Topic: This forum doesn't have one of these yet??

[Kaiaatzl]

...
I wonder if it might be better to have detection as an optional thing and let the parents decide whether to make use of it.
...

This.  Six-Billion-and-a-half times.  We must drill it into the Danish politicians' heads.

[Crash]

Are you living in Denmark? I'm not sure what the position is in the UK on it, quite frankly.
I mean, it is a parental decision as to whether you even want to find out about it (or at least it should be) and if people do, then ... so be it and they can make any subsequent decisions informedly and without the knowledge having been forced upon them.

I'm not especially for-or-against abortion but I think the rate that it has reached is tantamount to a national scandal (at least in the UK) and I suspect a 'number-of-lives' should probably be introduced because some people see it as part of their lifestyle (like cosmetic surgery or going for a spa treatment almost) and have anything up to 8+ abortions. They don't even seem to recognise that the procedure doesn't just affect their body but ends the life of a human, irrespective of it not being fully completed and aware.
Therefore it might be just as well to cap it at ... 3 procedures, say but then what about all the irresponsible would-be parents after that limit?
I suppose you could say "You get 3 state-funded operations and then ... either you have a preventer implant or ... you pay".

I took a mini-pupillage at a barristers chambers last week and the amount of clearing up after aimless individuals is just unbelievable. Some ruin their lives, expect everyone to pick up after them and then they're not happy with that either (sometimes understandably) so it all gets dragged through the courts with all the expense entailed being picked up by ... Mr John J. taxpayer.
Having said that, there were a lot of extenuating circumstances with these folk ie. mental health, severe problems with their own upbringing but it's also a question of putting the onus on individuals rather than the state and saying "Well, hang on. You take responsibility for your own actions".

[Kaiaatzl]

Nah, I'm Canadian (though I also happen to be an EU citizen because my father was born in the Czech Republic).  But as someone with a disability (not Down's though) I'm pretty strongly against controlling births like this.  After all, I wouldn't want to have been aborted would I?

I don't really much care about abortion either and that's not actually the biggest problem I see.  The point is this:

Down's syndrome is genetic but it's not hereditary -- it's a trisomy of chromosome 21, that can happen to any family, no matter the genes.  It's not like, by controlling it, you'll make it go away for good -- it truly can happen to anyone.  The only answer to this is continuous monitoring of whenever anyone is going to have a child.  It is easy to test for, and spot, a trisomy.  However (and let me say here I have no idea what kind of health-care system Denmark has), there is the issue of poor families, who may not be able to afford the test, or may be able to afford the test but not be able to afford birth control.  Suddenly they're not allowed to have children, because they can't be screened.

[Crash]

Well that is a truly disastrous system from our perspective here as any screening of that kind would have to be a no-cost option (if it were offered at all) and if you, as the parent, decided that you didn't want the child saddled with whatever condition it was, the termination would then also be at no cost.

So the idea of imposing a test, the information provided by which, some people can't afford to act on, is absolutely unbelievable.

Czech Republic was a fun place when I went there a few times. I meant to venture in as far as Prague but I decided against travelling there on my own when they didn't seem to readily speak English or German (from what I could determine from nearer places that I visited). The closest I could manage was Russian and I haven't spoken that in 5 years.
I formed the opinion after some guy tried to steal my much-loved XDA phone in some place I visited when I asked him for directions.
I had met a friend that year called Anna and she would get irritated at my habit of calling the place "Tschechoslowakei" rather than the current "Tschechien" just out of sheer old habit as a native English speaker.

[Scyphi]

Not that this isn't an interesting subject, but we are getting off-topic. 

So excuse me while I attempt to bring things back on subject.



Click on it. I dare you.

[Canceler]

better link

[Kaiaatzl]

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO0OOO0000000OOOOOO

:panting:
Must.... resist.... the... Deja vu....?

Does this seem familiar at all?  Where is my squirrel?

[NUMBERZero]

You mean like Furryism?

Looks like. That happened to Darc and *coughcoughcoughghghfhdhdh*. He described them as being like "the Passive Borg."

But ponies are an OUTRAGE! they will never take me!

[Crash]

The purple one with blue hair is cute. The pink one is ugly.

... Resistance is cute-ile!

[SaladBadger]

They say that those who resist get turned into cupcakes. That actually sounds kind of delicious... actually, nevermind.

but pony fans don't really resemble the borg. they don't go cruising around in gigantic transwarp capable cubes and shoving robotic parts into people to assimilate them into the collective. heh

(also am I the only one put off by the mainly female cast? I'm actually the kind of person who kinda gets put off when a race is mainly (if not entirely) in one gender, because unless something like immortality is mentioned I actually get lost on how the race creates children. (very minor point, I know) Perhaps I'm a biologist at heart but it doesn't seem right that a mammal can reproduce asexually, and the idea of "magically creating replacements" just doesn't work with me)

[Matthew]

(also am I the only one put off by the mainly female cast? I'm actually the kind of person who kinda gets put off when a race is mainly (if not entirely) in one gender, because unless something like immortality is mentioned I actually get lost on how the race creates children. (very minor point, I know) Perhaps I'm a biologist at heart but it doesn't seem right that a mammal can reproduce asexually, and the idea of "magically creating replacements" just doesn't work with me)

Assuming they're not entirely one gender, I'd say someone's busy. 

[Crash]

>>> they don't go cruising around in gigantic transwarp capable cubes and shoving robotic parts into people to assimilate them into the collective. heh
Nope, it sounds like a good night out in Amsterdam though. 

I think once you start applying adult considerations to childrens' television it all goes kinda wrong.

[Kaiaatzl]

(also am I the only one put off by the mainly female cast? I'm actually the kind of person who kinda gets put off when a race is mainly (if not entirely) in one gender, because unless something like immortality is mentioned I actually get lost on how the race creates children. (very minor point, I know) Perhaps I'm a biologist at heart but it doesn't seem right that a mammal can reproduce asexually, and the idea of "magically creating replacements" just doesn't work with me)

Lol Insanity, I take it you haven't heard of these: http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/expeditions/treasure_fossil/Treasures/Unisexual_Whiptail_Lizards/lizards.html?50.  Nature is bizzare.  Entirely-female species do exist (their eggs are pre-fertilized or something like that, I don't remember.

[Scyphi]

also am I the only one put off by the mainly female cast?

No, I've frequently thought to myself that they need more guys in the cast, even if they were just background characters, just to shake things up a bit.

better link

Probably, but a mere link can be more easily overlooked. I purposely picked the pic so it'd be more "in-your-face," y'know?

Would've worked better if I could've just embedded the whole video, but I couldn't find a way to do it that the forum would support, so I had to go for the second best method.

[Crash]

I suppose there could be blokes in disguise as very effeminate ponies.