Down Syndrome and Eugenics

[ex_restless]

Archbishop Chaput from Denver has written an excellent article in First Things titled Conscience, Courage and Children with Down Syndrome regarding the high rate of abortions among those diagnosed prenatally with Down Syndrome, and what this reflects on us as a society. It begins:

Comments

[susannah]

I think I agree with you. The voice belongs primarily to the people who've actually been in this situation, and made the decision one way or the other, with the agonising beforehand, or the years of dedication, love, hardship and reward involved.

Of course, as a church official, he is allowed to speak - but the most authentic voices (which should never be drowned out) are the people who have actually experienced these situations.

I've done volunteer work with young adults with Downs Syndrome, and it was a blessing and an enhancement of my life. But I am not a fearful young mother with the prospect of the unknown, and a volunteer can go home at night but the mother faces prospects which must seem like they're going to wipe out all her freedoms, all her previous dreams, and a child who (it may seem to her) will take over her life, even into the child's adulthood. There must be so many confusions and fears. I just can't imagine. I just can't judge.

Because I've never been there.

In all these things in the abortion debate, I prefer it if judgment is taken out of the affair, and we as a society look with pity and mercy on both the frightened mother and the unborn child. In other words, we urgently consider the interests of the foetus, but we do so without judging the mother for her choice, but instead recognise her huge need for compassion in these dreadful, huge decisions.

[karcy]

"compassion in these dreadful, huge decisions."

But the point that I was making is that many of the decisions made to abort are not dreadful or huge. Down's Syndrome might be scary -- there are just as many people who abort because it was simply a 'bad time to have a baby'. It's linked to the kind of detachment people feel towards a foetus; that it is somehow a 'potential human', and not a life in itself.

While I consider myself pro-choice because I don't believe in banning abortions, there's no real reason to mollycuddle people when they are at the risk of making wrong choices in their lives. It's fundamentally and morally wrong, because it is enabling someone to do something wrong. At some point, compassion has to stop, especially when it comes to situations when you end up feeding someone morphine because it makes the person happy, or giving alcohol to an alcoholic because quitting is harder.

Pregnancy is always scary; I had a pregnancy scare once, too, and I was determined to abort. Parenting is always scary. While there is a fine line between condemnation and conviction, I do think it is the responsibility of a community's moral guardians to snap their fingers and go, "Oi. It's wrong."

[ex_restless]

I'll make a similar comment here that I made to chordoflife: the archbishop is not himself, nor is he asking us, to make a judgment on a family who makes such a decision. That's not the point here. Judgment makes no appearance in the article - or rather, judgment of persons makes no appearance. But that should never preclude us from making a judgment on the attitude and values as a society that are highlighted in the reality of Down and abortion. As I said to lordhellebore, this really isn't an abortion debate at all. Abortion is ultimately tangential to the article, and the fact of abortion in this case is not raised for the purpose of discussing abortion, but rather for the purpose of highlighting a disturbing reality of our societies, which is this inhumane premium we place on a specific measurement of perfection. It's not so much that abortion is happening generally, but rather that it happens overwhelmingly in cases such as these because Down babies are labeled as "undesirables," and what that labeling says about us as a people.

[susannah]

On reflection, I think there is a serious risk of a slippery slope towards eugenics. As science continues to develop technologies that give humans control of creative processes such as 'what kind of baby do we want' I think there is a growing risk that human life itself - that so precious sacred thing - could become a commodity we shop for, like a new car, or a house.

Whereas, before we were even conceived, we are known by God.

Every single person ever conceived.

Some people just don't arrive. I suppose they stay in (go direct to) heaven.

There are moral and spiritual dangers for those of us already here. And if we're not careful we will brutalise ourselves. It's a minefield.

But I do not judge.