Women Beginning to Reject Eugenic Abortion
Here's a little good news out of Scotland. Women whose fetuses test positive for Down syndrome are increasingly rejecting abortion. From the story:More babies are being born with Down's syndrome than before pre-natal screening for the disorder was introduced at the end of the 1980s, it was revealed yesterday.
Parents appear more willing to bring a Down's child into the world than they used to be, research shows. Many are taking the decision because those affected by the syndrome are more accepted in society today and their quality of life has improved, according to a new survey...The findings show that while religious or pro-life beliefs counted in about a third of cases, many parents felt that life and society had improved for people affected by Down's. Others said their decision was influenced by the fact that they knew people with Down's or other disabilities.
The people with Down and other developmental disabilities don't drag society down, they lift it up. Let us hope that one day they will all be welcomed into life in love and unconditional acceptance. Let us hope that one day no one will be considered--or consider themselves-- a "burden"
posted by Wesley J. Smith @ 9:30 AM
6 Comments
6 Comments:
I got a chance to purchase a copy of Wall-E the other day.
Yes, this is relevant.
So I'm watching it with my nephews and we're talking about how Eve falls in love with Wall-E. I won't go into details to avoid spoiling the story, but I did explain that you could tell Eve cared about Wall-E by the end of the movie because she was more concerned with his good than with her own.
Once upon a time, society valued putting the good of others above the good of the self. That's what real love is - not in seeing what someone else can do for you, but in caring so much that you want to know what you can do for someone else.
Most of us are temporarily able-bodied. If we're capable, and we're inclined to do so, why doesn't society promote seeing to the welfare of those who *aren't*? You'd think that if we can recognize real love by a robot's self-sacrifice for another in a kid's movie, it'd be more welcome in real life. I'm glad these women aren't aborting their babies. Everybody has a purpose.
Tabs: It is the difference between a society based on virtue and a society based on striving (impotently) to avoid pain.
Socialized medicine puts the taxpayers on the hook for everyone elses' problems. This, in turn, creates a huge incentive for taxpayers to demand that only "healthy" kids (those that do not require much subsidy) be born. So, one way of reducing the eugenic trend in reproduction would be to take the taxpayers off the hook for this sort of thing.
There is a reason why socialized medicine necessarily leads to eugenic reproductive policies.
My request would be that every child gets the nourishing hands of humanity. That type of love & giving gives our SOCIETY a more compassionate sense of Humanity which distances us away from the mink or the other animals that EAT their own off spring.
Kurt: Exactly.
SHS, Not Dead Yet, the Center for Disability Rights, and Human Life Review, are the only ones I know of who are fighting the death culture re euthanasia. Who else is?
Having had a cousin who had a Downs-like condition caused by a pre-birth injury, I don't need to be sold on that issue, any more than re the disabled, the elderly, assisted suicide, the "end-of-life" stuff that has become fashionable, and the death culture. But I'm especially focused on the elderly. Is AARP addressing what's going on? What ever happened to the Gray Panthers? All the "eldercare" and "elder law" stuff I've seen seems to be more on the "living will" side. Is anyone fighting for life for the elderly?
Other animals do eat their offspring sometimes, and sometimes reject it, and sometimes absorb it in utero; humans miscarry, and deliberately abort, reject, and abuse their offspring all too often. All we need to do to be distanced from the mink or any other animal is to leave it alone, and if humans wanted to be distanced from the mink, they'd let them get away rather than set traps for them, farm them, hold them with one hand while they administer the electrode with the other, with the ultimate goal of having their pelts the opposite of distant from us. If we're so wonderful we don't need to reassure ourselves by saying we're exceptional. N.B. also the animals that "adopt" and nurse orphaned and rejected baby animals, even of other species, that are not their own. They've already GOT compassion -- and they didn't even need to discuss what they all should be doing, or invent religion to be brainwashed by. They do as much as they are capable of doing; if humans did, there would be no need for SHS.
That's exactly it -- cowardly, rather than virtuous/courageous (and humane). But I feel like banging my head on the blackboard here -- part of virtue is compassion for "lesser creatures" and it elevates, not lowers, us to refrain from vivisection. Forget Singer -- who, by the way, is less dangerous than a religious institution so arrogant as to declare that only one form of life has souls, and whose professed theology is sanctity of life but also ratifies "living wills" and a person's desire to be removed from life support "to spare their family and the community expense." The former is one guy, who's taken a wrong turn and is endorsed by one effete institution; by comparison, in terms of how much influence it's had, the latter is a crime wave, and in fact set the stage for Singer and is on the same utilitarian page with him, and each started out arguing compassion, and at the same time are on another track that is inconsistent with those qualities. Surely human exceptionalism does not object to compassion for other animals and is capable of incorporating it.
I don't know from arks, "creationism," "intelligent design," etc. and why there's a ruckus over whatever they are v. the theory of evolution; there were ruckuses over the shape of Earth and what orbited what, too; where does human exceptionalism stand on this issue?
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