undefined | Better HN

0 pointsdogma11385y ago0 comments

This isn’t new, either nature took care of things in the past or people did...

We’ve essentially only had a few decades when it was not possible to identify these conditions in the womb and society was able and willing to support these individuals and allow them to live on.

Realistically in the past these children would’ve been killed by their parents either directly or through abandonment and those who weren’t often didn’t survive through adulthood especially once their parents have passed.

0 comments

2 comments · 1 top-level

xupybd5y ago· 1 in thread

Yes some Greek societies left the weak babies to die from exposure others put their children on the alter in the hopes of better crop yields. Because it has been done in the past doesn't justify it now.

dogma1138OP5y ago

You don’t need to go that far throughout history, children with severe mental or physical disabilities didn’t live long even half a century ago even in most developed nations they would be abandoned and for those that weren’t society didn’t had the facilities to support them.

Down and autism today seems so much more common simply because these individuals get the chance to live to and through adulthood.

These conditions don’t only affect people’s mental abilities they have a plethora of other health issues too.

75% of people with Down syndrome that die die from respiratory and cardiovascular illnesses as they suffer from immune system issues and frequent inflammation, with the current pandemic a lot of them have died because if they do get infected they are severely affected.

https://err.ersjournals.com/content/26/143/160098

Before modern medicine and the flu jab many of them wouldn’t survive a harsh flu season...

Heck before we knew what Down syndrome was most of them probably perished as infants from infections that healthy individuals would just shrug off.

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse