Its not relevant when your society defines abortion before 3 month okay, which plenty do and i agree with.

If we would see it different, than it would be murder.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25140048

Once we are talking about counterfactuals, that is things like "would haves" about people who don't exist but could have, it opens the door to considering other people who don't exist but could have.

Under the assumption that a family who proceeds with the Downs foetus to birth has fewer children afterwards, ought we not to consider the later children who might not exist as part of this moral equation too?

What if a family who proceeds with the Downs foetus to birth is likely to have multiple fewer children after than they would have had?

Some people born with disabilities might disagree - and have every right to disagree - and see the action of abortion as a judgement against their own existence. But in doing so, are they not identifying themselves more with the counterfactual Downs foetus than with the counterfactual non-Downs foetus?

If so, does that not suggest people who think that way identify themselves with the disability to some degree ("In that world I would have been aborted"), rather than identifying themselves as people independent of a physical characteristic ("In that world I would have been guaranteed my body would not have this disability")?

There is no shortage of suffering, we don't need to choose to create more.

> Next to the federal government, Catholic Charities is the largest US social-safety-net provider.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Charities_USA

Getting thrown under the bus by the crowd who wrote it is a sure sign of sainthood.

(2) The human institution of the Church, especially where wealthy, is highly corrupt and I say that as a devout Catholic who believes Christ established the Catholic Church as His church (tldr the human & divine Church are separate things).

(3) One of the likely reasons that Benedict abdicated was that he did not want to be "taken advantage of" as he saw various Vatican higher-ups do with the aging and frail JPII.

(4) JPII sadly dismissed cases of allegations. One thing to keep in mind though is when he was growing up in Nazi and then Soviet occupied Poland he would see the occupying forces falsely accuse "resistance" figures of abuse in order to hobble their reputation.

(5) While JPII did make mistakes, it is also my belief that many Vatican figures still-living use him as a scapegoat to hide their own errors. They are doing their best to hide any and all investigation and purely say "this is the fault of people who are now dead." They do not want any oversight. For example, why did they choose to finally release the long-awaited report on Cardinal McCarrick, the most prominent US abuser, the week of the presidential election in the US? Aiming to have it buried!

We have to see it as a whole thing and as a whole is negative.

However.

Despite the early life reverence, I feel that as a grown adult I do now see him in a completely different light - as a man put into a certain role which he has played correctly, and ultimately he has protected an institution that sheltered abusers, corruption, wealth and which ultimately is a cancer spreading over Poland right now, destroying the society from within.

Also not everything is about US - look what's happening in Poland with cardinal Dziwisz, the closest confidant of the pope - I always suspected he was a piece of shit after disobeying the direct testament of JP2 and making money off of it, but now it's been confirmed he's much much worse than just profiteering off a dead pope.

The "image" of JPII is a conundrum. On the one hand, he was extremely charismatic and gave many, many people a very real hope and a sense of purpose during a desolate century. However, he was and is not Jesus and the "media Pope" is a problem the Church has been dealing with since. The Pope must travel and must smile, etc etc whereas we know a Pope certainly has his work cut out for him just in the Vatican. The Church has never taught that every image and utterance of the Pope is divinely wrought, but media has twisted us into an odd place. "You wouldn't dare criticize the Pope, would you? Look how holy and beautiful he is!". (By media and "us" I am referring to believing Catholics; obviously secular media has no problem criticizing the Pope). In the US there has been a marked shift since McCarrick in the laity for holding the bishops more accountable, which albeit it is proceeding at a much slower pace than any of us would like. But a dam has broken, thank God.

Regarding the US, I mentioned the American church & McCarrick as an example of still-living Vatican power-players shifting blame and it was not my intention to say such problems are unique to America. Indeed, Dziwisz and other players boil my blood like little else.

The quote seems to imply there is value in the suffering of a disabled child and its parents - suffering for its own sake - which is absolutely horrific.

I think it would be more accurate to say that the quote is asserting that human life has great value _regardless_ of the amount of suffering involved. (Or put another way, the total value of someone's life is not a function of the amount of suffering they experience.) Certainly this is a challenging worldview since naturally everyone wants to avoid suffering (or at least avoid suffering that does not help them achieve some goal). But at the same time it is hard to make the general assertion that people who have suffered greatly would have been better of not existing.

I am reminded of the story about Johannes Steinhoff [1], a German fighter pilot in WWII. Apparently after witnessing another pilot die horribly in a fire, he asked his friend to just kill him quickly if he ever ended up in a similar situation. As it turns out, Johannes was later a victim of a terrible explosion (even his eyelids were burned off). His friend literally drove to the hospital to shoot him and put him out of his misery, but was prevented from doing so by the medical staff. Johannes ended up recovering and went on to become a key player in the post-war German Air Force and the German Military Representative to the NATO Military Committee.

I don't quite know what to think of this story because on one hand I would not wish his ordeal on my worst enemy. But, on the other hand, it is hard to say that anyone would have been "better off" if his friend had killed him. Life is often what we choose to make of it and it is impossible to avoid all suffering. It seems like the best we can do is play the hand that we are dealt and try to regard all things outside of our control with equanimity.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johannes_Steinhoff

I have a daughter with Down's, so I probably know more about it that most.

> You will never surpass the cognitive capacity of a young child

This is just completely untrue.

> you will have impaired vision and hearing

There is certainly a higher incidence of vision and hearing problems in people with Down's, but it's far from guaranteed. Further more, glasses and hearing aids are a thing.

> if you ever manage to speak at all

I'm struggling to take you seriously now - this is utterly absurd.

> You will have a myriad other chronic and painful health problems

There is a higher incidence of some physical and mental illnesses in people with Down's, but again, it's far from guaranteed, and again need not have a large impact. For example, a lot of those born with Down's have a small hole in their heart, but nowadays it's fairly easily rectified. Not sure what "painful" health problems you could be referring to.