I've just been catching up with the latest Dawktwitversy about abortion and Downs syndrome.
I guess the main contention is regarding his line that it is immoral to give birth to a Downs syndrome child - and that the woman should abort and try again if the fetus is discovered to be trisomy 21.
I think I've mentioned it here before that I used to work in a clinic where prenatal diagnosis was performed through the identification of chromosomal abnormalities. Women who were high risk (through age or levels of a particular protein in their blood) had a biopsy of their placenta taken and this was sent to our lab. We would culture the cells so that they would divide and then we would examine the metaphase cells in which we could identify the chromosomes. Downs syndrome was confirmed through the finding of the characteristic trisomy 21 karyotype.
The vast majority of suspected cases turned out to be normal karyotype. I worked there for a year and didn't identify a single trisomy 21 (although others on the team did - the average rate at the time was about one in 30 suspected cases.)
I did, however, identify a trisomy 13 case - Patau syndrome.
This is far more severe than Downs syndrome - 80% of those who survive until birth will die before they reach one year of age and almost all are dead before they are more then a few years old. There are very severe neurological as well as multiple developmental abormalities associated with this condition and surgical intervention is necessary almost immediately if they are to live even brief lives.
If Dawkins had used this condition (or the related trisomy 18 Edwards syndrome) then I think he would have had a reasonable point. A lot of these severe abnormality cases will miscarry relatively late in pregnancy, thus creating a risk to the life of the mother. The chances that a full term pregnancy will result in any significant quality of life for the child is minimal.
In that case you can very well argue that it is immoral to risk the life of the mother.
I don't think the same thing to Downs syndrome.
There are plenty of examples of Downs syndrome individuals that live lives with some degree of quality and happiness.
I can't see how it is valid to say it is necessarily immoral to give birth to such a child.
So I disagree with Dawkins on that tweet.
As far as I can tell Dawkins follows the Peter Singer line regarding the abortion issue. That can be problematic when arguing with those unfamiliar with Singers views - or with those who take a religious line and are anti abortion.
Singer takes a logically consistent line that often sounds cruel and heartless to those who don't share his views.
For example he allows for the idea of infanticide - killing of a child after birth. This notion (that the baby has not yet developed thinking ability and thus killing it is not killing a developed person) gets around many of the logical inconsistencies in the standard abortion debate but at the same time is rather horrifying to those who hear it for the first time.
I guess that Dawkins was following this line but also assuming that Downs syndrome was always severe, when the truth is that there is a range of symptoms (indeed some mosaic Downs cases can look like typical Downs but have close to normal neurological skills.)
If there is such a range (unlike Pataus or Edwards syndromes) then how can you say it is immoral to give birth to such a child.
It MAY be immoral if you know the condition is severe and it will die soon after birth (and hence you are risking the life of the mother) but for Downs this is unlikely to be the case and in many instances the condition will be less severe than conditions such as severe autism.
I think abortion as a whole is problematic to comment upon using twitter because it is a complicated issue.
Just cast you mind back to just a few months ago and Myers reporting on the story of aborted or miscarried fetuses being burnt in an incinerator that generated electricity.
I’m not in the least disturbed by the fact that patients were not consulted on how their dead fetus was disposed. When you go in for an operation, are you concerned about what is done with the bloody towels afterwards, or how your appendix or tonsils or excised cyst are treated? Did you think there was some special room deep in the bowels of the institution where they were reverently interred, attended by a weeping chaplain who said a few kind words over your precious bodily fluids? Nope. They’re sealed up in a bag, dealt with according to appropriate protocols for medical waste, and incinerated.
Get over it.
Does anyone think that Dawkins could have said the above paragraph and not been pounced upon by the twitterati for being a heartless monster?
Just to illustrate how problematic simple statements can be in the abortion debate, just look at the title of Myers post about the current Dawkins controvery:
"Saying you should abort is as wrong as saying you may not abort"
That's straight forward isn't it?
Not quite.
Although I agree with Myers over Dawkins on the question of the particular tweet in question, just reread Myers words and think how they could be applied to the case of Savita Halappanavar who died in University Hospital Galway of infection after the medical staff there refused to abort her fetus while it still had a heartbeat.
Wouldn't Myers line "Saying you should abort is as wrong as saying you may not abort" provide a justification for the medical staff to refuse to abort?
I realize that Myers intends his words to only apply to the pregnant woman but interpretation of wording about abortion is a fine art in countries where there are strong anti-abortion movements and any ambiguity will be seized upon to provide justification for those who seek to deny women the right to abort.
