This is a personal topic for me because our youngest, currently 11, has Down Syndrome. One of the reasons we live in Israel now, actually, is because the range of services and options available to him over the next few years and for sure as he gets older are more robust here than they would be in the US. This is especially important because the life expectancy of people born with DS has more than doubled in the last generation or two and is now around 60. It is not easy - certainly his presence redefined our family in profound ways that we never really imagined before he came along - but we never even considered aborting the pregnancy. That is, I'm sure, partially because we are Orthodox Jews, but I don't think we just saw it just in terms of religious obligation.
I agree with you that people should have maximal freedom to make fraught personal decisions. To us, it seemed like the Ridgeways heard a prognosis that was VERY heavily weighted towards the potential physical negatives, and their post reflected those concerns (perhaps the prognosis they heard from their medical team reflected their own fears and concerns). We recognize and are grateful that our son is relatively generally healthy and high-functioning, though developmentally disadvantaged in ways that do require interventions and help. There are Down Syndrome cases that result in much more physical disability, but also plenty of cases where that is not the case.
My sense from experience is that there is a tendency in the medical field to start couples facing a Down Syndrome diagnosis with the worst-case scenarios. While that is certainly part of an informed decision, it is not the only part. I don't mean this as a criticism of the Ridgeways, per se, but it does seem like they made a choice that was less than fully-informed, and became part of the atmosphere that is reinforcing the less-informed choices others will make. That may say more about society in general.
The challenge for prospective parents is that Downs has a spectrum. I don’t know how much they can tell about where a child will fall on that spectrum, but I know a child who is near the worst case end and I would not wish her misery on anyone.
Happy to do some grappling. For me, the morality of this issue starts and ends with the morality of abortion. If you belive that a fetus is a person than abortion is immoral, regardless of the health of the fetus. Killing a grown up with Down Syndrome is murder. But if you believe that a fetus is a handful of cells, then the reasons for abortion are practical not moral. You can disapprove of someone's reasons (I disapprove of lawns but that doesn't make lawn mowers immoral); disapproval, even disgust, does not equal immorality. If society grants a woman the right to have an abortion, I don't see how society at the same time can give that right only under a set of approved circumstances. I think this is why people who think abortion is murder generally don't allow an exception for rape. Murder is immoral. But likewise, removing cells is a medical procedure.
This is a personal topic for me because our youngest, currently 11, has Down Syndrome. One of the reasons we live in Israel now, actually, is because the range of services and options available to him over the next few years and for sure as he gets older are more robust here than they would be in the US. This is especially important because the life expectancy of people born with DS has more than doubled in the last generation or two and is now around 60. It is not easy - certainly his presence redefined our family in profound ways that we never really imagined before he came along - but we never even considered aborting the pregnancy. That is, I'm sure, partially because we are Orthodox Jews, but I don't think we just saw it just in terms of religious obligation.
I agree with you that people should have maximal freedom to make fraught personal decisions. To us, it seemed like the Ridgeways heard a prognosis that was VERY heavily weighted towards the potential physical negatives, and their post reflected those concerns (perhaps the prognosis they heard from their medical team reflected their own fears and concerns). We recognize and are grateful that our son is relatively generally healthy and high-functioning, though developmentally disadvantaged in ways that do require interventions and help. There are Down Syndrome cases that result in much more physical disability, but also plenty of cases where that is not the case.
My sense from experience is that there is a tendency in the medical field to start couples facing a Down Syndrome diagnosis with the worst-case scenarios. While that is certainly part of an informed decision, it is not the only part. I don't mean this as a criticism of the Ridgeways, per se, but it does seem like they made a choice that was less than fully-informed, and became part of the atmosphere that is reinforcing the less-informed choices others will make. That may say more about society in general.
The challenge for prospective parents is that Downs has a spectrum. I don’t know how much they can tell about where a child will fall on that spectrum, but I know a child who is near the worst case end and I would not wish her misery on anyone.
Happy to do some grappling. For me, the morality of this issue starts and ends with the morality of abortion. If you belive that a fetus is a person than abortion is immoral, regardless of the health of the fetus. Killing a grown up with Down Syndrome is murder. But if you believe that a fetus is a handful of cells, then the reasons for abortion are practical not moral. You can disapprove of someone's reasons (I disapprove of lawns but that doesn't make lawn mowers immoral); disapproval, even disgust, does not equal immorality. If society grants a woman the right to have an abortion, I don't see how society at the same time can give that right only under a set of approved circumstances. I think this is why people who think abortion is murder generally don't allow an exception for rape. Murder is immoral. But likewise, removing cells is a medical procedure.