Down With Down Syndrome?

[UPDATE: Welcome, readers of Slate. Hope you guys like snark!]

I hate when people make passionate pleas for social change based on personal, anecdotal evidence. You may recall a post I ran several months ago responding to a Salon editorial bashing Wedding Crashers for racism. That woman had a patently ridiculous premise - that the lack of a black wedding in the opening montage of Wedding Crashers mirrors the lack of attention beautiful black women receive from men of all races every day, as both of these phenomenon are caused by implicit racism.

Her evidence? Well, men don't check her out too often in public. And it hurts her feelings.

Today, we have a Washington Post editorial from a mother whose daughter has Down Syndrome. It's wrong to abort a baby if you find out it's going to be born with Down Syndrome, she posits. Why? Because her daughter Margaret is happy and content.

Excuse me? That's ridiculous. Making blanket statements about what is right and wrong for people just because of how a certain situation worked out for you, personally is not journalism, you simp.

Whenever I am out with Margaret, I'm conscious that she represents a group whose ranks are shrinking because of the wide availability of prenatal testing and abortion. I don't know how many pregnancies are terminated because of prenatal diagnoses of Down syndrome, but some studies estimate 80 to 90 percent.

Okay, already this is unclear. Does she mean that 90% of pregnancies where the mother has been tested and the baby will be born with Down Syndrome are terminated? Or does she mean that 90% of the total number of babies who would be born with Down Syndrome are terminated, because of the increased use of the prenatal test?

Anyway, I don't really understand why it would be a bad thing for there to be less babies born with Down Syndrome. It's a syndrome, right? Almost all syndromes of any kind are at the very least unpleasant. No one wants a syndrome. Unless it's Big Dick and Bicep Syndrome.

I mean, it's not like anyone's suggesting that we do anything to Down Syndrome-afflicted people once they are born.

Imagine. As Margaret bounces through life, especially out here in the land of the perfect body, I see the way people look at her: curious, surprised, sometimes wary, occasionally disapproving or alarmed. I know that most women of childbearing age that we may encounter have judged her and her cohort, and have found their lives to be not worth living.

To them, Margaret falls into the category of avoidable human suffering. At best, a tragic mistake. At worst, a living embodiment of the pro-life movement. Less than human. A drain on society. That someone I love is regarded this way is unspeakably painful to me.

Does anyone think this? When you see a person with any sort of disability walking down the street, do you immediately think to yourself, "Well, I certainly wish that thing had been aborted. They are less than human." May I suggest that, if you do think this, you please avoid mating or serving as a legal guardian for any young people, because you, sir, are disgusting and twisted.

OF COURSE NOT! To argue that a woman should have a choice about whether or not to bring someone with Down Syndrome into the world has absolutely nothing to do with respecting the right of everyone to live with dignity and respect.

You know why? Because first trimester abortions are not killing babies, okay? It's not a little baby with Down Syndrome in there that we're going in and strangling with piano wire. It's a clump of fucking cells. A clump of cells that potentially could turn into a baby in a few months provided none of the million things that can go wrong goes wrong.

So let's stop, please, I beg of you, please, referring to abortion as baby-killing or ending a life or murder or any of that hokum. If you want to debate second or third trimester abortions, okay, fine, that's at least semi-valid. But Patricia Bauer, the woman who wrote this article, who I'm sure is a lovely woman motivated by compassion and tenderness for her daughter, is full of steaming horseshit.

Most people, even in Los Angeles, try their best not to pre-judge a person with disabilities. It isn't always easy, because without realizing it, we humans are a fairly superficial, petty species. We make judgements about everyone based on their appearance, social skills, hygeine, manner of speech, body language...All that stuff. But I think most people, at least most people with breeding and manners, try to treat anyone they encounter who may be differently-abled, with respect and tact.

Frankly, I don't think I get the same opportunity socially here in LA as the handicapped. People know they're not supposed to judge or mistreat the disabled, but unkempt overweight bearded Jew video store clerks are afforded no such exempt status. I get curious, surprised, wary, disapproving and alarmed looks every day, not to mention the occasional customer who will refer to me as an "insolent swine." (NOTE: That's a verbatim quote.)

