Down Syndrome

I came across this article on the radical womanhood blog and I have been thinking a lot about it so I thought I would post it on my blog. It is from a news article in the washington post written by Michael Gerson. We have good friends who have a down syndrome child. She is a beautifull loving girl, and a blessing to her family. It brings me to tears to think of all the precious life that has been killed because people were told their child would not be "normal". I pray that people will see Sarah Palin's son Trig and choose life for their unborn child when they are told that their baby may have Down Syndrome. God doesn't make mistakes and children with disabilities are no mistake. "For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me thogether in my mother's womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made." Ps 139:13 This verse includes everyone.

"In addition to Barack Obama making history as the first African American
to be nominated for president and Sarah Palin taking her shotgun to the
glass ceiling, there was a third civil rights barrier broken at the
political conventions this year.
Trig Paxson Van Palin -- pronounced by his mother "beautiful" and "perfect" and applauded at center stage of the Republican convention -- smashed the chromosomal barrier. And it was all the more moving for the innocence and indifference of this 4-month-old civil rights leader. It was not always this way. John F. Kennedy's younger sister Rosemary, who was born in 1918, had a mental disability that was treated as
a family secret. For decades Rosemary was hidden as a "childhood victim of
spinal meningitis."
Joseph Kennedy subjected his daughter to a destructive lobotomy when she was 23.
It was the remarkable Eunice Kennedy Shriver who talked openly of her sister's
condition in 1962 and went on to found the Special Olympics as a summer camp in
her back yard -- part of a great social movement of compassion and inclusion.
Trig's moment in the spotlight is a milestone of that movement. But it comes
at a paradoxical time. Unlike what is accorded African Americans and women,
civil rights protections for people with Down syndrome have rapidly eroded over
the past few decades. Of the cases of Down syndrome diagnosed by prenatal
testing each year, about 90 percent are eliminated by abortion. Last year the
American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommended universal, early
testing for Down syndrome -- not just for older pregnant women. Some expect this
increased screening to reduce the number of Down syndrome births to
something far lower than the 5,500 we see today, perhaps to fewer than 1,000.
The wrenching diagnosis of 47 chromosomes must seem to parents
like the end of a dream instead of the beginning of a life. But children
born with Down syndrome -- who learn slowly but love deeply -- are generally
not experienced by their parents as a curse but as a complex blessing. And
when allowed to survive, men and women with an extra chromosome experience
themselves as people with abilities, limits and rights. Yet when Down
syndrome is detected through testing, many parents report that genetic
counselors and physicians emphasize the difficulties of raising a child with
a disability and urge abortion. This is properly called eugenic abortion --
the ending of "imperfect" lives to remove the social, economic and emotional
costs of their existence. And this practice cannot be separated from the
broader social treatment of people who have disabilities. By eliminating
less perfect humans, deformity and disability become more pronounced and
less acceptable. Those who escape the net of screening are often viewed as
mistakes or burdens. A tragic choice becomes a presumption -- "Didn't you
get an amnio?" -- and then a prejudice. And this feeds a social Darwinism in
which the stronger are regarded as better, the dependent are viewed as less
valuable, and the weak must occasionally be culled.
On the same day, the Post carried a sad tribute to the father of an adult Down syndrome child who died trying to rescue his son. Not only did Thomas Vander Woude allow his son, Joseph, to be born 20 years ago, he gave his own life when danger struck two decades later. On Monday, Joseph was working with his father in
the yard when he accidentally fell into the septic tank. While waiting for
the rescue workers, Vander Woude jumped in the tank, submerging himself in
sewage so he could push his son up from below and keep his head above the
muck. When the rescue workers arrived, they pulled the two out, but Thomas
was unconscious and efforts to revive him were unsuccessful. His son,
Joseph, is reported to be in critical condition in the hospital with double
pneumonia.
It's hard to reconcile these two articles and the vast difference
in perspectives about the worth of children like Trig or Joseph. I grieve
for what a double-minded culture we've become. We are pro-life when it comes
to baby seals or endangered species, but not when it comes to human beings
with development disabilities. We campaign for women's rights in our own
nation but ignore the estimated 100 million missing girls worldwide who have
been victims of sex-selective abortions. We seem incapable of recognizing
the hypocrisy of protecting a "woman's right to choose," even if such a
choice is made at the expense of another's life--and a female's life at
that! "