Shane Gillis, the stand-up comedian who’s partly famous for being fired as a cast member from “Saturday Night Live” before he even debuted, was somehow invited back to host the show over the weekend. Of course, that honor allowed him to deliver the iconic monologue.
For Gillis — surrounded by the unfunny scolds who fired him in 2019 in part for making the type of joke that’s always been funny — that meant doing cracks about Down syndrome. His Down syndrome bits are crowd-pleasers, which is probably why they’ve become one of his go-to schticks. He delivered Down jokes at a show in Madison, Wisconsin, last month to uproarious laughter, and clips of his “Uncle Danny” impression have gone viral on social media. They’re hilarious.
They’re also spot-on. Not just because they’re so comedically accurate, but because Gillis conveys — implicitly and explicitly — the undeniable truth abortion supporters attempt to hide when they try to convince themselves and scared moms that children with genetic anomalies are less worthy of life. In Gillis’ words: “Literally, there’s zero difference between us and them.”
And he would know. He’s got at least an uncle and a niece with the diagnosis. His family even opened a coffee shop in his hometown that employs people with Down syndrome, and the line of customers is apparently out the door every day — “not because there’s a ton of people going, but service is—,” Gillis joked good-naturedly.
There’s more:
You can tell who’s never been around Down syndrome when you bring it up. ‘I have family members with Down syndrome.’ People who have never been around it are always like, ‘Oh.’ Like it’s the end of the world. ‘Are they OK?’
They’re doing better than everybody I know. They’re the only ones having a good time pretty consistently. They’re not worried about the election.
… No, my niece has Down syndrome. It’s a funny thing that happens when someone in your family has Down syndrome. My sister was pregnant. Everyone was very, very scared. [Then] they come into your life, you realize they’re the only good member of your entire family. It’s crazy. Your family gets too proud. My family’s group text, it’s pictures of my niece. Every day, somebody else in the family comments, ‘She looks exactly like uncle Shane.’
In a matter of minutes, Gillis deftly put to bed one of the most nefarious lies of the pro-abortion left: that killing preborn babies with Down syndrome is merciful because there’s no way they could ever have a decent quality of life.
No, it isn’t “safe” and “rare.” Sadly, it’s become the norm, even encouraged. Aborting babies because they have imperfections is the definition of eugenics, which I suppose is fitting given that Margaret Sanger, the founder of abortion giant Planned Parenthood, was pretty outspoken about her racist, eugenic views and aspirations of “weeding out the unfit, of preventing the birth of defectives or of those who will become defectives.”
That’s exactly what’s happened in places like Iceland, where abortion advocates celebrate having virtually “eradicat[ed]” Down syndrome through eugenics. Prenatal testing has led many parents in the United States to abort their children too, with the “best estimate” of abortion rates after a Down syndrome diagnosis being about 67 percent, although that data is more than a decade old.
Too many have believed the lie that a Down syndrome diagnosis is synonymous with a life of misery for both mother and child. But it’s just not true.
As Gillis acknowledges, yes, the diagnosis can be scary at first, but that doesn’t have to be the end of the road. Anybody who knows somebody with Down syndrome can confirm that not only are they truly “doing better than everybody” else and the ones “having a good time pretty consistently,” but they add joy and laughter and love to everyone around them.
Like any good comedy, Gillis’s jokes were only funny because they were true.