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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   6195 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 13, 2026

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Good heterosexual couples have politely exterminated entire classes of human beings with birth defects; when was the last time you've seen a child with Down's?

I hate the Europoor eugenicists who have mostly eradicated kids with Down's on a similar level to how much I hate the people in this story, so what's your point?

I find both parties corrupt here.

"They may be suing her for failing to murder the baby, but she chose to do a home birth instead of a hospital birth (which was not contractually required) despite the adoptive parents wanting one so they're both corrupt". I don't find anything corrupt or objectionable in the surrogate mother's behavior (other than agreeing to the surrogacy in the first place).

"They may be suing her for failing to murder the baby

This seems to be fake news as they've abandoned this angle upon getting the medical conclusion that the defect is NBD.

I find knowingly putting the baby's life and health in jeopardy objectionable, indeed evil, and morally inconsistent with the opposition to abortion; and your lack of reaction to that (as well as apathetic "not contractually required" dodge) indicative that you have no moral scruples beyond disgust/purity kneejerk reactions.

Home births(or non-hospital birthing centers, which I suspect this actually was) aren't that dangerous. They're fairly common in the US(which Canada, whether or not it likes it, is enough of a suburb of that the same should apply)- certainly common enough that if they were particularly dangerous, this would be well known and called attention to by major medical bodies.

I don't protest home births in principle, but in this case it seems to have been ill-advised.

Yeah, I'll second this. The gay guys letter saying that they 'wish' for an abortion when they thought the medical defect was likely to be serious (which I'd find that really objectionable) was ill-advised, and the surrogate's home birth decision was ill-advised, and neither of these seem to really matter for the actual lawsuit/arbitration, which is mostly about compensation for additional costs and fees. Which is its own very stupid mess and everyone involved needs to grow up, but it's not very specific to surrogacy in ways that the home birth or 'do you abort under X conditions' questions are.

This is fake news.

My apologies, "We asked her to do it, and since she didn't we are suing her for a bunch of the problems we're claiming we have to deal with because she didn't do it" might be more accurate.

I find knowingly putting the baby's life and health in jeopardy objectionable, indeed evil, and your lack of reaction to that (as well as apathetic "not contractually required" dodge) indicative that you have no moral scruples beyond disgust/purity kneejerk reactions.

Home births with a midwife in the US (and I assume Canada) are often (though not always) safer than hospital births, at least in terms of maternal and child outcomes (selection effects and other things obviously play a role here). Hospital births aren't inherently more dangerous than a home birth with a midwife.

Would it kill you to not try to spin your way out of a false claim? They aren't suing her out of spite because she didn't abort.

Hospital births aren't inherently more dangerous than a home birth with a midwife.

Indeed they are not, but nitpicking aside – they're less dangerous in the case of births for which we have a high prior about medical complications. If I were a parent-to-be, I'd be quite paranoid about breathing difficulties. Babies are sort of built to recover from oxygen deprivation, but there's a limit to that.

Would it kill you to not try to spin your way out of a false claim? They aren't suing her out of spite because she didn't abort.

No I agree with you, it was a false claim on my part.

EDIT: Specifically, the news article I linked presented it that way and I accepted the idea uncritically, which was an error on my part, and I'm sorry about that.

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