Posted: May 20, 2012 1:38 am
The argument really is one of nature or nurture: The abortion after screening is no more eugenics than any modern neonatal care or vaccination program in that the aim is out of 1000 live births to have no children dead at 5 years old. Currently its about 6 or fewer dead out of the 1000 at 5 years. A century ago it was something like 100 dead.
Death is now the exception not the rule. No one today statistically expects to end up with a dead child or even know anyone else that has had a child die from a preventable childhood disease. I certainly didn't when we had our 3. I have a lot of trust in our NHS and our technology and quite justifiably so given the statistics are excellent. Infant mortality rates is the benchmark of a healthy country. For my grandparents or earlier that was never the case.
We now expect perfect children because our knowledge has actually given us that. Though Downs syndrome is a 1 in a 2000 live births or so it is now a high statistic comparable to the children that are not healthy or die.
I'm pro-life in that I oppose abortions of foetuses that have neocortex development but until that time (19-20 weeks) it's pro-choice and the mother actually needs the information to make a choice. This applies to vaccinations of the child and any ante or post natal care.
But whilst the results are what they are i.e. we do not now routinely fill our cemeteries with dead children, then I see no problem with strongly promoting anything that keeps those results. To me Mrs Dymock is as wrong as the anti-vaccine people.
Death is now the exception not the rule. No one today statistically expects to end up with a dead child or even know anyone else that has had a child die from a preventable childhood disease. I certainly didn't when we had our 3. I have a lot of trust in our NHS and our technology and quite justifiably so given the statistics are excellent. Infant mortality rates is the benchmark of a healthy country. For my grandparents or earlier that was never the case.
We now expect perfect children because our knowledge has actually given us that. Though Downs syndrome is a 1 in a 2000 live births or so it is now a high statistic comparable to the children that are not healthy or die.
I'm pro-life in that I oppose abortions of foetuses that have neocortex development but until that time (19-20 weeks) it's pro-choice and the mother actually needs the information to make a choice. This applies to vaccinations of the child and any ante or post natal care.
But whilst the results are what they are i.e. we do not now routinely fill our cemeteries with dead children, then I see no problem with strongly promoting anything that keeps those results. To me Mrs Dymock is as wrong as the anti-vaccine people.