I think this is a fantastic article and wanted to share it with you.
Originally posted 03/21/2012 on Christianity Today.com
Children with Down Syndrome: Will Culture Make Them
Disappear?
Why we should see them as an endowment from God and not a
mistaken diagnosis.
Kelly Rosati
"On World Down Syndrome Day today, the United Nations will, for the
first time, officially recognize those with Down syndrome. I'd say it's about
time.
Despite huge advances in improving quality of life—life expectancy
has doubled from 25 to 55 years in the last 30 years due to medication,
therapies, and specialized surgery—the population of those with Down syndrome is
barreling toward extinction.
An amniocentesis used to be widely performed on older women who
are at greater risk of carrying a child with Down syndrome, but it carried a
small chance of miscarriage, so some refused the procedure. Now a simple blood
test can tell a woman whether or not her baby has one extra chromosome and thus
differentiates a "perfect" child from a child with a life-altering disability.
A 2011 piece in the New York Post
declared "The End of Down's Syndrome," noting that 92 percent of women who
receive this diagnosis choose abortion. (This was before the quick and less
invasive blood test.) And just two weeks ago, a couple from Oregon received a
$2.9 million settlement because their doctor failed to diagnose Down syndrome
during pregnancy. The parents, through their lawyer, told the media that while
they loved their little girl, they would have terminated the pregnancy had they
known her diagnosis.
"What you end up having is a world without people with Down
syndrome," Paul Root Wolpe, director of the center for ethics at Emory
University, told the Post. "And the question becomes
is that a good thing or a bad thing?"
We must not be content to live in a world where abortion weeds out
Down syndrome and other kinds of disabilities. Those with Down syndrome have
challenges, sometimes significant, but they bring abounding joy and expressive
love to everyone and to everything they encounter. A good friend of mine has a
teenage son who coaches a basketball team made up of Down syndrome children and
teens. Watching them play is a pure joy; it's infectious. Even when the team
loses, the players act as though they are excited just to be alive, giving each
other big effusive hugs. Where else can you see such good tidings involved in
competition?
In a world of cynicism, pride, and unrealistic expectations, those
with Down syndrome bring authenticity, innocence, a lack of guile, and a burst
of unrelenting happiness. Why extinguish that?
With that in mind, please understand that I don't want to diminish
the impact and suffering that comes with finding out you are carrying a child
with a disability, a unique kind of hardship. My husband and I adopted four
children from foster care, two as babies. As they have grown, they have
developed special needs such as Tourette syndrome, bi-polar disorder, chronic
anxiety, and significant learning disorders—all before the preteen years.
Genetics and poor decisions made by their birth parents during pregnancy define
their troubles, and define our family's daily existence. For many like us,
disability has a financial, emotional, and relational cost.
While our family struggles tremendously, and often daily, under
the weight of our children's illnesses, from all outward appearances, the
culture would see our children as normal—and even physically beautiful,
especially to this mama. However, their challenges drive us to our knees
regularly, and the spiritual maturity they articulate and demonstrate, even
during the hardest moments, puts us to shame.
Children with Down syndrome and other disabilities have been seen
as aberrations throughout history; they have been ridiculed, used, abused, and
exterminated without much thought. Even in a modern era, they bump up against
our culture's notion of beauty, perfection, and normal. Our bias against people
with disabilities reveals an inner defect, a sickness of the heart that is far
worse than any physical or intellectual challenge.
For the Christian community, John's story about the healing of a
man born blind is particularly meaningful:
As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man who had been
blind from birth. "Rabbi," his disciples asked him, "Why was this man born
blind? Was it because of his own sins or his parents' sins?" "It was not because
of his sins or his parents' sins," Jesus answered. "This happened so the
power of God could be seen in him." (John 9:1–4, NLT; emphasis
mine.)
God's glory is manifested in weakness and imperfection, for he is
truly the God of the sick and desperate among us. His power is made perfect in
all of our disabilities (2 Cor. 12:9).
It should also be said that children born with imperfections don't
surprise God. Scripture tells us he sees us in the womb, imparts wisdom to us in
the womb, and knows every hair on our head. With that in mind, we can
confidently say that mental, emotional, and physical disabilities don't define
our worth. We are all equal in God's eyes, and all of infinite worth. A man or
woman who belongs to Christ is his beloved child with a preciousness no man can
extinguish.
"Right to life" includes all of human existence, from the preborn
to the elderly and infirm, and to every stage and experience in between. I am
not given to hostility, acrimony, or argumentativeness where it concerns the
sanctity of life. I believe those who advocate for abortion are of infinite
worth to God. Lately, however, I have to fight off greater feelings of paranoia
as I watch where our society is heading. Are we increasingly embracing a culture
of death? Is eugenics creeping in with a vengeance?
With advances in genetic testing and the foretelling of the end of
Down syndrome, I have to wonder who's next. If a test can reveal future
childhood diabetes or cancer, blindness, deafness, a propensity toward violence,
and even ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) later in life, will couples choose abortion?
What possible disability or disorder will be eradicated next? What will we as a
society become as we strive to avoid suffering and hardship, and raise cultural
expectations of normal? And if we see the preborn as just a mass of cells
dividing and re-dividing, instead of as a real child with a soul, where will
this path lead us?
Even as I fear the answers to these questions and fight for the
right of these individuals to a life of dignity, I acknowledge a great God who
has the power to change hearts and minds. And when an individual with Down
syndrome crosses my path, I will never see it as anything less than a reminder
of what is good and holy."
Kelly Rosati is vice president of community outreach and sanctity
of human life for Focus on the Family.
This article first appeared in the March 2012 issue of Christianity Today. Used by permission of Christianity Today, Carol Stream, IL 60188.
Until Next Time!
Lots of Love,
