Dawkins was at it again recently. He claimed that Ireland is civilised in all but one aspect: its abortion laws. He then added that it’s “moral” to abort a baby with Down’s Syndrome.
As Dawkins has greyed, his pronouncements have gotten more off the wall. And I thought wisdom increased with age…
Note that he doesn’t make his argument from the utilitarian perspective that it can be tremendously difficult for a couple to raise a child with Down’s Syndrome – or any intellectual disability.
Instead he argues that it’s a moral imperative to abort such a child, in other words it would be immoral not to do so. Why immoral? This is fascinating. What is he getting at? Would the child’s mere existence be “immoral”? But, if both parents adored the child, and 100% provided for it – lest, as many today more and more openly believe, they use some of the finite resources more valued members of society deserved – what’s his argument? I smell a whiff of brutal utilitarianism of the most brutal and nakedly Darwinian kind after all.
When challenged on Twitter by another user, Dawkins defended his positon:
“Apparently I’m a horrid monster for recommending WHAT ACTUALLY HAPPENS to the great majority of Down Syndrome foetuses. They are aborted.”
The morality of the “great majority” of mankind is not something for which I, personally, strive. Once upon a time, the civilised world felt morally unchallenged by slavery. (And incidentally, Mr Dawkins, its eradication was almost exclusively pursued by Christians.) Recently, many nations’ wholesale liquidation of Jews and gypsies was met with nary a whisper by their publics. Many societies and peoples – particularly non-Judeo-Christian – have seen no need to protect the elderly, infirm or disabled. Mr Dawkins, are you really using the Everybody-Does-It defence?
Further, Dawkins likens Ireland’s lack of abortion freedom with a lack of civilisation. Consider the corollary: we must assume that free-for-all abortion is the epitome of civilisation. For, if Dawkins sees restrictions on the “right” to terminate, to intervene in any part thereof is logically incoherent. It’s either “yes” or “no,” and Ireland’s fudge – that a panel of experts convene – is an uncivilised infringement.
And is it a civilisation that allows for Bill Clinton’s famous dictum, “safe, legal and rare,” to morph into “safe, legal and frequent” – as it always, predictably, irreversibly does? Well, then: he must love his Great Britain, where abortions have morphed into a substitute contraceptive and no doctor who fancies keeping his/her license would dare of opposing the “necessity” of one. “Civilisation,” indeed.
Finally, Dawkins claims to want to avoid suffering – linked to “civilisation,” I assume. But what about the “right” to abort a baby at the commonly-legal 20 weeks stage, when a “foetus” can undeniably feel pain? Or in America, where partial-birth abortions are protected by the Constitution? Indeed, if you anesthetised the baby, you could painlessly “terminate” at 39 weeks, right? Surely he’s not waging a “war on women,” is he?
He should stick to his day job, because moral philosophy puts him in way over his head.