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PaperclipPerfector  6d ago (text post)   19079 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of June 1, 2026

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This question hits differently having just returned from a date with a woman who would be well into her mid-30s at motherhood on any reasonable projected timescale. I’m pretty sure it’s not even legal to abort downies in Texas. I can’t imagine traveling hundreds of miles for the sole purpose of killing my own child. The thought has me physically sick. I also wouldn’t want to spend the rest of my life babysitting my infertile dead-end offspring.

I honestly have to laugh out loud at all the posts on here about "but the potential mother would be at least thirty-two years old!" because the bigger risk is "the potential mother has spent twenty years on artificial contraception trying to avoid pregnancy, you really think that has no effect on the body when you decide 'okay ready for baby now'?" and gosh, how did all the women in our grandmothers' time manage to have large families up to their forties, what magic was in the air or the water that enabled women who did hard physical work all their lives to have living kids and yet educated, healthy, women in their early thirties are some kind of unique case where the risk of infertility or developmental issues would be paramount?

Yes, the risk goes up with maternal age, but it's not the sole cause. As I said, I know of one family that had a Down's child and the second pregnancy was normal. If the risk is "all pregnancies will be abnormal", that is not so. Indeed, being younger is not a guarantee of not having problems:

Down syndrome occurs in 1 of 700 live births and is the most common genetic cause of developmental delay. Down syndrome occurs in people of all races and economic levels. The risk increases with the mother's age (1 in 1250 for a 25 year old mother to 1 in 1000 at age 31, 1 in 400 at age 35, and about 1 in 100 at age 40). However, 80% of babies with Down syndrome are born to women under age 35 years. Translocation Down syndrome has a greatly increased risk of occurring again in a subsequent pregnancy. The exact cause and prevention of Down syndrome are currently unknown.

I can’t imagine traveling hundreds of miles for the sole purpose of killing my own child. The thought has me physically sick.

So it's the inconvenience rather than the killing that upsets your stomach? If you could do it by a discreet journey across town, it would be okey-dokey?

I think its just trying to pick the least bad choice. I hate that choices like that exist and I understand I'd be a horrible person unless I enslaved myself to raise a child with Downs. Downs on a screening or similar is probably one of the few things I'd ok early abortion for.

"Enslaved"? Wow.

And here you all are wondering about why oh why are fertility rates cratering? Hint: maybe having been conditioned to think having kids (even ordinary, non-disabled kids) is slavery might be part of it?

It is at least indentured servitude, at least nowadays. But with a profoundly disabled child the indenture is for life.

Nobody said that. But yes, you’re bound morally and legally to raise your child. With an ordinary child you are rewarded by watching it become a full adult with all the faculties and majesty of Man (plus hopefully certain more pragmatic things like elderly care).

Looking at it from the outside, the labour of raising a developmentally disabled child is far higher and the rewards far lower. It’s no wonder people balk.

For those who are abundantly pro-life I'm curious how they feel about screening semen or eggs for potential down syndrome or other major issues. Sure it's prior to fertilization but it's still life on some level

For Catholics, at least, I don't think the issue would be with killing the sperm or unfertilized egg (not people or even potential people). But Catholicism would not be down with the impulse to treat another person as a consumer good whose worthiness for existence depends on someone else's private standards or tastes.

Not permissible

How are they not potential people? What about with IVF where multiple viable eggs are fertilized and some are potentially discarded since there's no reasonable pathway to incubating them all

I think pro-life people are typically opposed to IVF exactly because of the reason you point out.

I can’t imagine traveling hundreds of miles for the sole purpose of killing my own child. The thought has me physically sick. I also wouldn’t want to spend the rest of my life babysitting my infertile dead-end offspring.

In that case, it would be a mercy kill, no? Fate (or genetics) has already decided their odds of having a normal life. So many core human experiences might become unavailable to them because of their condition. I'd definitely travel hundreds of miles to end it before they develop awareness. The earlier, the better. Yes, I would hate myself for it but I can't make them live a half-life.

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