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Great article. I loved the bit about not wanting a child with a peanut allergy.

I remember after going through my horrific "genetic counseling" while pregnant I kept thinking, if there's such a high percentage of "old" moms (i.e. over 35) having Downs Syndrome is roughly 110%. I wondered to myself, "if so, where are all the Down kids?" Then I thought to myself, oh, that's right, they've been aborted.

While I have never ‘worked with’ a Down Syndrome individual - child or adult - I worked within a mental health center where there was a day program for training people - many with Down - for jobs they would be able to handle in the work force.

These people were happy, never miss an opportunity to chat with everyone - and were thrilled to be learning an occupation which would bring in some extra cash and self-esteem.

We in the ‘normal’ world could learn much from their gratitude over life itself and they put us to shame with their simple acceptance which they rarely view as a handicap but rather a special place in society.

I often took my coffee breaks in their center to see the jobs they were learning, the work they were producing and
was amazed at the skill level they insisted upon before feeling they were ‘up to it’. I always came away from time with them feeling uplifted.

The Palins will soon know their good fortune.

In his book Genetic Entropy by Cornell biologist Dr. John Sanford, Sanford reveals how every human being has hundreds (conservatively), perhaps thousands of mutations compared to their parental DNA. In other words, the idea that a few people sometimes have an unfortunate mutation but that the rest of us are 'normal' has been completely blown away.

We are all carrying a large load of degenerative genetic defects of varying degrees of severity and expression. Many are recessive, or trivial in their effects, but the bottom line is we are all debilitated compared to optimal genes/phenotypes. And the problem gets worse with every generation (natural selection can't select 'more fit' or 'as fit' individuals because there are _no_ such individuals in each generation, compared to their parents).

So, for example, it is comical for a near-sighted, diabetic Ivy League prof who is due to die in a few years from cancer caused by a genetic flaw, to sit in judgment over an otherwise healthy Down Syndrome child who is much more of a blessing on the world due to their smiles, kindness and gentle ways, and who flat out may be much more genetically healthy on the whole.

We don't have the detailed genetic knowledge to evaluate every person to know just how 'healthy' their genes are on the whole, nor do we have the wisdom to make that judgment, nor (most importantly) has that authority of life and death been delegated to us by God. Those who live by the sword shall die by the sword, and that applies to those who start playing God and making judgments about who they think should live and die.