Richard Dawkins Apologizes For Comments About Abortion, Down Syndrome
Famed British activist Richard Dawkins has apologized for recent comments he made regarding abortion and Down Syndrome on Twitter.
Earlier this week, Dawkins argued that if a fetus is detected as having Down Syndrome while still in the womb, it is ethical to abort the child. Dawkins went so far to say that it would be "immoral" to bring a child with such a mental disability into the world when abortion had been a viable choice.
A day after Dawkins' initial comments, the University of Oxford professor issued an apology on his website. Dawkins directed the apology at the woman he had debating with when string of controversial tweets had begun. Dawkins told the woman that if her child has Down Syndrome in the womb she should "abort it and try again."
"The choice would be entirely yours and I would never dream of trying to impose my views on you or anyone else," Dawkins wrote to the woman on his website. "My phraseology may have been tactlessly vulnerable to misunderstanding, but I can't help feeling that at least half the problem lies in a wanton eagerness to misunderstand."
Dawkins added that he felt "sympathy" for those who took offense to his Twitter comments because they have relatives with Down Syndrome. "Those who took offence because they know and love a person with Down's syndrome, and who thought I was saying that their loved one had no right to exist, I have sympathy for this emotional point, but it is an emotional one not a logical one. It is one of a common family of errors, one that frequently arises in the abortion debate."
