Then Dr. Colson quoted a statistic that brought tears to my eyes and shook me up for the rest of the evening. He said that in our country an estimated 90% of pre-screened Down Syndrome pregnancies end in abortion. Click here to read or listen to the entire commentary.
The implication was made that there are those in the medical community who are glad for this- even to the point that some medical professionals try to persuade their patients to terminate their "unfortunate" pregnancy in subtle ways, without actually telling them to abort. I have found this implication to be at least partly true in my limited research this morning.
One mother who participated in a study of 3,000 members of five state associations of parents of Down syndrome children reported that when, in 1999, she was told that the baby she was expecting had Down syndrome, a geneticist showed her "a really pitiful video first of people with Down syndrome who were very low tone and lethargic-looking and then proceeded to tell us that our child would never be able to read, write or count change." (George F. Will, The Washington Post, April 14, 2005)Even more disturbing and perverse is the idea floating around that the moral and responsible thing to do in such a pregnancy is to abort it. "Medical ethicist Ronald Green argues that parents have an obligation to avoid 'genetic harm' to their offspring." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_syndrome#Screening siting Green, RM (1997). "Parental autonomy and the obligation not to harm one's child genetically". J Law Med Ethics) And Claire Rayner in an June 27, 1995 article for The Independent states, "The hard facts are that it is costly in terms of human effort, compassion, energy, and finite resources such as money, to care for individuals with handicaps...."
Ironically, Rayner's article was entitled, "ANOTHER VIEW: A duty to choose unselfishly"! There is nothing unselfsh about killing an unborn baby because his/her genetic makeup and potential disabilities will be costly to the parents!
My heart is grieved over the attitudes of this fallen world. I can't imagine what God thinks and feels.
So here's my "Another View": if God blesses your womb with life (and He doesn't bless everyone that way), then joyfully and lovingly welcome that creation of God into your life no matter what the cost or inconvenience! The world will not be a worse place because of their life, rather it will be more beautiful!
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Hey Ryan! So glad I found you out here in internet-land!
ReplyDeleteI agree, this is a horrible situation that we are presenting to parents. You expect to have a healthy, "normal" baby and then find out that your baby will be different. It doesn't have to be a bad thing, but society makes it out that way. One of the hardest things for these parents, in my opinion is the lack of viable options. They can have this baby that may have significant problems or they can abort. The 3rd option available to most parents (adoption) isn't really an option for these children. There are few out there willing to adopt children with special needs or who feel able to take on the financial burden of doing so.
In my opinion, abortion isn't an option and adoptions is certainly not something I would do regardless of my childs inteligence/problems, but it is something that other people think about. To know that your child may never find a home through adoption, I can see (even if I can't understand) where these parents - especially young couples or single women - can see they don't have much of a choice. And medial professionals pushing this agenda just makes it that much worse.
The story of Jim Caviezel's adoption is what has really brought this to my mind and it is something we struggled with during our pregnancy. We opted to not have the test b/c if would only cause worry for us during our pregnancy and wouldn't change our feelings about keeping our son, but I felt so bad for those out there that find out and don't know what to do or where to turn. Knowing my sister had a daughter at 17, it really hit home. What would she have done if this test had been performed and found her daughter could have had significant problems?
Anyway, here is a link to a bit about Caviezel's decision and why it was made (about 1/2 way down the page). http://www.lifenews.com/state4366.html
Brianah,
ReplyDeletegreat to hear from you! Thanks for the link!