Is it for healing or destroying?

Look at the stories about the new prenatal Down syndrome test. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, this test can now detect Down syndrome much earlier in a pregnancy, and is more reliable. Lead researcher Fergal Malone told reporters, “In light of this study, we should offer screening to all women in their first trimester.”

Talk about the remedy being worse than the disease. Through a socially acceptable form of killing, we would take the opportunity to eliminate an entire group of people in order to spare ourselves from having to deal with their differences—because that’s what it really comes down to. Anyone who listens to Mia Peterson and others like her knows that lofty talk about making the best decision for the child’s sake, to keep that child from suffering, is hogwash. People with Down syndrome and other disabled people are not asking us why we did not kill them. They are asking us why we won’t accept them just as they are.

I came across this story at Break Point, then saw it soon after at Minivan Mom, along with some words from the blogger herself that will help us see more clearly what the issue really boils down to:

Say what you like, but understand that from my side of the fence, it is eugenics. It is the removal of a part of the population that makes ‘normal’ people feel uncomfortable. Sorry, but don’t say one word unless you know how it feels to open up the newspaper and read about doctors, actively pursuing genetic screening for whatever disability you have, in hopes that future mothers will not have to give birth to a child that will make their lives…difficult. Watching this same research under way for Epilepsy, makes me sick to my stomach. I am a productive person. I am a productive citizen. BUT because my seizures make people uncomfortable…and inconvenience others…I am unwanted, and that has never been made more clear than at this present point in history, when people like Peter Singer (professor of ethics at Princeton) are held up like demi-gods, spouting their plans for destroying children and infants born with disabilities, that range from down syndrome to…you guessed it…epilepsy. If this is the tolerance that the left likes to speak of so much, then count me out.

Detecting health problems in children still in the womb is a wonder of modern medicine — assuming the goal is to heal, not destroy.


Full story at Break Point