Culture Downs syndrome man speaks out against Planned Parenthood's final solution - The first holocaust to have actually happened?

http://www.dailywire.com/news/22846...m_content=062316-news&utm_campaign=benshapiro

On Wednesday, Frank Stephens, who has Down syndrome and also has had a successful career as an actor, gave a powerfully moving and poignant speechbefore Congress as he combated those who would abort fetuses diagnosed with Down syndrome, telling a congressional committee that proponents of aborting fetuses with Down syndrome are pushing a “final solution” and asserting that his life is "worth living."

He plaintively asked, "Seriously, I don't feel I should have to justify my existence. Is there really no place for us in the world? Surely happiness is worth something.”

Stephens referred to a recent report stating that almost 100% of unborn babies with Down syndrome are aborted in Iceland, and mentioned high termination rates in Denmark and South Korea.

Appearing before the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, Stephens stated:

Whatever you learn today, please remember this: I am a man with Down syndrome and my life is worth living. … Some people say prenatal screens will identify Down syndrome in the womb, and those pregnancies will just be terminated. It’s hard for me to sit here and say those words. I completely understand that the people pushing this particular “final solution” are saying that people like me should not exist. … But to those who question the value of people with Down syndrome, I would make three points: First, we are a medical gift to society, a blueprint for medical research into cancer, Alzheimer’s, and immune system disorders.

On a deeply personal note, I cannot tell you how much it means to me that my extra chromosome might lead to the answer to Alzheimer’s. It’s likely that one day this thief will steal my memories, my very life from me. This is very hard for me to say, but it has already begun to steal my mom from me.

Please, think about all those people you love the way I love my mom. Help us make this difference, if not for me and my mom, then for you and the ones you love. Fund this research. Let’s be America, not Iceland or Denmark. Let’s pursue answers, not final solutions. Let’s be America. Let’s make our goal to be Alzheimer’s free, not Down syndrome free.

 

[Diesel Boogaloo]

I'd rather have a kid that really can't look after themselves then a whiny faggot kid that literally refuses to make a contribution to society.

Because in the former case, the society looks at you with sympathy, and in the latter, they see you as a failure as a parent.

 

[Ineedahero]

What? That speech doesn't make three points it makes the first point and then just drifts off. What is this guy, retarded?

 

[Taily Puff]

Aborting Downies? What about aborting autstics?

Abort them both.

Having kids is exhausting, there's enough people running around that we don't need to waste resources on genetic garbage.

I'm usually against abortion for non emergencies in general but I support aborting autistics up until the 85th trimester.

 

[Lunatic Fringe]

Wasn't there a campaign from somewhere that had kids with Downs holding up signs saying "please don't abort me"?

It's a spectrum disorder. There are people with the condition who can have jobs and live fairly independently but you can also get someone who has a severe disability. There is no way to tell how severe it is before birth.

 

[Alec Benson Leary]

The people who vilify parents that get tired of having their lives ruined by having to care for adult babies until they die with no help or relief are also always the people who never have to make that sacrifice themselves.

 

[Jerry_ smith56]

Aborting Downies? What about aborting autstics?
I'd rather have a kid that really can't look after themselves then a whiny faggot kid that literally refuses to make a contribution to society.

You know some autistic people can actually develop into independent adults.

 

[heathercho]

Stephens referred to a recent report stating that almost 100% of unborn babies with Down syndrome are aborted in Iceland, and mentioned high termination rates in Denmark and South Korea.

Good. Besides, Asian downies are really weird looking.

Nah, Downies are ok. It's the autists that should die.

 

[Alec Benson Leary]

You know some autistic people can actually develop into independent adults.

But a lot more of them develop into the reason this forum exists.

 

[Incredible Crisis]

I think that genetic screening for birth defects will be a net benefit in the long term. Of course, bioethics will teach you that this can easily go into eugenics territory, but I think there are enough rational people in prenatal care to prevent that from happening.

 

[Jerry_ smith56]

But a lot more of them develop into the reason this forum exists.

The high functioning autistics that become lolcows end up that way because of the way they were realised coupled with autism. Most high functioning autistics do end up as independent adults. If you want to continue this debate after this message then take it into pm, I don't want to derail this thread.

 

[AnOminous]

Sorry, tough shit. We shouldn't abort Downies, though. We should screen them out before they even get implanted into the uterus and ensure there are no Down's pregnancies in the first place.

I have nothing against the existing people, but there is absolutely no benefit to humanity from trisomy whatsoever.

If possible, instead of just aborting Downies, though, we should edit the trisomy out and leave the intact genome of what that person would have been without what is undeniably a completely negative trait.

 

[RG 448]

Wonder how long it’ll take the regressive left to attack him as an oppressor of women’s rights.

 

[AnOminous]

Wonder how long it’ll take the regressive left to attack him as an oppressor of women’s rights.

Well, he is.

Plus he's retarded.

 

[Alec Benson Leary]

If possible, instead of just aborting Downies, though, we should edit the trisomy out and leave the intact genome of what that person would have been without what is undeniably a completely negative trait.

How dare you try to marginalize downie culture, don't you know all cultures are equally valid?

 

[IV 445]

“Designer babies” when?

 

[AnOminous]

“Designer babies” when?

It's time to make Gattaca a reality.

 

[Taily Puff]

The people who vilify parents that get tired of having their lives ruined by having to care for adult babies until they die with no help or relief are also always the people who never have to make that sacrifice themselves.

