Now the novelty of the incident has worn off..
Must concur with Mr Dawkins :
My phraseology may have been tactlessly vulnerable to misunderstanding, but I can’t help feeling that at least half the problem lies in a wanton eagerness to misunderstand.
I think reading his statement back :
“Obviously the choice would be yours. 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. And, indeed, that is what the great majority of women, in America and especially in Europe, actually do. 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. I agree that that personal opinion is contentious and needs to be argued further, possibly to be withdrawn. 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. Having said that, the choice would be entirely yours and I would never dream of trying to impose my views on you or anyone else.”
You notice he says "Given a FREE CHOICE"... and "MIGHT actually be imorral"... This isn't difficult, chaps. Nor black and white. 70% of women consistently choose to be screened 92% of those who get a positive for DS choose termination. So what.. THOSE woman are taking a
LESS MORALposition than Mr Dawkins? Where are you drawing the moral line in the sand anyway. Every conception should go full term?? Even if it's a body with a brain stem (so nervous system thus alive) yet no brain and will never experience anything..???
As usual it's the way Dawkins delivers his message that caused offence. It's not logic devoid of human qualities either - on the contrary his rationality is intertwined with ethics. But I'm going to suggest that these little incidents may be
not entirely 1000% accidental. I suspect - although he certainly can be clumsy with phrasing - and certain aspects of sincerity in his apologising - he's not a dick he's a compassionate person who doesn't want to cause hurt.. However there may be a slightly subversive (not in a bad way) element to his approach. "Whooops! I've caused a massive controversy again... but oh look... now there's a discussion raging here,
seeded by my extremely cogent point about these important matters. Oh deary deary me." You've got to consider his understanding of memetic flow to make this logical leap, and I could be wrong. It might be something he's doing subconsciously.
