Richard Dawkins Doubles Down: “Moral and Sensible Choice” is to Abort Babies With Down Syndrome

life news ^ | Steven Ertelt

[Morgana]

Richards Dawkins is doubling down on his controversial comments yesterday suggesting that parents of babies with Down Syndrome should “abort them and try again.” Today, Dawkins says aborting babies with Down syndrome is the “moral and sensible” choice.

In a newly-released column responding to the firestorm of criticism Dawkins has faced, he doubles down on his claim that special needs babies should become victims of abortion.

Description=Richard Dawkins Photograph: Jeremy Young 05-12-2006Dawkins starts his column complaining about how people on twitter discovered his tweets promoting abortion. Then, he launches into a new defense of his pro-abortion thesis.

“For what it’s worth, my own choice would be to abort the Down fetus and, assuming you want a baby at all, try again. Given a free choice of having an early abortion or deliberately bringing a Down child into the world, I think the moral and sensible choice would be to abort,” he says about what he would tell a parent of a baby diagnosed in the womb with Down syndrome. “And, indeed, that is what the great majority of women, in America and especially in Europe, actually do.” And, again, Dawkins says it would be immoral not to kill such a baby in an abortion.

“I personally would go further and say that, if your morality is based, as mine is, on a desire to increase the sum of happiness and reduce suffering, the decision to deliberately give birth to a Down baby, when you have the choice to abort it early in the pregnancy, might actually be immoral from the point of view of the child’s own welfare,” Dawkins says.

Dawkins then deplores the horrible way in which parents of children with Down syndrome are forced to provide them with a loving home and care and support simple because they have a certain genetic condition. His comments are sure to stoke the fires of condemnation coming from parents and families of people with Down syndrome.

“In any case, you would probably be condemning yourself as a mother (or yourselves as a couple) to a lifetime of caring for an adult with the needs of a child. Your child would probably have a short life expectancy but, if she did outlive you, you would have the worry of who would care for her after you are gone. No wonder most people choose abortion when offered the choice,” he writes.

Dawkins then aplogizes for the tweets, only in the sense that they did not offer his complete thoughts on the matter.

“Of course I regret using abbreviated phraseology which caused so much upset,” he says — ignoring the fact that his longer position paper issued today essentially makes the same arguments for killing babies with Down syndrome.

As LifeNews has reported, charities for children and adults with Down syndrome are incensed by his past comments on Twitter and will be further outraged by these.

[Morgana]

He recants...sort of.

[Da Coyote]

Good, Dawkins, then give me controls of the time machine so that I can go back and visit the Obamadork’s whore mother.

[Quality_Not_Quantity]

if your morality is based, as mine is, on a desire to increase the sum of happiness...

And therein lies the rub.

[The Great RJ]

How quickly we forget that the Nazi also advocated killing the “unfit”.

[dennisw]

Richerd Dawkins has been quite critical of Islam these days so he has some cojones. Previously he took the easy way out, just walking on Chistianity.

IIRC I once read him saying that he had no problem with schools teaching about the history of Christianity and some of the Bible due to it being essential to English history and culture

[BlueNgold]

Had to look this guy up.
Oxford professor.
“Militant atheist”
Self-important arbiter of modern morality.

[shadeaud]

and we admire fools like this ...why?

[cuban leaf]

I saw God’s Not Dead last weekend. Some spotty acting and a bit contrived, but a GREAT story and movie.

[BlueNgold]

Who’s we?
I don’t admire him and cannot understand why he’s even remotely famous...

[nathanbedford]

In March, 2009 I posted a reply asserting that the left hated Sarah Palin because their reaction was involuntary; it was the reflexive action of evil in the presence of good. The flashpoint was Palin's breach of a fundamental progressive commandment on abortion.

Here is a portion of that reply:

"It is the Billy Budd effect. If you recall your Melville, you will know that Billy Budd was a figure of good whose very presence antagonized the first mate who persecuted Billy Budd unmercifully. The mate was driven to do this unconsciously because the mate was a figure of evil. The mate had his demons. So it is with the left in America today, they are driven to a visceral hatred of Sarah Palin because she is the 21st century figure of Billy Budd. Sarah Palin committed an unforgivable affront, she knowingly carried a Mongoloid to term. This cannot be forgiven. This is the ultimate reproach to the entire belief system of the left. Sarah Palin need not even open her mouth and she is hated with a cold and unremitting fury.

This is why I said that the left hates Sarah Palin not for what she says or how she appears on television but for who she is. The left must react as evil always reacts in the presence of good. Like the second mate, they must persecute Sarah Palin and they do not even know why."

[loveliberty2]

Thank you for posting.

By his "doubling down," Dawkins further reveals an empty reservoir of understanding.

A wisdom book from centuries past cautions:

"Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding." - Proverbs 4:7

The love brought into this world, and celebrated in the faces of those Dawkins would exclude from entering it, is a testament to the emptiness of his declarations.

May I suggest that FR readers order one of Ben Haden's long-ago sermons entitled, "Affliction," in which he relates a story about the unexpected birth of a Down's Syndrome baby to a minister and his wife, and how God used the birth of that child, and the people and events surrounding the couple's reaction to that birth to have a positive influence on the lives of many individuals.

Haden's web site address is. Now deceased, Haden was an attorney, newspaper editor, and Presbyterian minister whose "Changed Lives" radio program and internet presence made a powerful difference in the lives of many.

[DemforBush]

So, Dawkins is a Eugenicist. Why am I not surprised?

Go play in traffic, you self-righteous fascist.

[utahagen]

Too bad Dawkins’s mother didn't do us all a favor by aborting Richard.

[rightwingcrazy]

“if your morality is based, as mine is, on a desire to increase the sum of happiness...”

And therein lies his dogma, and thus his religion. Doesn’t bother defining “happiness”, or how you go about determining the “sum” of it, or why we should concern ourselves with it. Why does the universe care whether we’re happy or not? If not, why should we?

[17th Miss Regt]

What he is aching to say is, “The moral and sensible choice is to abort those babies with an abundance of melanin.”

They do it anyway, they just don’t say it.

[bobo1]

These are the people that my mother called “God’s Special People”, and we would be judged by how we treat them.

In the old days, they were called “retarded”.

Today, it is not PC to use such terms and you will be vilified for using such language.

The leftist condemns a person for using the term, but they have no qualms about murdering a baby that fits the definition of the word.

[Ouchthatonehurt]

“if your morality is based, as mine is, on a desire to increase the sum of happiness...”

Whose happiness?
You could, in fact, argue that Downes individuals do make society by and large happier.

[bennowens]

Einstein said: “Happiness is for pigs”.

[Tax-chick]

Go play in traffic, you self-righteous fascist.

That's a brilliant line.