Posted on 08/21/2017 7:34:34 AM PDT by Salvation
Most of you have probably heard or read the reports trumpeting the “eradication” of Down syndrome in Iceland). The problem is that what is being termed “eradicating” the “problem” actually means that those with Down syndrome are being put to death. The celebratory language is all too similar to the way we once spoke of wiping out malaria by killing infected mosquitoes. But of course children in the womb are not mosquitoes; they are human beings, love and willed by God. Imagine saying that we had eradicated malaria by killing every person who had it!
A low point in the article linked above comes at the end, when a proponent of aborting babies who likely have Down syndrome is quoted as saying,
“We don’t look at abortion as a murder. We look at it as a thing that we ended. We ended a possible life that may have had a huge complication … preventing suffering for the child and for the family. And I think that is more right than seeing it as a murder—that’s so black and white. Life is gray.”
Well, pardon me for considering murder to be so black and white! One minute a heart is beating heart, the next minute it’s not. The “thing” that you ended is a human life. Calling such a child a “possible life” is scientifically dishonest. A beating heart does not exist in something that is possibly alive; he or she is alive. No linguistic gymnastics can legitimately describe the situation otherwise.
Further, “preventing suffering” by killing the patient is an illustration of the twisted logic of the culture of death. Death is the increasing being proposed as the solution to today’s problems. If you—or more perniciously, “we”—decide that your life is not worth living, we will kill you and call ourselves compassionate for doing so.
The greatest tragedy in all of this is that we veto the gift of God. Some of God’s gifts come in paradoxical packages; those with disabilities and special needs have much to teach us and many ways to bless us. Without them we may never reach our full humanity, which is meant to include compassion, humility, reverence, and respect. Not one of us is perfect. All of us have difficulties that require support from others. When we forget or reject this we lose an important aspect of our humanity: interdependence.
Iceland is not alone in this; much of the rest of the world has also refused to accept the disabled into our communities.
Here in the United States, this is perhaps most sadly evidenced by the fact that more than 90% of unborn children with poor prenatal diagnoses are aborted. Perhaps the parents are informed that their child will have Down syndrome or a birth defect that will lead to a lifetime of challenges and an early death.
The pressure placed on such families to abort is often enormous. They are told, “It’s the right thing to do,” or, “You shouldn’t make your child suffer.” Some are even made to feel that they are doing something unethical by bringing forth such children. In addition, parents are often pressured to make a decision quickly; doctors may want the decision to terminate made within a matter of days.
Is there such a thing as a life not worth living? Many in our culture seem to believe that there is. A “therapy” increasingly proposed in today’s culture of death is killing the patient in order to solve the “problem.” People, it would seem, do not have problems, they are the problem, and thus their elimination makes the problem go away. Never mind that a human person of inestimable value is actually killed … Problem solved! Thus has arisen idea that an appropriate “treatment” for disabled unborn children is to kill them. Of course death is neither a treatment nor a therapy; it cannot be considered an acceptable solution for the one who loses his or her life. Yet this is often the advice given to parents faced with this situation.
All of this “advice” and pressure goes a long way toward explaining the dismal abortion rates of the potentially disabled unborn. We in the Church cannot remain silent in the face of this; we must reach out compassionately to families experiencing such a crisis. Many of them are devastated by the news that their baby may have serious disabilities. Often they descend into shock and are overwhelmed by fear, conflicting emotions, and even anger toward God or others. Sometimes the greatest gifts we can give them are time, information, and the framework of faith. Simply considering some of the following may help:
What about those who aborted their babies? We as a Church cannot avoid our responsibility to declare the dignity and worth of the disabled. More than ever, our world needs the Church’s testimony, for this 90% statistic is a startling one. But even as we witness to the dignity of the disabled and to the wrongness of abortion, we must also embrace those who chose abortion and now struggle with having made that decision. We are called to reconcile and to bring healing to all who have faced this crisis and fallen. Many were pressured and felt alone and afraid. We offer this embrace through confession and through healing ministries like Project Rachel, which offers counseling, spiritual direction, support groups, and prayer services. Even as the Church speaks out against abortion, she must also reconcile those who have fallen under the weight of these heavy issues.
Tomorrow I will write a little bit more on this topic and present a parable of sorts.
Here are some resources for more information:
National Catholic Partnership on Disability
Project Rachel (Post-abortion healing)
Be Not Afraid (Outreach to parents who have received a difficult prenatal diagnosis)
Parental Partners for Life (Support information and encouragement for carrying to term after receiving an adverse prenatal diagnosis as well as support for raising a child with special needs)
If only you could abort until age 9. They could eradicate autism, ADHD, lefthandedness, and speech impediments.
Gd weeps.
God bless you and your beautiful family!
Yes! That’ s what the Nazis did in their great putsch to eradicate “lives devoid of value.”
Downs Syndrome isn’t a disease that is happens because the mother or father is a “carrier” of it. It happens at conception, when something goes awry genetically and the chromosomes get screwed up.
