Lawmakers in Ohio fecently took steps to bar abortions when they are sought because a fetus has been diagnosed with Down syndrome, one of more than a dozen abortion restrictions passed in the state in recent years. If the bill is enacted, Ohio would become the latest state to try to stop women from aborting fetuses when they discover through prenatal testing that they have a chromosomal defect. Similar laws have been passed in North Dakota, Indiana and Louisiana, though the latter two have been blocked by the courts.

One observer commented: “If politicians were really concerned with Down syndrome, the things we’d be talking about are access to health care, independent living, opportunities for children when they graduate high school,” she said. “We’d be talking about companies that should be hiring children with Down syndrome.”

Alarm about abortion of fetuses diagnosed with Down syndrome spiked during the summer after a widely viewed CBS News report showed that women in Iceland had all but stopped giving birth to babies with Down syndrome, thanks to mandatory prenatal testing and liberal abortion laws.

What would have been the attitude of Epicurus? – a tricky question. On balance I suggest that the humanistic attitude that the welfare and happiness of the mother (and father, too) would have won out at the expense of the unborn child, whose future and cognition, awareness and possibly? happy life would be in doubt. I have no experience of Down Syndrome children, but understand that they are loving and responsive to the care and attention of parents. However, I still think that it is a life sentence for the parents, and, when they die, and if the child survives, a trial for the survivors who look after the child.