You're looking in the wrong place: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/450509/down-syndrome-i...

They're (NR) welcome having Down syndrome children if the desire. Most people would rather not, I assume.

However I suspect even they don't want to do it oneself, rather view it as a kind of community work awarded by lottery. They would like "somebody out there" having Down syndrome child so they can feel good about themself as not-eugenics-supporters.

If you're only in favor of eugenics when it's convenient - well, then you're in favor of eugenics.

Actually you can't mark Down syndrome elimination as eugenics, because Down syndrome sufferers are infertile (I guess) and thus unable to contribute in "-genics" either way.

I would say, Down syndrome elimination is anti-eugenics, because people with genetic predisposition for Down syndrome will provide more non-Down offspring.

Anyway, I've never seen any discussion about eugenics, except "the Bogeyman did it!" Eugenics aversion is something forced on the society from above.

Don't try to make your ignorance my problem. Go do some research. There's plenty of discussion out there, I promise.

Edit: I'm just going to leave you this because of your bogeyman comment. This is my hometown around the time my father was born. It's not about bogeymen. https://www.uvm.edu/~lkaelber/eugenics/NH/NH.html You're in your own for the rest though.

I've never saw anybody asking for my opinion on eugenics. So there's probably just a lot of echo-chamber monologues.

Incredible. How can they spin prenatal screening for Down syndrome as a bad thing? It's a severe disorder with literally no benefits and we're absolutely better off taking steps to eliminate it.

It's being reported as though a cure for Down Syndrome has been found, however the step taken to "eliminate" it is abortion. That may be of no consequence to the world view of the average SV engineer, but that explains how it is being "spun" as a bad thing by many.

Yes, I read the article. I also don't live in Silicon Valley.

I don't think it's "being reported as though a cure for Down syndrome has been found". That's the spin the National Review article puts on it. Here are the first two paragraphs of the quoted CBS article:

> With the rise of prenatal screening tests across Europe and the United States, the number of babies born with Down syndrome has significantly decreased, but few countries have come as close to eradicating Down syndrome births as Iceland.

> Since prenatal screening tests were introduced in Iceland in the early 2000s, the vast majority of women -- close to 100 percent -- who received a positive test for Down syndrome terminated their pregnancy.

It's pretty clear that they're not talking about a cure. How is this a bad thing at all? How is this "eugenics"? Down syndrome is a serious, debilitating genetic disorder with no benefits in any sense. Why do we want it to exist? I'm not really seeing an argument against this besides the usual pro-life positions.

What other argument against it would their be besides the usual pro-life ones?

I don't know who would be against some kind of treatment to disable or delete the extra chromosome.

People with Down syndrome have high life satisfaction.

That's the problem with humans where life satisfaction seems to be inversely correlated with IQ.

I believe it tends to either be constant or slightly positive, actually. Of course, if all you want is happy people, happiness is heritable and so you can do embryo selection on it or genetically correlated traits like personality factors (for Extraversion & against Neuroticism: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/twin-research-and-hu... )

Could you elaborate on the iq happiness correlation? Possible mechanisms, data, ways to test it, etc?

They have the choice of trying to pay potential Down syndrome sufferers' mothers and then adopting their children. I guess with a few billion dollars you could drop the abortion rate of Down syndrome embryos in Iceland in sub-50% area.

They could solve the problem with money. They don't, instead they're trying to solve it with spin. Which will also won't work but at least some journalists get to feel self-righteous.

Funny, all the coverage of the Iceland thing I've come across has been negative.