[quote=@mdk] I guess this is the part where I play my disability card... let's play it gently. I mean.... there's an element of eugenics in this, right? That's not the [i]reason[/i] you (or anyone else, probably) might go along with it, not at all -- but that element is totally there, right? I mean someone, someday, would have to go compile a list of acceptable conditions under which a living baby can be legally murdered. ADD babies live, autistic babies get the axe, or whatever. I don't think anybody anywhere wants to even think about that, let alone actually DO it. [/quote] Iceland already provides screening for babies with down syndrome and give women the [b]option[/b] to abort. The majority of them take it. There are numerous other diseases which we already routinely screen for and a woman might opt to abort if it were. If I were carrying a fetus which were projected to have anencephaly of course I would abort. If it is eugenics to try to avoid genetic diseases, then all those gene therapy trials are in trouble. Frankly I hope we are one day able to edit out such genetic defects, although we have a considerable way to go. [quote=@mdk] a list of acceptable conditions under which a living baby can be legally murdered. [/quote] According to the article the Netherlands alreay has such a list: [i]the neonate’s suffering must be unbearable or the fetus must be suffering or be likely to suffer after birth; there must not be a prospect of improvement, and in the case of a late-term abortion, the fetal disorder must be so serious that medical experts believe that medical treatment after birth would be futile; the parents must have been fully informed of the diagnosis and prognosis, and both the physician and the parents must be convinced that no reasonable alternative exists given the situation of the child or the fetus; at least one other, independent physician must have examined the child or fetus and given a written opinion on compliance with the due criteria of the kind listed above; and the termination of life or of the pregnancy must be carried out with all due care. (Euthanasia and Newborn Infants, Government of the Netherlands website (last visited Jan. 13, 2015); 2007 Directions, 2.3(a & c-e) & 4.6.2 (a-b & d-f).)[/i] [quote=@mdk] And what jumps out is, like.... [i]nothing else[/i] works that way. If you take out a loan for a car, and then your social or psychological circumstances change and the car becomes a burden, you still have to pay your car loan. If you go to school and major in lesbian dance theory, and the economic circumstances of society change [i]so drastically[/i] that lesbian dance theorists aren't making money (who could fathom such a dystopian world?), you still have to pay your student loans. But the author (apparently?) thinks that helpless little babies are a whole other story -- you can just whack them against a wall. Like what in the [i]fuck.[/i] [/quote] Ah the old fetus/car loan equivalency. Seriously? How is this even remotely similar? You didn't borrow the fetus from someone...unless ... you DID?! It is a little unclear in the article that he is explicitly saying that a baby should be aborted for what we might think of as conventional economic reasons. He seems to be initially suggesting that a condition might be discovered that would make the care of the baby an impossible financial burden. He later broadens this to include 'non-medically' necessary abortions for economic reasons, but plenty of conditions are cripplingly expensive to the parents without medically necessitating abortion. He does extrapolate that there isn't a clear distinction to be made between a late term abortion and an after birth abortion. Ironically the same distinction gets used in the opposite direction by the pro-womenbeingforcedtocarrybabiestotermregardlessoftheirwishes crowd. I suppose it is something that should be left up to the mothers but I personally would never be comfortable euthanizing a healthy newborn. In a perfect world we could screen for all genetic disease and treat or terminate early. Or genetically edit, that would also be awesome.