New Friend said...

In the past I have the opportunity on several different occasions, and in quite different circumstances, to be involved with folk with Downs Syndrome. These experiences have all be wholly positive. They have loving and happy characters. The last time was in a pub where a group of Downs Syndrome men visited on one particular night each week. I think they all live in a sheltered community and were accompanied by a warden. It was karaoke night and they were great fun, completely accepted by the regulars and dishing out love and affection all over the place.

So any suggestion that a "special" rule applies to them rather shocked me. So I researched it and found that whereas the theory suggested might still be true, it is not actually the practise. In 2011 less than 0.1% of all abortions, a total of 146, were carried out after 24 weeks, for ANY reason at all.

In my view much more serious is that 94% of all pregnancies with a prenatal diagnosis of Downs Syndrome will be terminated. In May 1996 a Bill was introduced that would have made illegal a termination, on the grounds of a Downs Syndrome diagnosis alone. It was given a first reading but never became law. This seems to me a much more desirable objective for the 94% of terminations prior to 24 weeks far outweigh those after it.

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Paul Priest said...

Sorry James but I'm afraid you're mistaken about the 'up to birth' part.

Many Downs Syndrome babies are born with duodenal atresia - a simple twisted bowel which can easily be treated - as the Child is Downs Syndrome there is no mandatory directive to perform the treatment and the child may be deprived of clinical nutrition & hydration until he or she dies in excruciating agony of desiccation and toxaemia from muscle organ death.

A higher percentage have some form of minor heart defect which may be aggravated by birth & require immediate surgery. Generally among hospital ethics committees no such allocation of resources is permitted and allowing the child to die is deemed the 'humane, sensitive, dignified response'

But as you know - most are slaughtered long before they see the light of day.

James Rachels - with his famous four arguments on the intrinsic irrationality within the active/passive euthanasia differentiation arguments - used to be required reading for any ethics student on the issue. Somehow his presence has now vanished from the majority of Ethics courses.

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Philip said...

@newfriend - we normally disagree, so let's try not to on this! Your point is a good one and the abortions pre-24 weeks drown those after 24 weeks. However, it is worth remembering that 146 (not all for Downs syndrome) after 24 weeks is still a large number (say, six people killed in a train crash could stay in the public consciousness for ten years, easily - the over-reaction to the Hatfield crash that killed four cost about £1billion). However, James' point is not the numbers but the mere fact that discrimination of this form is allowed at all. Whatever one's views on abortion it is astonishing that there is not a consensus regarding the different treatment of disabled people in this way. In nearly every other similar area, disabled lobby groups would be arguing that this sort of different treatment stigmatises all disabled people by suggesting that they are more disposable than the rest of the population.

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New Friend said...

Philip

From what I read there are many reasons why the 24 week limit is breached. These are mostly to do with people not receiving appropriate advice in time and so special exemptions are made, so far as I can tell usually only by a week or two in most cases. I don't believe that this means that there is any more discrimination against any type of potential disablement after 24 weeks than before it. So I think the 24 week argument is a red herring which might obscure the more important issue.

What seems more important to me is whether it can be justified to terminate on the sole basis of a "disablement" diagnosis at any stage of a pregnancy. My own view is that it cannot be justified. That is not to say that a termination cannot be justified for other reasons, the health and well being of the mother being the principal one.

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Philip said...

well, I am not going to argue with you about disability not being the sole basis - that would be a big improvement. However, the post-24 weeks issue is not unimportant from the point of view of principle as things stand today. It applies to two cases - if the mother's life is in danger or if the baby is disabled and that is discrimination against disabled babies explicitly in law. Of course, if your proposed amendment went through, then this would not be relevant in any case, so there is no disagreement as such. I do not agree with your last sentence, but I'll leave that for another day.

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JamesF-J said...

First time I have posted here but todays news upset me enough to do so - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-19570364

Not only can Downs children be aborted or 'euthanised' ie killed after birth - it seems that the medical establishment now consider euthanasia later in life as acceptable also. Yet another story that gives the lie to those who argue that legalising any forms of euthanasia eg 'assisted suicide'will not be a slippery slope to routine euthanasia

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