“have had to grapple with the reality that the right to choose may well be used selectively to abort fetuses deemed genetically undesirable.” Are they completely mad? Surely it’s one of the most upright, proper reasons to have an abortion?

Dudes,

You’ve said you don’t pay that much attention to the political blogosphere, so don’t be offended if I tell you that this has been all the rage there for the last week. I noticed this while scanning the CNS of the left (Atrios), which I read once in a while just to see what they’re buzzing about.

To give two examples, it’s been discussed by Michael Berube (left blogger; father of a Down’s kid) and George Will (right-wing; father of a Down’s kid).

GNXP types are likely to state what you did bluntly and autistically. That just doesn’t happen in the rest of the blogosphere.

IMO, Will says nothing he hasn’t said before a million times: he crudely accuses us of favoring genocide against a group of people who are no different from the rest of us (while admitting that his son has a genetic “defect”). Berube is making a much more sophisticated argument against the limits of individual autonomy. I grant him that—but isn’t the choice to have a Down’s child based upon the autonomy argument? It benefits Berube to have his Down’s child. What does it benefit the rest of society?

People like this are impotent in the face of greater technological firepower. Let them talk all they want. They will buy it when it is sold, whether they lie to themselves about it or not.

Of course, you don’t come out and tell them straight up that they *will* violate various leftist (and rightist) shibboleths. You don’t have to tell them, because they’re just going to do it, in the same way they put their kids into private schools to insulate them from dangerous urban minorities.

In any case, whatever Will & Berube think, the easier testing methods will drastically reduce the amount of Down’s babies born to both younger & older women.

That is, I think it’s funny when feminists end up without kids. The fact that Amanda Marcotte’s line will die out with her is a boon to all humanity, and a silver line to the current dysgenic cloud.

it’s not funny at all. Tough choice, tough choice. A friend of mine was in this situation; fortunately for his genes [though he didn't see it that way at the time], his wife cheated on him and they got a divorce. He ended up with a younger woman and his 2nd kid is on the way. Her? Alone as a 40 year old adjunct at some no-name place.

I don’t know a good solution to this, but we ought to be trying to find one. It can’t be reasonable to have high-functioning women pushed out of having kids, or pushed into having kids at high risk of problems, or pushed into giving up their aspirations for a demanding career so they can have kids. While the biology is not in our control, the other stuff probably is.

There’s an obvious dysgenic effect to having smart, driven women unable to start having kids till very late in the window of safe times to have kids. I wonder if there are other, more subtle, effects.