

[titchbit]

ignorance is not bliss IMO. happiness is not a destination, it is a journey. people with down syndrome cannot truly partake on that journey IMO. they can't have real relationships with other people.

[Genevieve]

ignorance is not bliss IMO. happiness is not a destination, it is a journey. people with down syndrome cannot truly partake on that journey IMO. they can't have real relationships with other people.

Happiness isn't set in stone. The idea isn't just different per individual, but also per culture and has changed through-out history. While happiness is a journey to you, it may be a place to others (with or without Down syndrome). If they feel happiness and have achieved it their way, I think we can learn from them. Like killing them before they're even born feels to me like we hate being faced with the knowledge that people who present the opposite of our ideal have achieved our ideal feeling.

[titchbit]

ignorance is not bliss IMO. happiness is not a destination, it is a journey. people with down syndrome cannot truly partake on that journey IMO. they can't have real relationships with other people.

Happiness isn't set in stone. The idea isn't just different per individual, but also per culture and has changed through-out history. While happiness is a journey to you, it may be a place to others (with or without Down syndrome). If they feel happiness and have achieved it their way, I think we can learn from them. Like killing them before they're even born feels to me like we hate being faced with the knowledge that people who present the opposite of our ideal have achieved our ideal feeling.

meh. I think you're overanalyzing it a bit with:

Like killing them before they're even born feels to me like we hate being faced with the knowledge that people who present the opposite of our ideal have achieved our ideal feeling.

I do agree however that happiness is relative and everyone has different standards. I think it's pretty obvious that, all other things being equal, a baby with down syndrome has less utility than a baby without down syndrome. So as a utilitarian, I think it's better to have an abortion and then get pregnant again. But maybe that makes me selfish. Maybe I'm imposing my standards of happiness onto them because I want to have a baby that lives my view of what happiness is.

Although, I doubt you're going to find many people that would rather have down syndrome than not have down syndrome, just so they can be ignorantly happy. You're line of reasoning does make logical sense, but it's needs some more common sense IMO.

No offense meant by that. I'm always down for a good intellectual debate.

[Genevieve]

Naw, I wasn't saying that YOU want to kill all people with Down because, just that that's how the notion feels to me, ukno?

Hope I didn't come across as I was attacking you either.

But to the point itself. I'm kind of utalitarian as well, but I think individual happiness is what it all comes down (loldown) to. I once debated with a guy about what makes a society 'great' and he based it on a society's achievements in art and science and philosophy. I wasn't with that at all. Those are all just things we came up with, but if the people in those society didn't FEEL happiness from arbitrary achievements, would they really be more advanced than a simpler tribe living on some forest where most individuals would describe themselves as happy people?

So if happiness is the ultimate ideal, we'd be unutilitarian by erasing the happiest segment of our society, surely?

And I voted 'abort' you know :p I put my happiness before the happiness of some unborn kid. I'm somewhat Ayn Randian when it comes to selfishness. I think we're all selfish and selfishness shouldn't be seen as a sin or a flaw, Only when that selfishness is at the expense of others.

[pandabear]

I will most likely keep it. It isn't as bad as 30 years ago. There are many resources and assistance one can get. Of course, I'd rather have a child with no developmental delays but with my experience with the kids in school, they are good kids. Very happy kids, always giving me hugs, they listen and do what you tell them, and every other Friday when they have cooking class, they always give me food.

[kaili]

LOL abort

[Terpit]

Can they talk and stuff?

[Laszlo]

Can they talk and stuff?

What, aborted foetuses?!? I fucking hope not

[phrex]

Can they talk and stuff?

questions like that scare me... people don't kow anything about down syndrom? tbh i see it as something very normal in society. their part of it.
yes they talk, laugh, cry, love, eat, breath - they even like to fuck.

their just like us in fact. sometimes it seems to me that their much brighter. they're more sensible.

[Pistonsbeneath]

Don't know

[lloydnoise]

Brutally honest, if my opinion mattered at all, I would abort the shit out of it because i'm selfish and cannot afford (time or emotional strain) a kid

fixed