She's conflating the ending a pregnancy early with the destruction of a life, someone's actual human life that's being lived. That's just a fallacy. Her daughter has every right to live, but who's to say the same thing about a collection of cells in some woman's body that might one day become a daughter?

Of course she loves Margaret despite the disability. Was there ever any doubt? Is anyone saying that they couldn't conceivably love a child withmental or physical problems? It's a question of pragmatism - could I raise a child with disabilities at this point in my life. It's quite an undertaking.

In ancient Greece, babies with disabilities were left out in the elements to die. We in America rely on prenatal genetic testing to make our selections in private, but the effect on society is the same.

Margaret's old pediatrician tells me that years ago he used to have a steady stream of patients with Down syndrome. Not anymore. Where did they go, I wonder. On the west side of L.A., they aren't being born anymore, he says.

You shrill idiot...Having a first-trimester abortion and leaving a live human baby out in the elements to die IS NOT THE SAME THING. And it might have the same final end result effect on the demographics of a society, that there are less adults with disabilities. But these are complicated moral questions without answers. Is it right to fiddle with Nature, to rig the deck in favor of more "idealized" children?

I have no fucking idea. That's a really hard question. But when we're talking about abortion, we're talking about a choice women make for themselves. This isn't Eugenics, where we've decided as a society to kill Down Syndrome fetuses to bring up the overall IQ rate. Obviously, that sort of genetic programming is monstrous. But it's not an organized system. It's a family making a decision about what's right for them. Who the fuck is Patricia Bauer to intrude or judge them? Remember? She's the one who is disgusted by the judging eyes of her fellow Los Angelinos!

And bringing up "West LA" is so cheap and easy. As if someone's financial status has anything to do with their ability to raise a retarded child. Yes, some people with money still choose not to have children. If they can't devote themselves to a baby 100% at that point in their lives, that baby is probably better off not being born. And if that baby is going to have special needs, and require even more attention and care? What then? A home in West LA means that any woman can shoulder this responsibility herself?

Margaret is a person and a member of our family. She has my husband's eyes, my hair and my mother-in-law's sense of humor. We love and admire her because of who she is -- feisty and zesty and full of life -- not in spite of it. She enriches our lives. If we might not have chosen to welcome her into our family, given the choice, then that is a statement more about our ignorance than about her inherent worth.

Oh, boo hoo hoo, Patty, I'm sobbing tears of joy. Your comment that Margaret has your husband's mom's sense of humor makes up for your total lack of logic and rationality. Let's never fight again! I should add, "zesty"isn't really a useful word one can use to describe a person. It's more appropriate for things like Spicy Jack Quesadillas.

I have to think that there are many pro-choicers who, while paying obeisance to the rights of people with disabilities, want at the same time to preserve their right to ensure that no one with disabilities will be born into their own families. The abortion debate is not just about a woman's right to choose whether to have a baby; it's also about a woman's right to choose which baby she wants to have.

Abortion is legal. People have abortions all the time. It's grisly and unpleasant and I don't personally revel in thinking about the intimate details of the act, but I know that it happens and that people have it done for all sorts of myriad reasons.

And I don't think there's anything morally wrong with it. Alive people always come before cell clumps as far as I'm concerned, even cell clumps that might one day sprout some hair and make googly noises and look cute. How can you mourn someone who might have been but isn't? Do you mourn the children you might have had with ex-girlfriends or ex-boyfriends? Do you mourn the brothers or sisters your parents never had? Here's a tough one...Let's say your wife has a fully-functioning uterus but your sperm are all out of alignment. If you adopt a kid, do you nonetheless mourn the babies your wife might have been able to bear had she hooked up with another dude?

Of course not. There's nothing there to mourn. No collected experiences. No "soul". No wants or desires or emotions or sensations or any of the other things that make a human being a human being. Just stuff. Material. Goo.

Well, I refuse to mourn or romanticize goo. I don't even like kids...How am I supposed to emotionally invest in the matter that eventually transmogrifies into kids? Basically, I just really resent that this woman titled her article "The Abortion Debate No One Wants to Have."

I want to have this debate! Let's go! You can take the "every little non-human fetus is precious, particularly the ones that will become retards, because my daughter is zesty" side. And I'll take the "shut up about the goo already, I'm trying to eat lunch and am sick of debating this non-issue constantly" side.