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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: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Thursday August 17 2017, @02:09PM (36 children)
"better or worse as a species"
Well, it's still a step up from abortion on demand, no reason required. Just think of all the perfectly healthy babies put to death, and compare that to genetically defective babies. I'm not arguing that either one is right, just that eliminating genetically defective babies makes more sense.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @04:34PM
By "babies" do you mean the bags of undifferentiated cells or undeveloped fetuses?
What size or composition of cells do you consider a baby?
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday August 17 2017, @04:36PM (34 children)
Have you considered that a blastula is not a baby? I'm actually against abortion after the point of viability--which, IIRC, is now 24 weeks?--but let's not be dumb here.Most abortions take place long before anything even remotely resembling a human being appears.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @08:43PM (3 children)
By which you mean, you're in favor of using the government to force women to remain pregnant? I am pro-choice, and by that I mean that women should be able to terminate a pregnancy at any point, which either involves abortion or something like a c-section. I don't see how you can take a 'You own your own body' stance and then say that you lose the right to own your body after X amount of time passes while you're pregnant.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday August 17 2017, @09:30PM (2 children)
That's my personal view. I am entirely pro-choice on the legal side of things, for what I hope are obvious reasons, but my personal feeling is abortion shouldn't happen, assuming the fetus is healthy and viable, after it can survive on its own.
And yes, I have specifically done the gedanken placing myself in the position of being raped: if I somehow went two trimesters and couldn't get this done, then I would give birth. ...and likely get my tubes tied, which is the plan anyway.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 17 2017, @10:46PM (1 child)
It would be interesting to hear your opinion of those who are opposed to abortion AND who want to restrict/eliminate access to birth control.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday August 18 2017, @12:24AM
Interesting, perhaps, but also completely unprintable in professional company.
The polite(ish) version is that these people are full of shit, and they're not anti-abortion so much as pro-"keep 'em barefoot and pregnant." Me, I want abortion to be safe, legal, readily accessible, and very very rare on account of almost no one needing one.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(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...
(Score: 2) by Bot on Friday August 18 2017, @10:10PM (13 children)
> Have you considered that a blastula is not a baby?
It is not as relevant as it seems. Terminating whatever set of human cells that left alone would result in a baby is killing a baby, much like committing a foul against a soccer player who has dribbled the goalkeeper and is heading to goal cannot be condoned by saying "Hey, he didn't score yet, so it's zero damage done to the other team".
Usually the counter argument then becomes "Hey but then every time I use a condom I kill a baby". Nope, every time you use a condom you have the potential baby being snuffed out.
It is like playing russian roulette, with some favorable odds is not a crime. You do that every time you drive a car and risk an accident.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday August 19 2017, @01:11AM (12 children)
Wow. Just...wowwwwwwww. You really do not want that argument taken to its logical conclusion, Mr. Robot.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Bot on Wednesday August 23 2017, @12:16PM (11 children)
I have no conclusion, that is I don't care to dictate what is OK or not, I just consider suppression of an individual akin to homicide, the prevention of a potential individual akin to sterilization, and the moment when an individual becomes sentient irrelevant and undefined. If you want to build your own theorems on this you are welcome.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday August 23 2017, @04:43PM (10 children)
You can consider whatsoever you please to be whatever you wish, but that doesn't change reality. I am actually surprised you haven't though these arguments through to their logical endpoints.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Bot on Thursday August 24 2017, @12:33AM (9 children)
I guess that if you state those logical conclusions I won't agree as they derive from some assumptions about my position.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday August 24 2017, @05:26AM (8 children)
Good Lord, now I know why they call you Bot; you have all the depth of Eliza. And you're deliberately avoiding examining the premises of your own positions.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday August 26 2017, @07:37PM (7 children)
I am missing Your premises on my own position.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday August 27 2017, @06:58AM (6 children)
Mostly they're "you're fulla shit." To expand a bit, you're using a greedy, reductionist algorithm, and if you take it to its logical conclusion, you get the Violinist Problem (look it up).
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Bot on Sunday August 27 2017, @09:49AM (5 children)
You are citing an example that equates the baby with an individual, which is exactly what I proposed all along. So it is quite orthogonal to the point, surely not a conclusion. As for the usefulness of the example, the violinist is basically a stranger, and the exchange of blood is done to an unsuspecting woman which does not cover some cases so the parallel is weak.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 28 2017, @12:12AM (4 children)
You're rather obviously and, I suspect, deliberately missing the point here. Think about it a little more, please.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday August 28 2017, @07:29PM (3 children)
No, I am missing the direction your logical conclusions should lead to, which will be probably something bad and possibly due to assumptions.
Now, I am not concerned with sounding bad as contrarianism always served me better than adherence to the zeitgeist, but the assumptions are a problem.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday August 28 2017, @08:41PM (2 children)
Your assumptions are the problem here. Now, I don't know your religious views (though if you're Catholic or similar there's no way to have a rational discussion with you; you don't even know your own religion's historical views on the matter), but in the secular space, it is agreed that if an argument is shown to be absurd or otherwise invalid it should no longer be used.
Simply put, your "butbutbut MUH POTENTIAL!" argument falls flat on its face because you're attempting to argue that all conceptuses could be the next, for example, Albert Einstein. This is a consequentialist argument, rather than a deontological one; you are applying a very high positive utility, at least in potentia, to said conceptus. However, there are three things wrong with this:
1) Yes, the child COULD be the next Einstein, but could ALSO be the next Hitler. *And we have no way of knowing which if either.*
2) Observable reality shows that most humans are...well, staggeringly average. Your argument seems to ignore this, if not implicitly reject it
3) You have started down the slippery slope of valuing "potential persons" above actual persons, and furthermore valuing them for their contribution to society rather any innate humanity, which seems like it should have been the thrust of this argument of yours to begin with. So you've, midway through, pivoted and changed or smuggled at least one premise here.
I would be very careful about naive utilitarianism in this situation if I were you...
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by Bot on Tuesday August 29 2017, @09:54PM (1 child)
You got all of this from #557939?
let's recap
You say "Have you considered a blastula is not a baby?"
I say "it is irrelevant". Abortion is killing an individual. As for the morality of it, it is out of the scope of the discussion. Committing fault on the player headed towards scoring a goal requires the corresponding penalty. "have you considered he did not score yet, and he might have missed"? Yes, I considered it, does not matter.
All the society stuff, you probably carried it from the previous convo. All the faith stuff, irrelevant.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday August 30 2017, @12:40AM
Ah, I see, you're one of those. You don't even know what words mean.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...