Eradicating the Disabled

The very appearance of this article, entitled "The Abortion Debate No One Wants to Have," is an indication of why the Washington Post, for all its faults, is a far better and more interesting paper than the increasingly hopeless New York Times, which would never have run such an article.

The author, mother of a Down's syndrome child, points to the fact that today nearly all children diagnosed in utero with Down's syndrome are aborted---upwards of 90 percent. Moreover, she senses that the "right" to abort has become, increasingly, regarded as a social and moral duty. She recounts hearing a "director of an Ivy League ethics program," who stated "that prospective parents have a moral obligation to undergo prenatal testing and to terminate their pregnancy to avoid bringing forth a child with a disability, because it was immoral to subject a child to the kind of suffering he or she would have to endure." A statement that instantly raises the no-longer-amusing-or-hypothetical prospect of "wrongful life" litigation, directed at mothers who "choose life." Unstated, but clearly lurking beneath the surface, is a certain moral indignancy toward those who would presume to inflict such children upon the rest of us.

The author concludes, logically enough, that "there are many pro-choicers who, while paying obeisance to the rights of people with disabilities, want at the same time to preserve their right to ensure that no one with disabilities will be born into their own families." Her stories also suggest that they would rather not have to encounter such freaks in public settings, or be responsible for any of the expense or trouble associated with their care.

Especially interesting, and entirely believable, is this passage:

Many young women, upon meeting us, have asked whether I had "the test." I interpret the question as a get-home-free card. If I say no, they figure, that means I'm a victim of circumstance, and therefore not implicitly repudiating the decision they may make to abort if they think there are disabilities involved. If yes, then it means I'm a right-wing antiabortion nut whose choices aren't relevant to their lives.

I myself recall having a conversation with a Down's syndrome adult man, who noted the disparity between Senator Edward M. Kennedy's well-publicized support for the Special Olympics, and his equally well-known insistence that no woman should have to bear the indignity of a "defective" or unwanted child. "I may be slow," this man observed, "but I am not stupid. Does he think that people like me can't understand what he really thinks of us? That we are not really wanted? That it would be a better world if we didn't exist?"

And wasn't this man right in believing that this exactly what so many of our fellow Americans actually think?

Comments

[brsebastian]

The culture of death ironically pretends to avoid suffering by killing those who might "inflict" suffering. If we do not choose the Way of the Cross when it comes to our own possibility of suffering, then we do not follow the Christ.

[James Quinby]

The day will come, and indeed, may already be here, when we will be known by our children.

[Dan Crawford]

Thank you for your comments on this remarkable article. I am reminded of several articles written by Nat Hentoff twenty years ago which vividly pointed out the moral quagmire into which legalized abortion led us. There is a profound inconsistency between the "right to choose" and the "right to die" and the "disability rights" movement. I have heard ethicists and physicians and others argue that we could "eliminate forever" Down Syndrome, cystic fibrosis, and a whole host of genetic anomalies by aborting "defective" fetuses. Not to mention other conditions linked to one's genes which may (or may not) occur to someone in the adult years. We've already had "experts" in child abuse recommend an even greater availability of abortion to prevent the "suffering" caused by abusive parents. Abortion has finally caused us to accept insanity as public policy.

[TheLeague]

My journey toward a pro-life outlook began at a cocktail party given by a woman who was on her way to a senior federal health policy position. I was standing in her kitchen pouring myself another glass of wine, when she and two of her friends began discussing the then-new edition of "Our Bodies, Our Selves" translated into Spanish. It was agreed among them that this publishing event was a good thing, because it would get "ignorant" Hispanic women to consider having fewer children. Fewer Hispanic children meant fewer welfare children. And fewer Catholics (that was mentioned with a sneer). This was all good, because We didn't need as many of Them. What followed was a thickly veiled conversation on the efficacy of abortion in maintaining populations of poor people.

I thought to myself (in so many words), "Was this really about choice, or was it just a form of population control policy for those deemed inconvenient for these government bureaucrats?" It was an eye-opener similar to being hit between the eyes.

I can see how abortion has become almost an obligation when it comes to the disabled. After all, if being poorm black or Hispanic is enough to warrant your destruction in the eyes of some, those with disabilities don't have a chance.

Your tax-payer's money at work, folks.

[Firinnteine]

"Euthanasia" is not nearly so popular a term since the Holocaust, but the idea is still with us, dressed in new and stylish terminology of a right to a fulfilled life, which somehow trumps the right to life as such, and, somehow, is frequently directly in opposition to it. Oh yes, and you may not define for yourself whether your life is fulfilled, or would be fulfilled given the opportunity.

"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"?

Read "Comfort, license, and being pursued to what we have medically and psychologically proven will make you happy."

[Julana]

As the mother of an 8-yr-old son with Down syndrome, I found the authors' perspective rang true with me, as a conservative person. For some reason, the first thing strangers sometimes want to know, when discussing our son, is whether we knew before he was born that he had Down syndrome.
(By the way, I greatly appreciate this post. But many in the "people first" community would not use Down syndrome as an adjective. :-)

[DeputyHeadmistress]

Tried to trackback, but couldn't.

We have a child with retardation, and we have gotten similar comments. Christopher Nolan, author of the autobiographical 'Under the Eye of the Clock' commented once that never before have there been so many opportunities for the disabled to live lives with meaning, comfort, and security and to function in society- yet never before have we killed them off in such measures.

I liked to your post- thanks for writing this.

[GL]

Two recent articles on point that recently came to me attention:

Golly, What Did Jon Do?, available at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16720750/site/newsweek/

Prenatal Test Puts Down Syndrome in Hard Focus, available at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/09/us/09down.html?pagewanted=2&ei=5070&en=9e09da5c17aac942&ex=1183694400

Lord have mercy! Christ have mercy! Lord have mercy!

[Judy Warner]

Thanks, GL. George Will has always written movingly about his son. I recall reading a book written by an English boy with Down Syndrome a long time ago. His name was Ted; I don't remember his last name. He was an illustration of how well some Down Syndrome people can function -- probably better than some high-school graduates nowadays. I have met quite a number of Down Syndrome people over the years and have found them all except one to have a very loving disposition. That exception is our next door neighbor, whose parents refer to her as "our mistake."

[GL]

How sad, Judy.

The irony, which I just noted, is that this thread began two days before the birth of our youngest daughter, who, as many of you know, has Rubenstein-Taybi Syndrome. We had not testing for chromosomal abnormalities and, fortunately for RTS children, even if we had, RTS is not yet detectable from such tests. The second article for which I posted a link was sent to my wife on the RTS listserv. That article referred to the George Will article.