Twatter outrage

[Sucralose Ray Leonard 4,174]

Be interested to know the Dosbodders view on this. 

https://mobile.twitter.com/search?q="Down Syndrome Hate"&src=trend_click&vertical=trends

Now, my take on this is not hatred to those with Downs, but a statement to prevent people in future being born with it, In the same way a "Let's make Cancer extinct" T-shirt would. 

Am I being naive? Am I actually Hitler in disguise? 

I've not actually checked who is selling the shirts to see if the money from the sales goes to any research as such so could understand people questioning it from that angle. 

It's just the instant Twitter outrage that gets me. 

Is it the whole Eugenics side that people are angry with? I'm not sure. 

[sarahbell 14,650]

They test for it and can offer late abortion. 

I don't know why anyone would want your child to be disabled.

There was a news story a while ago about a woman who had a test and didn't want to get rid and doctors assumed she would.

Cost of looking after a disabled child is huge.

I know people with disabled adult children. Downs. Rhett's. And another I am not sure what it's called. 

I would not want their lives. Knowing your child will die early is horrific. 

 

[MrPin 16,530]

Half the people I have worked with have been mentally disabled. Many have degrees from "classy" institutions.

[One percent 48,997]

14 minutes ago, Sucralose Ray Leonard said:

Be interested to know the Dosbodders view on this. 

https://mobile.twitter.com/search?q="Down Syndrome Hate"&src=trend_click&vertical=trends

Now, my take on this is not hatred to those with Downs, but a statement to prevent people in future being born with it, In the same way a "Let's make Cancer extinct" T-shirt would. 

Am I being naive? Am I actually Hitler in disguise? 

I've not actually checked who is selling the shirts to see if the money from the sales goes to any research as such so could understand people questioning it from that angle. 

It's just the instant Twitter outrage that gets me. 

Is it the whole Eugenics side that people are angry with? I'm not sure. 

Reminds me of this meme. 
 

 

 

 

[DeepLurker 1,762]

7 minutes ago, sarahbell said:

They test for it and can offer late abortion. 

I don't know why anyone would want your child to be disabled.

There was a news story a while ago about a woman who had a test and didn't want to get rid and doctors assumed she would.

Cost of looking after a disabled child is huge.

I know people with disabled adult children. Downs. Rhett's. And another I am not sure what it's called. 

I would not want their lives. Knowing your child will die early is horrific. 

 

This.

The only people who should express an opinion on this subject are the parents of disabled children. The others should just fuck off and be grateful for their straightforward uncomplicated lives.

[sarahbell 14,650]

2 minutes ago, DeepLurker said:

This.

The only people who should express an opinion on this subject are the parents of disabled children. The others should just fuck off and be grateful for their straightforward uncomplicated lives.

Ah it gets complicated though because of the cost of raising a disabled child and their adult care.

 

[Virgil Caine 12,197]

5 minutes ago, sarahbell said:

They test for it and can offer late abortion. 

I don't know why anyone would want your child to be disabled.

There was a news story a while ago about a woman who had a test and didn't want to get rid and doctors assumed she would.

Cost of looking after a disabled child is huge.

I know people with disabled adult children. Downs. Rhett's. And another I am not sure what it's called. 

I would not want their lives. Knowing your child will die early is horrific. 

 

Looking after a disabled person is a huge commitment which I doubt many people really understand. What makes it more difficult is that unlike ordinary kids the need for self sacrifice grows with the child and is at its greatest when they become adults so there is no end date apart from death for those involved. It might be manageable if the families got decent support from the health service and the government but it is often not there when most needed. What also tends to be forgotten is the parents age and get ill themselves so eventually the child ends up in a care home if it lives long enough. 

[Hail the Tripod 9,638]

If the (potential) mother is over 35 they will pretty much always encourage them to be tested. The test requires an needle into the amniotic sac to take a sample. It is not risk free.

[sarahbell 14,650]

7 minutes ago, Hail the Tripod said:

If the (potential) mother is over 35 they will pretty much always encourage them to be tested. The test requires an needle into the amniotic sac to take a sample. It is not risk free.

It's not. But the question should be asked: If it's positive will you get rid of it. Cos if the answer is a firm no then they shouldn't waste time having the test.

