Posted on 03/13/2018 6:10:50 AM PDT by Heartlander
Writing in the Washington Post, Ruth Marcus has boldly declared that if she were pregnant and discovered her baby had Down syndrome, that child would never see the light of day. From her column:
Down syndrome is life-altering for the entire family. I’m going to be blunt here: That was not the child I wanted. That was not the choice I would have made. You can call me selfish, or worse, but I am in good company. The evidence is clear that most women confronted with the same unhappy alternative would make the same decision.
No question. Ninety percent of Down babies are aborted, while Iceland brags it has a zero Down birthrate.
But this isn’t happening in a vacuum. Parents of gestating babies diagnosed with Down are pushed toward that decision by societal pressure, genetic counselors, and a disdain in our culture for limitations.
Marcus says she supports women who have the depth of love — my term — to bear a baby with Down. Bully for her. But many don’t. Remember the vituperation directed at Sarah Palin because she bore Trig? It was truly pernicious.
The ubiquitous aborting of Down babies brings up other eugenics issues. With genetic and other testing becoming increasingly sophisticated — and our understanding of how gene expression more precise — we are close the point where abortion may soon be deployed to eradicate babies that look to be autistic or experience some other “unwanted” characteristic.
This will certainly include aesthetics. Babies that are the “wrong” sex are already being aborted, and soon, perhaps abortion will be available to destroy children that will have a propensity for obesity, a likely skin color or other unwanted racial characteristic, perhaps even, if the later adult would be threatened with early onset cancer or Alzheimer’s.
Marcus sees the eugenics danger with which we are presented — and doesn’t care:
Technological advances in prenatal testing pose difficult moral choices about what, if any, genetic anomaly or defect justifies an abortion. Nearsightedness? Being short? There are creepy, eugenic aspects of the new technology that call for vigorous public debate. But in the end, the Constitution mandates — and a proper understanding of the rights of the individual against those of the state underscores — that these excruciating choices be left to individual women, not to government officials who believe they know best.
At the time of Roe, abortion was advocated for that rare circumstance to protect women in crisis pregnancies such as when they were raped, victims of incest, facing serious health consequences, or in very precarious life circumstances.
It very quickly became much more than that, of course. Now, termination is being fashioned into a tool of the new eugenics, under which we not only have the right to have a baby — regardless of our life circumstance and the type of assistance required (“gestational carriers”) to obtain our entitlement — but also a right to the baby we want.
We are witnessing what can only be described as a corrosion of unconditional parental love. There will be consequences.
From personal experience. SHE HASN’t ever been around a Downs Syndrome kid. I have TWO in the family, and we all say, EVERY FAMILY NEEDS AT LEAST ONE DOWNS SYNDROME CHILD. Yep, it does have an impact, and Yep, the impact is positive. She is DEAD wrong. Sorry.
Down Children were sent to teach us tenderness, their systenatic liquidation makes us even more brutal. A family with teenagers and young adults were having a pitch verbal battle. At a pause, their Down child went around to each family member and kissed them
Yes, Down kids are totally loving as far as I can tell. If they are not treated well they may not be. They are human, after all is said and done.
Many years ago I worked with a couple expecting their first baby.
When told it may have Downs Syndrome the father wanted to abort but the mother refused.
The baby girl was born perfect.
Imagine how the father must feel every time he looks at his daughter.
Imagine the strain on the marriage.
Imagine God’s Grace.
Medical professionals usually smile when discussing their Downs patients. The ones I know, love them.
One baby.
One middle-aged man sitting with his elderly mother.
Another middle-aged man with his elderly mother.
And a young married couple.
The baby is in a family of four older siblings.
The two middle-aged men are their widowed mother's best company.
And the young married couple I have followed for more than ten years. Their parents are very attentive and supported their natural desire to have a spouse.
We do have room for everyone God gives us.
Many years ago, my sister in law was told that one of or both of her unborn twins was likely to have DS or some other abnormality. She was offered an amnio along with the caution that it might cause a miscarriage. Her response was to refuse the amnio because there is no way she would abort, even if the test were positive for both. She was adamant about that and her husband felt the same. She said, at the time, that she would like to have known just so she could research and prepare if it were positive, but it was not worth the risk. Her sons were born at 38 weeks and neither had abnormalities.
Oddly, she is a liberal and a feminist. In that one narrow category, at least, she rises above both.
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