Debate: Should we test for autism in the womb?

[Anguille]

Do any of you know the movie Gattaca? It is about a future where most children are genetically planned (to have low odds for cancer etc.), and the ones who arent are heavily discriminated against. The main actor is an "unplanned" person that assumes a fake identity to reach his goals.

No offense, but when people use Hollywood movies to bolster their arguments, it always makes me .

 

[Cecilie1200]

Are you retarded? Seriously....

like i said... govern your own life.

damn, we're surrounded by supercilious twits.

you can't even make intelligent judgments for yourself but think you're so superior you can make them for others?

and no, genius...no one is pro abortion. we just want people like you to GOVERN YOUR OWN LIVES.

I can't make intelligent judgements for myself? And you base this on what? I'M not the one championing the "right" of women to **** men they don't particularly like or want to spend their lives with, get knocked up, and then kill the kid because they made a mistake. So don't sit there and preach to ME about "making intelligent judgements" and "governing your life" when your entire cause is based on the sanctity of being a careless, self-absorbed ****-up who can't think past her hot drawers, all right?

And no, you're pro-abortion. I don't give a rat's ass what fancy words you want to dress it up in. Maybe you think the whole world has the attention span of a gnat like you do, but I can assure you, we don't. We can all see ALL of the causes you support and positions you take around here, and you and your asshole buddies are the only ones stupid enough to really believe you're even REMOTELY about "governing your own life". What you add up to is convincing people to NOT govern their lives so that you and your selected Messiahs can swoop in and play savior and have everyone dependent on you. Pathetic hypocrisy, and the saddest thing is that I really believe you personally are just an ignorant tool who's too stupid to even realize what you're doing.

 

[Anguille]

On moral grounds I am opposed, I do see people with autism as "different" not "inferior".
If we "ban" autism, we have good odds in ending with a society that will define what is normal and "abort" everthing else. Will every child be blond and blue eyed or something?
Do any of you know the movie Gattaca? It is about a future where most children are genetically planned (to have low odds for cancer etc.), and the ones who arent are heavily discriminated against. The main actor is an "unplanned" person that assumes a fake identity to reach his goals.

I don't think anyone is suggesting we ban autism. The original question was about personal choice. Autism is a catch-all word for several different and varied conditions. I agree with some of the other posters that some forms are not even disabilities and could even be considered advantages. But there are severe forms of autism that render people incapable of caring for themselves or of communication. How can you tell if life is worthwhile living to them? You can't really know but I have seen severely autistic people who scream and are violent and who for all outwards appearances are in constant mental anguish. There is no known cure for their condition, only drugs to subdue them. If a test indicated to me that the fetus I was carrying had a good chance of being that severely affected, I would abort it.
For two reasons.
1. I do not wish to to spend my life carrying for someone so helpless nor could I bear seeing a child of mine put into an institution.
2. I would not bring into the world any child doomed to a life of pain and suffering.

On a sidenote, heavy selection against "mutations" will lower the overall evolutionary fitness of mankind, however I doubt that politics ever consider effects that will resurface in 10s of thousands of years.

good point

 

[Zoom-boing]

That's right. IMO, fetuses are potential humans but not fully so. That is why abortion is not murder or manslaughter or killing.

Wrong. When conception takes places, life begins. Since humans give birth to humans, human life begins. Abortion is the exterminatation of human life.

I can understand your thinking, though. I'd think that way too if I needed a way to rationalize murder.

 

[Anguille]

Wrong. When conception takes places, life begins. Since humans give birth to humans, human life begins. Abortion is the exterminatation of human life.

I can understand your thinking, though. I'd think that way too if I needed a way to rationalize murder.

You don't understand a thing seeing as I never said when life begins.
And as far as our legal system goes, can you provide an example when anyone was ever convicted of murder for performing or having an abortion?

 

[Zoom-boing]

You don't understand a thing seeing as I never said when life begins.
And as far as our legal system goes, can you provide an example when anyone was ever convicted of murder for performing or having an abortion?

1. When do you believe that life begins?

2. No, they made murdering unborn humans legal via abortion.


Why was Scott Peterson convicted on two counts of murder?

 

[roomy]

Here is a related question. What if there was a pre natal test which could say with 100% accuracy that a fetus would eventually become an adult rapist and/or murderer? What would be the reasons, if any, for not aborting in the case of a positive for that test?

the drugs don't work.

 

[Againsheila]

Here is a related question. What if there was a pre natal test which could say with 100% accuracy that a fetus would eventually become an adult rapist and/or murderer? What would be the reasons, if any, for not aborting in the case of a positive for that test?

That goes along with the question that if you could go back in time and kill Hitler as a baby, would you?

 

[Anguille]

That goes along with the question that if you could go back in time and kill Hitler as a baby, would you?

Yeah, it is that sort of hypothetical question.