As soon as someone starts ascribing towards a "normal" and using the pronoun "them", warning bells should go berserk.

hankman86 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

No. Down Syndrome leads to an objectively worse outcome for the affected individuals. And their parents, I might add.

We should not let compassion for these people obstruct some basic facts. My only consideration would be the potential risks and side effects that are to be expected for any medical intervention. But if we were expecting a child that was diagnosed with Down Syndrome, I would not hesitate for a second to give this child the chance for a normal life. And us parents the chance for normal parenthood.

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vtbassmatt 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

> Down Syndrome leads to an objectively worse outcome for the affected individuals. And their parents, I might add.

Please cite your sources and show your work.

My child with Down syndrome is a giant pain in my ass, I worry about him constantly, and there are days where I wonder “why me?”

The same is 100% true about my typically-developing daughter.

	▲	freilanzer 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		It sounds like your situation is anecdotal proof.

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smeej 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What is the objective standard? Subjectively, surveys consistently report that those who have DS and their families consider it a better outcome, so I'd like to know more about the details of an objective standard that ignores or overrides the reporting of those closest to the experience.

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jedimastert 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

> And their parents, I might add.

Down syndrome has nothing to do with parent outcomes. Society refusing to actually provide support is the issue here.

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tumnus 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The word "them" has been used for centuries in cases where the writer may want to refer to a subject, or subjects, of no specific gender. I wonder why it's suddenly bothering you.

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jader201 2 days ago | parent [-]

I think the parent’s point was that “them” is referring to a group that is “other than normal”, and that that should raise caution. (Not agreeing or disagreeing, simply trying to infer the meaning.)

	▲	jibal 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		“other than normal” Misquote. The statement was "What's better for them should be the overriding concern and that's to have a normal development".

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lurking_swe 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

genetics doesn’t care about your feelings. If a human has the genetic issue (issue with cell division on a specific chromosome…i forget which one), they’ll typically have severe developmental challenges in childhood. And if unlucky, end up nonverbal.

I’m pretty sure most scientists would consider being able to communicate effectively with your own species, “normal”. Regardless of what animal you are. Just like it’s normal to have 5 fingers as a human. But some humans have more or less. That’s just…life.

No need to be unnecessarily sensationalist. I do agree that using the term “normal” should give someone pause. But warning bells? Depends on context…like everything in life. :)

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balamatom 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Any time someone uses the word "normal", I reach for my wallet, to check if it's still there

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2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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123yawaworht456 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The heresy of heresies was common sense.

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dang 2 days ago | parent [-]

We've banned this account for using HN primarily for ideological battle. Regardless of ideology, that's not allowed here. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

p.s. This isn't a response to this particular comment, but to the account's overall pattern of behavior, which is way over the line.

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123yawaworht456 2 days ago | parent [-]

I'll make another ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

yes, naturally, almost every post I make on my throwaways is something political, in response to existing political comments or submissions, which are evidently allowed.

using throwaways to protect oneself from the terminally online crowd is pretty much a necessity in the current year, unless your values and opinions are firmly in the middle of the Overton window. and even then, there are many opinions that were universally okay 15 years ago can be used against you now. I've seen it happen time and time again.

	▲	dang a day ago \| parent [-]
		> in response to existing political comments or submissions, which are evidently allowed This makes me think that you might not have taken in the essential bit, which is the pattern of an account's behavior. Was that not clear from the above? In case it helps, the issue is that we don't want accounts to use HN primarily for arguing about politics or ideology. That's an important test and has proven to be one of the more reliable ones, in terms of whether an account is using HN as intended or not (https://hn.algolia.com/?sort=byDate&dateRange=all&type=comme...) Separately from that, looking at https://news.ycombinator.com/posts?id=123yawaworht456, I see other reasons to ban such an account—you've routinely been breaking HN's rules in plenty of ways which have nothing to do with your specific opinions. If your motivation is simply to protect yourself, as you say here, then I wonder why that would be.

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TechDebtDevin 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

[flagged]