My Response to Changing the Conversation

Christina, age 13, helping make her own lunch

The discussion of pre natal testing and abortion as usual is a very emotional one. I decided to wade in. Here the original post. The blogger at For Elisium has it right, she says, 

"The new generation of kids with Down syndrome is the new normal, the new majority. Unfortunately, the people at the front lines don’t seem to know it yet. In fact, people with Down syndrome have scarcely been given a chance in recent history. First they were institutionalized, just as they are still in many countries. But in the U.S., when parents began questioning that practice in the 60s and 70s and insisted on bringing their babies home and insisted that they should be able to go to school, the laws started to change. This could have made an incredible difference for new babies born with Down syndrome, but the new realization came at the same time as two strikes against Down syndrome: Roe vs. Wade and prenatal testing.
Laws aren’t going to change–got it. Acknowledged. Not going to change anyone’s mind on abortion. Check."
The part which got me fired up is the comments from moms who aborted their babies with Down syndrome and are suffering at Baby Center. This is a sick culture which asks moms to fall on the swords of their consciences to save their babies from a life full of suffering. This type of deception, and self-delusional violence makes me angry.  Women are wounded, babies are dead, and the world is deprived the delight of these beautiful human beings. What may I ask , are we accomplishing besides some sick type of eugenics? Here is my comment on the blog.

 

The doctors are either ignorant of the prospects of living a fulfilling life with Down syndrome OR they know the truth, and are deliberately telling terrifying stories to scare moms into abortion. They may think they are sparing the mothers, the babies and society but as a society, we are past that type of “doctor knows best” paternalism.
The moms are kidding themselves if they think that by abortion they have saved the baby pain (do some research about how much pain unborn babies feel, particularly later in pregnancy) or that it is less selfish. We can not spare our children pain in this life, we can only accompany them through it. That is our job as mothers, not to make a decision your very heart screams to you is wrong.
My 13 year old Christina does not have a poor quality of life because she is very limited intellectually and has little language. Her life is very similar to my typical daughters. She is happy and sad, excited and frustrated like all teenagers. She is embarrassed by her mom, is a Daddy’s girl, has her favorite TV shows, loves attention when she gets dressed up and has her favorite pop songs.
Who am I to decide her life is not worth living? If I even had the unmitigated gall to suggest she would be better of dead, she would look at me as if I were crazy. Christina loves her family, her pets, chocolate, swimming and most of all she loves life. Her life.
I am a Catholic and look forward to seeing her fully functional in Heaven, singing God’s praises with full voice, and doing cartwheels in the Elysian fields. When her time comes. But I have NO right to decide when that time is. God gave her a life filled with purpose and she must live out her destiny. My older daughters my husband and I were chosen to guide, protect and learn from her in our mutual journey. That is what a family does. We grow as a unit, crying, laughing, working and loving one another with all our faults.
And, God willing, we will celebrate that eternal Alleluia in Heaven together. And I suspect my daughter has seen Heaven a bit more clearly than we have, as she does not judge her neighbors by their abilities. She looks at them as friends.