Down Syndrome is one of the few aneuploidies in a gamete (not an embryo, but in the egg or more rarely the sperm) that is lucky enough to mostly result in life. An aneuploid egg does not have the chromosomes correct so will not result in a baby at all, 95% of the time. Down Syndrome does allow life, though some born with it do have a much shorter lifespan. There can be heart defects and other serious problems.
So Down doesn’t happen at conception. The egg used to create that person was already “bad.” This is the reason older women have a higher rate of Down Syndrome kids. As we age, egg quality diminishes in the eggs in our body. They were all made when the woman herself was in uterus and they have a shelf life.
When the woman is older, late 30s, half or more of her eggs might be aneuploid. Most of the time these bad eggs will either not make an embryo or will make one but it won’t divide properly and will die within 12 weeks. The most common kind of early miscarriage.
I get what you’re saying.
I am unalterably opposed to the reproductive technologies which achieve fertilization outside of the body, and /or which initiate pregnancy by any means other than intercourse.
*Especially* in pursuit of a superior human “product”.
I get what you’re saying.
I am unalterably opposed to the reproductive technologies which achieve fertilization outside of the body, and /or which initiate pregnancy by any means other than intercourse.
*Especially* in pursuit of a superior human “product”.
Wow! Impressive post. Thanks for this.
I have two Down Syndrome grandchildren. One born naturally to my son and daughter in law, and the other one they adopted.
They are both so happy and loving.
You’re welcome. I think a lot of people don’t realize what a miracle each baby actually is!
Yes, people definitely don’t realize what a miracle each baby is. Your own knowledge of biology is very impressive. I am going to research what you posted about. Although I do not have a medical background, I do read a great deal about genetics and never had come across that term you used regarding ova and sperm that are damaged.
It’s fairly recent, to be able to test gametes and embryos for genetic (chromosomal) competence. In third party reproduction, especially when a couple has had a lot of losses, they can have their in lab joined embryos fully tested and only put back the euploid (good chromosomes) ones back. Some ethics there as the non euploid would be most likely destroyed.
The shock from some of the researching doctors was to find that even their proven egg donors under the age of 25 had less than 50% good eggs left. There is a crisis with human soft tissue right now. We are more delicate than we think, in terms of brain function and reproductive. We knew with frogs and such that even a little pollution in their lake would cause endocrine issues, reproductive issues. Well, it isn’t just frogs. We are a little sloppy with various neurotoxins and plastics. Most teen girls have bisphenol A in their (unused) uteruses. It may be no wonder we have so many children born with gender and sexuality issues. To say nothing of ADHD, autism, etc.
And our first plastics generation, the folks who are around 80 or so today, have the highest rate of Alzheimer’s ever. Something to think about.
I am skeptical about the toxins/environmental stuff as being the cause of all the things you mentioned. People used to marry at a much younger age, have many more children, and lose more children. Also, there was much less analysis of different types of children, who were spread all over the country in cities and towns. So, we'll never know what types of eggs women at age 25 used to have, and such women probably had four or five kids by then any way. I think the seeming explosion of gender issues is that a spectrum of personality types used to be tolerated, but now the paradox of the supposed tolerance of homosexuality is that, especially with regard to boys, all but the most masculine boys are badgered into exploring the possibility that they are “gay”. Also, gay men have been emboldened to prey upon late teenage boys, and once boys have homosexual experiences, they are really screwed up. In addition, if sexuality is a spectrum, men with mild homosexual tendencies used to be able to suppress them and find fulfillment in marriage (to women) and family. Now, they are urged to “come out”. (On the other hand, I don't think there has been a big surge in lesbianism over the last century.)
In any case, even it turns out that plastics and Diet Soda are bad for you, trying to purge your life of anything but black-and-white poisons is a waste of time because the trade-offs safety-wise would be too great. My sister and her family have a second house in what I consider to be “the country” in Virginia. When they are at their country house, they are less exposed to most of what would be deemed environmentally unsafe than when they live in the suburbs of DC. So, if they lived at their country-house 100% of the time, they'd be “safer” in many ways. Well, one weekend in the country, my sister, who weighs about 150 pounds, was bitten by a poisonous snake, which would never be found on the suburbs of DC. They called 911 and it took 45 minutes for the ambulance to get there and a half an hour for the ambulance to get her to a hospital. My sister was given the anti-venom and survived. However, if one for children had been bitten, the child would have died because her kids weigh so much less and body weight determines how long someone survives after being bitten by a snake.
The above is just a long-winded way of saying that there's no point in trying to unwind what modern life has done to all of us. For every negative, there has been a positive. (However, I do not believe we should be creating and destroying human life in the lab...it's just morally wrong.)
I think we disagree on the etiology of homosexuality, but that’s ok.
Re third party reproduction, while I recognize that some people do not respect an embryo’s right to be given a chance at life, I do. My daughter was once an unwanted embryo in a freezer. We “adopted” (not the perfect term) her and I carried her and gave birth to her. What a beautiful way to add to our family without any moment of rejection or changing parents for her. We are her only parents.
When it comes to extinction, I just have on thing to tell them - you enviro nuts go first!
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