You are reading the pro-life issue of Align. Our perspective on different people and perspectives in the anti-abortion movement.Please also see our dispatch OneLife LA andMarch for Life. March for Life Preparation Guide for College Students. Interviews with comedians JP Sears and Nicolas de Santo, and skyscraper activist Maison Deschamps. Robin Atkins talks about how to talk to pro-choice advocates.
Shane Gillis doesn’t have Down syndrome, but there are people in his family who do. “I avoided it,” the comedian jokes in his latest special, “Beautiful Dogs.” “But it hurt me. It hurt me.”
He added that you can always tell if someone with Down syndrome isn’t around. When he talks about family members with genetic disorders, they stammer, “Oh… are you okay? Is your family okay?”
In 1983, the average life expectancy for a person with Down syndrome was 25 years. After 40 years, that number has increased until he is 60 years old. But the proportion of Americans with Down syndrome has been quietly and unnaturally declining.
He smiled broadly at Philadelphia. “They do it better than anyone I know. They’re the only people I know who always have a good time.”
This is supported by research. According to a study in the American Journal of Medical Genetics, “nearly 99% of people with Down syndrome are satisfied with their lives, 97% like themselves, and 96% like the way they look.” thing. Almost 99% of DS patients expressed love for their family, and 97% liked their siblings. She found that 86% of people with DS found it easy to make friends, but most of those with difficulties had isolated living situations. ”
Meanwhile, the rest of us are a culture racked by existential anxiety, mired in a nightmarish toilet flush of mental health crisis.
Ironically, parents of children with Down syndrome are the exception. The study that seems to be the most persuasive argument against abortion advocates who consider aborting babies diagnosed with Down syndrome through prenatal screening is pro-abortion. “Parents raising children with Down syndrome experience joy and contentment. As a result, nearly four in five parents of children with Down syndrome report having a more positive outlook on life. Masu.”
Treatment for people with Down syndrome has evolved since it was classified as a disease by physician John Langdon Down in 1862.
Until recently, liberal values have accorded rights, protections, and freedoms to people with conditions, illnesses, and handicaps that would otherwise result in marginalization or, in some cases, untimely death.
In 1983, the average life expectancy for a person with Down syndrome was 25 years. After 40 years, that number has increased until he is 60 years old. But the proportion of Americans with Down syndrome has been quietly and unnaturally declining.
The end of Down syndrome?
Termination rates for Down syndrome pregnancies are higher in Europe than in the United States. However, we cannot be sure. Data collection process Here in America, we don’t have the distinct sense of neatness that we see in European countries.
An estimated 77% of abortions occur in France. In Denmark it is 98%. Iceland somehow surpasses this by aborting 100% of babies who test positive for Down syndrome.
2018 fact sheet According to a report by the Icelandic government, “Over the past 10 years, on average, two to three children with Down syndrome have been born in Iceland each year.”
An estimated average of 5,000 babies are born with Down syndrome each year in the United States.
It is estimated that 60 to 90 percent of children diagnosed with Down syndrome in the United States are aborted, but only 18 percent of all pregnancies end in abortion.
Prenatal screening is big business.
new york times Examined It’s a competitive industry for companies offering prenatal screening, and this competition has led to careless haste.
Tests for trisomy 21, the defect that causes Down syndrome. Down syndrome is not a “fatal fetal abnormality” and “prenatal testing is not regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.”
The barbaric roots of abortion
Early anthropologists recorded abortion in primitive societies. They were surprised to find that the reasons were often shamelessly selfish, ranging from maintaining physical appearance to social status and general autonomy. ” Women of Central Celebes They do not give birth to children and have abortions to avoid it so that the perineum does not tear… They consider this the greatest shame for women. ”
Other tribes placed limits on when women could become mothers, such as tribes in Paraguay, where women aborted pregnancies until they were 30 years old.
Wandering tribes could hardly accept pregnant women and often had abortions for fear of being left behind.
Some tribes killed, sacrificed, or abandoned children born with abnormalities. This practice also occurs on a much larger scale in “civilized” nations. Some tribes also killed mothers.
Abortion rates were determined by community needs. Overpopulation, which threatened food supplies and promoted disease, was one of the most decisive factors. When overpopulated tribes needed warriors, they had boys available. If they needed funds, they retained girls who could be priced out for a variety of reasons.
Children could also be sold into slavery.
Anthropologists have sometimes reported that abortion was used so frequently that it drove tribes to extinction.
Other tribes viewed abortion harshly, making it a crime today. “If an unmarried woman of the Jakun tribe in Malacca Peninsula were to avail herself of abortion, she would lose all her status within the tribe. The women would despise her; no man would marry her. , she may be degraded by the punishment meted out to her by her parents.”
A pro-choice scientist’s appeal
Bioethicist Chris Kaposi had a moral argument Opposes abortion of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome before birth – even in the New York Times. He writes that he and his wife are pro-choice and oppose policies that impose strict restrictions on abortion. But he added that his hope is that “more people will include children with Down syndrome in their families. We don’t need new laws to make this happen.” We just need more people choosing to have such children. ”
Admittedly, this stance is easy for me to take. I have two children who do not have Down syndrome.To be honest, I would never do it wish For children with Down syndrome. All I can offer is a vague promise that if I had a child with Down syndrome, I would cherish that child: the sanctity of human life.
