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Iceland is close to eliminating Down syndrome births due to widespread prenatal screening tests and nearly 100% of women choosing an abortion in the case of a positive test for Down syndrome:
With the rise of prenatal screening tests across Europe and the United States, the number of babies born with Down syndrome has significantly decreased, but few countries have come as close to eradicating Down syndrome births as Iceland.
Since prenatal screening tests were introduced in Iceland in the early 2000s, the vast majority of women -- close to 100 percent -- who received a positive test for Down syndrome terminated their pregnancy.
While the tests are optional, the government states that all expectant mothers must be informed about availability of screening tests, which reveal the likelihood of a child being born with Down syndrome. Around 80 to 85 percent of pregnant women choose to take the prenatal screening test, according to Landspitali University Hospital in Reykjavik.
[...] Other countries aren't lagging too far behind in Down syndrome termination rates. According to the most recent data available, the United States has an estimated termination rate for Down syndrome [open, DOI: 10.1002/pd.2910] [DX] of 67 percent (1995-2011); in France it's 77 percent (2015); and Denmark, 98 percent (2015). The law in Iceland permits abortion after 16 weeks if the fetus has a deformity -- and Down syndrome is included in this category.
The Prenatal Diagnosis link in the summary was replaced with a working version.
National Review has a counterpoint opinion piece about the CBSN article. Snopes has a page debunking inaccurate headlines about the article.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 18 2017, @12:22AM (15 children)
So, to paraphrase, "It's not a person until I say it's a person." Got it.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday August 18 2017, @12:28AM (14 children)
Ohh-ho-ho-hoooo, you just stepped in a minefield.
Define what makes a person and person, and then show me where along the spectrum of fertilized ovum to hours-preterm fetus these things emerge.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2, Disagree) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 18 2017, @02:07PM (11 children)
Does it have human DNA? It's human. End of discussion, thank you for playing.
(Score: 2) by Taibhsear on Friday August 18 2017, @02:56PM (10 children)
Discussion reopened. How much human DNA? Any? That's going to be a VERY long list of organisms. If not, what percentage? Which human genes? Genetics doesn't works the way you think it does.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 18 2017, @03:58PM (9 children)
It's a living, growing, human being. Terminating that human being is homicide. Are you a homicidal maniac?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday August 18 2017, @04:06PM (3 children)
So...by your definition my fingernails are human below the white excresence. Am I committing murder if I cut them too far down? When I have my period, am I committing half-a-man-slaughter with every unfertilized egg I flush? When I burned my finger on the oven door and it blistered, did the cells in the dermis die and go to heaven?
You're dumber than I gave you not-credit for, Runaway.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 18 2017, @04:58PM (1 child)
Dumber than you thought, huh? Well, I've been studying the master/mistress Zumi!
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday August 18 2017, @06:17PM
Er...you've been studying Dubya? That would explain a few things. That guy's so dumb Cheney has to start his lungs in the morning with a jumper cable.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 18 2017, @05:02PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0p9zJoSQTA [youtube.com]
(Score: 3, Touché) by Taibhsear on Friday August 18 2017, @07:12PM (4 children)
That didn't answer my question. Are you avoiding it because you don't actually understand how genetics or cellular biology works?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday August 19 2017, @12:06AM (3 children)
I'm avoiding answering the question because it is irrelevant. A fertilized egg has it's own genetics. Some from Mom, some from Dad, but different and unique. In it's natural environment, that egg will grow and develop into another human being. Destruction of that developing human being is a form of homicide. From the moment of conception, it is "human", not at some arbitrarily set point in the future. That egg is experiencing and performing all of the same things that all of us adults did all those years ago.
I'm fed up with all the sophistry claiming that it's not a human, not a person. Many of the very same people who dehumanize a fetus will condemn any person who kills a breathing person, claiming that homicide is NEVER justified. Pot, meet kettle. Kettle, meet pot.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday August 19 2017, @01:14AM (2 children)
So explain the postulated 20-50% failure to implant or otherwise loss rate of these nascent human beings then?
This would be hilarious if it weren't so tragic, watching you mindlessly spit the Narrative like this. You haven't thought this through at ALL, good grief.
And while yer at it, care to explain to us how the hell come you're so gung-ho about saving blastulas but as soon as a fetus becomes a baby to hell with them if they're/their family's poor?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday August 19 2017, @01:26PM (1 child)
Darwin is enough to explain the failure rate. Some of us don't make it to birth, for whatever reason. Some of us are birthed, and die soon after. Others survive a year or six, then keel over, victims of genetic defects, disease, accident, neglect. More make it to sexual maturity, at which point we might deem them a "success" - only to die before they mate. Disease, violence, depression, drugs, whatever. Those who survive long enough to actually mate are indeed successes, and hopefully, they pass their successful traits on to their offspring.
And, don't forget - only the good die young. The rest of us are stuck here for decades. You should be good for at least twelve decades!!
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday August 19 2017, @03:37PM
You're trying too hard Runaway :) It's kinda cute, but mostly just pathetic.
Here's a hint: maybe don't chain post your near-total ignorance of genetics, biology, embryology and ethics on a forum fulla nerds? You don't have an actual argument, and ironically your defense of "it's a human at conception yew gaize!!!1111one" is the exact same thing you accused me of above.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Sulla on Saturday August 19 2017, @05:19PM (1 child)
More and more I just don't care about abortion as long as I am not paying for it. I don't like that a woman can abort and its nothing but if at the same period in a pregnancy someone hurts the mother and causes the fetus to die the person can get charged with murder. Right now we have somethilng more like evictionism than anything else, where a woman maintains supreme property rights over the body and she can evict the fetus for any reason and if it dies it dies. Whatever, just be consistant.
I start to get worried when on both sides it comes down to "when is it a person" and both sides start defining that. The definitions by some are broad enough to include people who are already born by accident. If a fetus isn't "a person" until it is vible then what about people who have their lungs fail and are in an iron lung, they are no longer viable and we should just be able to take a shit and clear them from society for convenience. I live in a pretty liberal place and recently a couple people I was talking with concured that until it is smarter than a dog its not a person, so a person with autism or dementia who can't think past two action/reaction scenarios might not count, we should just shit them out of society with a coathanger and sissors.
Traditionally our species has gotten into a lot of trouble when we start definining what makes the other people around us people. Slavery goes back to the Assyrians. Our freedom is based on personhood where all people are created equal, easy way around that is to say one group is not people. It was the union side that supported emancipation that made American blacks 3/5 a person so they could surpress the southern vote.
That aside, I guess I am fine with evictionism. Nobody gets to say what you do with your property, be that evict a fetus from your land that you have full control over, or me not having to pay for it by refusing you access to my property. I don't know if there is a hell, but I really don't need the extra weight of paying for abortions (if a possible diety actually cares) weighing me against a feather.
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday August 20 2017, @03:56AM
Almost this entire post is one long string of category errors, false equivalencies, and FYGM. The analogy between a non-viable fetus and someone who suddenly enters a vegetative state is a prime example; I'll leave it to you to figure out why. Hint: it concerns the previous state of the person before the coma.
Also, there is a Hell, or more accurately there are as many Hells as there are people in them, and each one lasts exactly as long as it needs to. Hell is a state of mind, not a place, or more accurately *anywhere* can be Hell.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...