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An influencer couple announced that they aborted their pregnancy because the fetus had Down syndrome. This upset a lot of people including some fine congressmen.
However, it's actually very common. Screening for genetic disorders is generally performed between 10 and 20 weeks, giving plenty of time for a reasonably early choice. "As a result of these elective terminations in the U.S., there was a 37% reduction in the numbers of babies with Down syndrome born in 2018. This means that in recent years there were 37% fewer babies with Down syndrome than could have been born". In Iceland, almost all such diagnosed pregnancies are aborted after testing.
People with Down syndrome are clearly generally capable of living "happy" lives. They have the equivalent intelligence of an 8 to 9 year old. Most 8 to 9 year olds seem happy enough to me, and it would not be a horrible curse to live decades in such a condition. Perhaps we might ask if such a life is fulfilling, but a young child can't comprehend what that means; as well ask your dog if he's fulfilled by sniffing butts and digging holes.
For the caretakers of course, life may not be so rosy. Taking care of a small child indefinitely, knowing all of the joys and sorrows of adulthood that they will never experience, does not sound fulfilling, to say nothing of the physical and monetary toll. It's therefore unsurprising that most parents choose not to condemn themselves to such a future.
God in His infinite wisdom creates babies with far worse afflictions. Most people would agree that it is ethical, perhaps mandatory, to abort nonviable children who will live only hours in agonizing pain after birth. Down syndrome, as a patently survivable condition, lies on the edge of this boundary.
I imagine that pre ~1960s, if you had a kid with Down Syndrome you weren’t expected to go out of your way to treat him “well”. They wouldn’t have to be dragged to school and their misbehavior was punished with corporal punishment (as it was for normal kids, too). If he fell in a river and drowned or something, it wasn’t a big deal. But modern parents feel compelled to do special things for them, and feel it’s wrong to supply a painful punishment for annoying behaviors even if this may be the only way they can learn. So the burden has increased considerably. If your Down syndrome child gets into an accident because he was left unattended, the parents are blamed, but 100 years ago no one would have cared.
I believe about half of Down Syndrome children are born with severe heart defects and tend to generally be more fragile. When childhood mortality was already very high as a baseline I can't imagine that many got through (plus also younger parents likely meant the incidence rate lower than today)
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