Noted atheist and evolutionary theorist Richard Dawkins stirred up controversy again by saying that it would be immoral for a mother not to abort a fetus if she knew that it had Down syndrome.
The exchange began yesterday morning as Dawkins and some of his Twitter followers were discussing the case of a woman in Ireland who was denied an abortion at 8 weeks and forced by local authorities to undergo a caesarean section 17 weeks later after she threatened to go on a hunger strike.
As that conversation progressed, one of his followers asked him a hypothetical question, which he responded to:
@InYourFaceNYer Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice.
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) August 20, 2014He was quickly attacked by those who know people with Down syndrome who are happy, productive members of society; and then criticized more abstractly by those who claim that he was advocating eugenics. Dawkins returned to Twitter late last night to insist that he was advocating nothing of the sort:
Down syndrome screening is NOT eugenic. Almost always caused by non-hereditary chromosomal abnormality, heavily influenced by maternal age.
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) August 20, 2014Down Syndrome screening is not eugenic: DS has extremely low heritability. Screening offers a humane moral choice. Majority choose abortion.
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) August 21, 2014He then answered critics who claimed he was telling women what to do if their fetus was detected to have Down syndrome:
Woman said she wouldn't know whether to abort. I told her what I would do & why. I OBVIOUSLY wouldn't TELL a woman what to do. Up to her.
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) August 20, 2014Women have a right to early abortion. Choice is theirs. Down Syndrome is 1 of the commonest & most moral reasons to exercise that right.
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) August 21, 2014Dawkins noted that the majority of women in the United Kingdom and United States who are told that their child will have Down Syndrome do, in fact, abort the fetus:
Down Syndrome screening is not eugenic: DS has extremely low heritability. Screening offers a humane moral choice. Majority choose abortion.
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) August 21, 2014In point of fact, a majority of Down Syndrome fetuses in Europe and USA are aborted. What I recommended is not outlandish but the norm.
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) August 20, 2014He also noted that many of those attacking him were doing so emotionally instead of logically:
I do not for one moment apologise for approaching moral philosophic questions in a logical way. There's a place for emotion & this isn't it.
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) August 20, 2014Dawkins was also adamant that he was not imploring an actual woman to abort an actual fetus, merely responding to a hypothetical scenario in a rational way:
A woman whom I know & like said she'd be uncertain what to do if pregnant with Downs. I said what I'd do & why. Happens to be what most do.
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) August 20, 2014He reiterated that his position is "civilised" not because people with Down syndrome are inhuman, but because all fetuses are:
.@AidanMcCourt Yes, it is very civilised. These are fetuses, diagnosed before they have human feelings.
— Richard Dawkins (@RichardDawkins) August 20, 2014Raw Story spoke to Michael Bérubé, the former president of the Modern Language Association whose son Jamie was born with Down syndrome, about Dawkins' comments. "I think the lesson of this episode is obvious," he said. "We need to do much more rigorous prenatal screening for ignorant assholes."