This is almost universally true. People can be very high minded when their optimistic expectations of reality don't affect them personally. The most pro-immigration people live in neighborhoods that an immigrant would be stopped and questioned by the police for even looking at from the outside. Dangerhairs who buy into listen and believe philosophy would never be having sex in the first place, let alone getting falsely accused of The Bad Touch. And people who universally oppose abortions frequently have testicles and/or perfectly healthy children.

I think that genetic screening for birth defects will be a net benefit in the long term. Of course, bioethics will teach you that this can easily go into eugenics territory, but I think there are enough rational people in prenatal care to prevent that from happening.

Eugenics is a good thing. That's not ironic nazi themed shitposting for kicks, it's just an unpleasant truth. The fact that it was initially popularized by a group of very bad people doesn't change the fact that it's just a tool like any other. Guns, the internet, cars, medication, hacksaws... They're all tools that can be used incorrectly to devastating effect, but which have practical purposes which validate their existance and careful application, and eugenics is the same.

Regardless of how we feel about each other's religions, philophies, economic theories and what have you, our only long term option for survival as a species is the find a way off this rock and start strip mining space for resources and colonizing environments comparable to those here on Earth. We have to start putting aside our differences and working in that direction at some point. It's not necessarily a "this week" kind of problem, but on a geological scale we are rapidly running out of time. The more of us there are, the more resources we need, and being stuck on one planet is going to choke us eventually.
It doesn't matter if the universe is secretly teeming with alien lifeforms, or if we really are completely alone and a special time that chaos gave birth to sentience. Either way, we're going to need to be the best and brightest version of ourselves that we can possibly be if we're going to set out into the universe at large. And that's going to mean correcting genetic mistakes one way or another. Editing out massive defects, promoting intelligence and health, screening for long term in-viability of an embryo. It just needs to be done sooner or later.

There will always be people who prefer a natural lifestyle and want to leave life to chance, and that's fine. Just don't come sobbing to the rest of us when you have a kid that can do nothing but screech in confusion and try to claw it's own face off. And there's nothing wrong with existing people with defects as AnOminous said, they're totally justified in trying to find their own place in the world and can be good happy people. But we should really try to clean up our genetic landscape whenever possible, even if it's only by continuing to pick high quality mates and aborting fetuses that will have no quality of life.
The Hartley Hooligans come to mind. Somewhere in the world, some little african boy or middle eastern girl is starving to death despite being functionally intelligent enough to cure cancer if they had access to the right resources (or, and let's just be brutally honest here, some lower class white kid with perfect grades getting passed over for education because they don't have a diverse enough skin tone). No matter how heartless it sounds, there's no reason to be pumping calories and effort into a vegetable when there are sentient people suffering for no reason. I'm sure it's hard to accept that you failed your child in such a profound and unpreventable way, but it's still the truth. Genetic errors should be prevented whenever they can be.

Just cause Hitler did it first doesn't automatically make it incorrect, he was just a dick about it.

 

[Dysnomia]

Sorry, tough shit. We shouldn't abort Downies, though. We should screen them out before they even get implanted into the uterus and ensure there are no Down's pregnancies in the first place.

I have nothing against the existing people, but there is absolutely no benefit to humanity from trisomy whatsoever.

If possible, instead of just aborting Downies, though, we should edit the trisomy out and leave the intact genome of what that person would have been without what is undeniably a completely negative trait.

Well someday that may become possible. And I hope by then screeching lefty types have long since stopped trying to dictate what others do with their lives. Not gonna hold my breath on that.

But abortion is a personal decision and it's rather selfish to tell a woman not to get an abortion just because you yourself are perfectly happy with your own disability or the disability of your child.

Many people just can't handle it and the costs involved. There's no way to know how severe the effects may be. Maybe in the future we can tell prenatally. But you can't look at a fetus and say "he'll be able to dress himself, get a job and live independently" instead of "he'll be a drooling potato that can't even feed himself". Some people would just rather not have to deal with the risk for a variety of reasons whether they be emotional, financial ect... And it's not fair to put them into a position where they are made to feel guilty just because they are able to recognise the absolute limit of what they can handle.

If I had a defective fetus with something like Downs, anencephaly, cyclopia, microcephaly or the variation that produced the Hartley gremlins I would abort. And I support anyone who does. I have no problem with screening out severe birth defects. Because while some advocates may say it's ableist to do so it's also selfish to insist that someone carries to term a child that may be a lifetime burden to them and will never be able to live a normal life. There will still be downies in the world though. Because you have plenty of people who would never abort or can't because their country doesn't allow it or they lack the resources of the developed world.

As long as such screening doesn't turn into crazy eugenics dystopia where we abort a fetus for having a missing limb or a cleft palate or something minor like that I don't see a problem. Because once you go that far you set the stage for people obsessively looking for perfection. And anyone born with even a minor imperfection may become an outcast or ridiculed because they were born missing some fingers, blind, deaf ect... That's just way too far.

 

[Taily Puff]

It's time to make Gattaca a reality.

I absolutely loved Gattaca as a kid and it's a great story of the triumph of human spirit over adversity.

I rewatched it a few years ago though and at the end I was like "His heart's going to fail in space and his team is going to be left without a navigator in a totally preventable tragedy that results in their horrifying deaths. Someone really should have caught that guy before sending him into space."