[Option5 7,305]

Judging by the number of people claiming extra benefits for their child's "disabilities" it's already too late.

[Hail the Tripod 9,638]

6 minutes ago, sarahbell said:

It's not. But the question should be asked: If it's positive will you get rid of it. Cos if the answer is a firm no then they shouldn't waste time having the test.

I’m not so sure. It may be that there are significant numbers of people who would insist they would “love their child regardless” but faced with the absolute certainty of a disabled child may decide to abort that one and try again. Difficult to know whether that happens or not if you don’t work in that area. It wouldn’t surprise me though.

[AlfredTheLittle 914]

44 minutes ago, sarahbell said:

They test for it and can offer late abortion. 

I don't know why anyone would want your child to be disabled.

There was a news story a while ago about a woman who had a test and didn't want to get rid and doctors assumed she would.

Cost of looking after a disabled child is huge.

I know people with disabled adult children. Downs. Rhett's. And another I am not sure what it's called. 

I would not want their lives. Knowing your child will die early is horrific. 

 

Downs people can and do live very happy and rewarding lives, including contributing to society by lighting up the lives of those around them.

They're no more a burden than any child, it's appalling to be killing them but I suppose no more terrible than all the other awful things humans are doing.

[sarahbell 14,650]

Just now, AlfredTheLittle said:

Downs people can and do live very happy and rewarding lives, including contributing to society by lighting up the lives of those around them.

They're no more a burden than any child, it's appalling to be killing them but I suppose no more terrible than all the other awful things humans are doing.

So they should get no extra benefits?

Fine. Not a problem.

 

[wherebee 17,443]

1 hour ago, Sucralose Ray Leonard said:

Be interested to know the Dosbodders view on this. 

https://mobile.twitter.com/search?q="Down Syndrome Hate"&src=trend_click&vertical=trends

Now, my take on this is not hatred to those with Downs, but a statement to prevent people in future being born with it, In the same way a "Let's make Cancer extinct" T-shirt would. 

Am I being naive? Am I actually Hitler in disguise? 

I've not actually checked who is selling the shirts to see if the money from the sales goes to any research as such so could understand people questioning it from that angle. 

It's just the instant Twitter outrage that gets me. 

Is it the whole Eugenics side that people are angry with? I'm not sure. 

I am.

 

I would allow parents to kill children with certain diseases, legally and peacefully.  Downs, extreme autism, etc etc.

[Virgil Caine 12,197]

19 minutes ago, Option5 said:

Judging by the number of people claiming extra benefits for their child's "disabilities" it's already too late.

No amount of benefits would make me want to take on the job of being the full time carer of a child with a serious disability. Down’s syndrome often comes with a host of other related disorders such as congenital heart disease, mobility and mental impairment etc It really is the Full House of potential medical problems

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_syndrome#:~:text=Down syndrome. Down syndrome ( DS or DNS,to moderate intellectual disability%2C and characteristic facial features.

It is like signing up to a 24 hour a day job for 365 days a year with no time off or sick leave.

I have seen a the cost involved first hand as I had an aunt with cerebral palsy who lived into her 70s. The parents and her siblings cared for he over most of that period but it was a huge effort even though her condition was far from being completely incapacitating as she was reasonably mobile and unlike Downs there were not the secondary medical conditions waiting to ambush them later.

Edited September 13 by Virgil Caine

[GBDamo 3,974]

4 minutes ago, wherebee said:

I am.

 

I would allow parents to kill children with certain diseases, legally and peacefully.  Downs, extreme autism, etc etc.

There are some topics you have to have 'a dog in the fight' to comment on, be it expertise or personal involvement.

 

[Virgil Caine 12,197]

4 minutes ago, GBDamo said:

There are some topics you have to have 'a dog in the fight' to comment on, be it expertise or personal involvement.

 

Agreed. Only the parent can make the decision but I suspect most don’t really know what they are committing themselves to. I doubt medical staff themselves really understand the full long term emotional, physical and financial effort involved.

[wherebee 17,443]

13 minutes ago, GBDamo said:

There are some topics you have to have 'a dog in the fight' to comment on, be it expertise or personal involvement.

