Contemporary Eugenics?

I was aghast to read on an SLEer's blog, a stat from wikipedia. (The problem was the stat, not the quoting of it.) Even if (because Wiki is Wiki) that stat isn't completely accurate, it's still awful.

Here's the original wiki quote:

A 2002 literature review of elective abortion rates found that 91–93% of pregnancies in the United States with a diagnosis of Down syndrome were terminated.

What is the difference between this, and Hitler selecting disabled members of his society for extermination in the gas chambers? Except that in this case it's not Hitler, it's the child's own parents.

I'm somewhat heartened that wiki makes much the same point:

Physicians and ethicists are concerned about the ethical ramifications of this.^[25] Conservative commentator George Will called it "eugenics by abortion".^[26] British peer Brian Rix stated that "alas, the birth of a child with Down's syndrome is still considered by many to be an utter tragedy" and that the "ghost of the biologist Sir Francis Galton, who founded the eugenics movement in 1885, still stalks the corridors of many a teaching hospital".^[27]
.....
A 1998 study of Finnish doctors found that "Only very few, pediatricians somewhat more often, thought that Down's syndrome is not a good enough reason for pregnancy termination, but more (15-21%) thought that current prenatal screenings in general are (partly) based on eugenic thinking."^[30]

I was deeply affected by reading British Pastor and Author Brian Edward's comments on this issue, in the book Horizons of Hope: Reality in Disability. He explains:

Eugenics (which means 'born well') and euthanasia (which means 'die well') are two ends of the same philosophy. Whatever their advocates claim, history proves that ulitmately eugenics and euthanasia give society the right to determine who should live and who should die. Society slowly becomes more and more tolerant of the unthinkable. In a profound description of this, Joni Eareckson Tada wrote, 'Gradually, though no one remembers exactly how it happened, the unthinkable becomes tolerable. And then acceptable. And then legal. And then applaudable' (Joni Eareckson Tada, When is it Right to Die?).

When a calf is born lame or its mother breaks a leg, the animal is simply 'put down'; it has no more value in this world. No one pretends that the vet and the farmer will be better people for caring for them. They may learn a few things about cow's legs, but that's all. We are in danger of drifting into this same mind-set regarding human life - drifting into the morality of the farmyard. The euthanasia lobby says, 'When you have had enough and cannot face the future any more, we won't learn better ways of treating you and working with you to discover new horizons; we won't make you feel wanted and cared for and valuable. On the contrary, like you, we too will just give up.' That lobby has made its decision, perhaps unintentionally, that you have no quality left, nothing to live for, and that your fight simply to survive is all a big waste of time, space, and - not to put too fine a point on it - of resources also.
...
We have come a long way from the days when disabled children were hidden away from the gaze of society, and yet paradoxically, as a form of Sunday afternoon entertainment the public went to stare at the bizarre antics of the tragic inmates of Bethlehem Hospital ('Bedlam') in London. But we are in danger of losing what we have gained, by making the infirm, the chronically ill and the disabled feel that they are a burden on society.

How different God's view is. He makes every human being fearfully and wonderfully, purposefully stamping in them His very own image. Nothing changes this - not the presence or development of mental or physical disability, acute or chronic illness, frailty or age.

This means that as people of this God, we value and nurture the presence of human life in whatever form, and value and provide opportunity for God's presence and power to be at work in and through weakness. We abhor and mourn the belittling or taking of human life and we stand up for this most basic of human rights - the right to live.


Soon Steve will be preaching a sermon on the issue of Abortion and what God's word says. Generally though, we don't have too much opportunity in our gatherings to carefully think through Christian ethics. Can we encourage you to do some browsing of these two sites in particular?

www.abort73.com
www.joniandfriends.org