Richard Dawkins apologises for causing storm with Down's syndrome tweet

[Fortinbras Armstrong]

1. There is a significant difference

Between "If your morality is based, as mine is, on a desire to increase the sum of happiness and reduce suffering, the decision to deliberately give birth to a Down's baby, when you have the choice to abort it early in the pregnancy, might actually be immoral from the point of view of the child's own welfare." (emphasis added) and "Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice."

The first says "might be immoral", the second "would be immoral". The two statements are not equivalent.

And for him to claim that he was misunderstood is simply dishonest. His statement was quite clear -- that he cannot say what he meant is not our fault.