The organisation Don't Screen Us Out — which campaigns against programmes designed to facilitate the elimination of unborn children with Down's Syndrome — has launched a petition demanding that the professor's publisher, Penguin Random House, 'end their business relationship with Richard Dawkins and stop publishing his books'.
Currently, the 80-year-old is actively promoting his latest work, Books Do Furnish A Life (actually nothing more than a collection of old essays).
In an interview with the broadcaster Brendan O'Connor of RTE Radio in Ireland, Dawkins attempted to defend how he had responded in 2014 when one of his 2.9 million Twitter followers sent this to him: 'I honestly don't know what I would do if I were pregnant with a kid with Down Syndrome. Real ethical dilemma.'
Dawkins pinged back: 'Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice.'
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