 

I've got personal experience of a seriously disabled loved one who struggles on day after day despite most sane observers thinking he would be better off being put to sleep

 

 

 

Anyway, enough about XYY man, what was the question?

[Royston 1,268]

38 minutes ago, Option5 said:

Judging by the number of people claiming extra benefits for their child's "disabilities" it's already too late.

Well there's genuine disabilities and then there's norty kids syndrome.

[reformed nice guy 768]

This is an issue in which moral supremacy, pragmatism and arrogance crash into each other, leaving a big mess.

For many with a dogmatic belief of unquestionable universal equality, they will not believe that two lives are not equally valuable. I know of a family with a child that is currently in a hospital without most of their skull, brain spilling out onto a plastic sac and the child has never left that hospital. They are 8 years old. Medical care must have been in the 10s of millions excluding staff costs. For those with the pseudo-religious belief in equality, that person is just as equal as the doctors treating them.

Then you look at the likes of Stephen Hawkings. Genius, but was severely disabled. 

Like everything, the correct answer is probably somewhere in the middle. I do not think the fetishisation of down syndrome is healthy for society. It is just a costly exuberance. Nothing wrong with having council run schools, adult care centres or businesses (depending on level of mental/physical ability) but the idea of trying to force them into normal schools, university or workplaces is madness.

An interesting aside about the abortion debate is the moral use of death. I understand both sides of the debate, but if it is morally acceptable to kill a baby that has committed no "sin" then why is it not morally acceptable to kill a mass murderer?

[Option5 7,305]

2 minutes ago, reformed nice guy said:

An interesting aside about the abortion debate is the moral use of death. I understand both sides of the debate, but if it is morally acceptable to kill a baby that has committed no "sin" then why is it not morally acceptable to kill a mass murderer?

Could it be because the innocent child might live a life of misery and pain it doesn't deserve and the mass murderer will live a life of misery and pain they do deserve.

It depends on whether you see death as a possible release from suffering or not.

[DocH 4,169]

Interesting how some of the twitterers are conflicted:

"Of course the T shirt is wrong but can we please all accept that, in an ideal world, we would be able to eradicate future DS births? This is not eugenics, it is eradicating a debilitating disability."

Edited September 13 by DocH

[Boglet 2,448]

Re. eugenics, I've always seen there being a sort of 'soft' eugenics and a 'hard' eugenics.

Soft eugenics being preventing/disincentivising anyone with known genetic defects from procreating and passing it on. On a purely rational level, it's hard to argue against this.

Hard eugenics being aborting any baby with any detected abnormality. I think this is what most people associate with the term 'eugenics'. This can be further broken down into categories - some abnormalities will cause a baby to have a very short life of suffering and I think most people don't have an issue with this kind of termination. I myself have (jointly) had to make this decision so I do 'have a dog in this fight'. DS doesn't fall into this category.

 

In the specific case of DS, they are not going to procreate anyway so it's purely a question of burden on parents/families/the state.

 

 

Edited September 13 by Boglet

[dgul 14,473]

The complicated ethical bit that is seldom touched on is:

Is the right to life of the disabled fetus worth more than the right to life of the as yet unfertilised egg(s) that probably won't get a chance if the parents are spending all their time looking after the disabled child.

So, there's several sets of individuals whose opinions should be considered:

• Parents of disabled children.
• The disabled children themselves.
• Siblings of seriously disabled children.
• Parents that aborted a seriously disabled fetus.
• Children that were born after their parents aborted a seriously disabled fetus, who might not have been born without the abortion.

The opinions of this final set of individuals are usually not considered at all.

Sadly, there's two important sectors that can't be asked of their opinion:

• The disabled that can't be asked because they were aborted.
• The non-existent healthy children that can't be asked because their parents kept a seriously disabled fetus.

[deathfunk 7,267]

1 hour ago, GBDamo said:

There are some topics you have to have 'a dog in the fight' to comment on, be it expertise or personal involvement.

 

So all taxpayers then?

I'm fine with people playing God with their own kin just not at the expense of the country. If you want disabled kids then you can pay for them. Likewise if you want 10 kids. I'm very happy with people being free and making their own decisions I just don't want to pay for it all.

I am not a slave in service to the disabled. Why would anyone think that was appropriate?