EUGENICS UNDER THE GUISE OF NON-INVASIVE PRENATAL DIAGNOSIS

Eugenics–the idea that the human race can be improved through selective breeding–was widely accepted in the first three decades of the last century. Mental health patients were forcibly sterilized in the USA because of it. Eugenics gained special credibility in Germany, where it laid the foundation for the Nazi holocaust. Now … something very much like it has returned under the guise of non-invasive prenatal diagnosis.

Non-invasive prenatal diagnosis allows mothers to learn whether their unborn child has Down syndrome with a high degree of certainty at an early stage in pregnancy. As a result: ”By 2030, Denmark will become Down Syndrome-free. . . . The number of DS [Down Syndrome] births halved in 2005 and has dropped by 13 percent every year since then. . . . In recent years, abortions of DS pregnancies have outnumbered live births worldwide. In France and Switzerland, over 85 percent of all DS pregnancies are terminated.”

Those tempted to see this as a good thing might want to ask themselves where it should stop. Suppose for example that a gene were identified which accurately predicts a propensity for alcoholism, and suppose this gene could be further identified during pregnancy. Should all babies who are likely to become alcoholics be aborted? Imagine a world without drinking problems, and it’s tempting indeed.
But what about children with learning disabilities? Attention deficit disorder? Dyslexia? Or how about homosexuality? After all, most of the arguments for normalizing society’s view of homosexuality depend on the assumption that gay people are born that way.

Then there’s skin color. Many people believe darker skinned people have more social challenges in America, even among African Americans. Should unborn children with darker skin be aborted for their own good?

Clearly, a line must be drawn somewhere, but by whom? Assuming the medical technology will soon exist to test for all of these and countless more genetic possibilities, should we allow a mother to continue to become pregnant and abort until she finally has a fetus she believes is worthy of a life outside her womb?
It is not a hypothetical question in Asia, where hundreds of millions of unborn girls have been selectively aborted in the last few years because boys are considered more valuable. In some Chinese cities, the ratio of newborn boys to girls is not 1.5 to 1.

The answer to these questions is that human beings are not capable of answering these questions. We are not gods. Again and again we will think such selective breeding is wrong for others, but acceptable in our particular case. We, after all, are experts as assuming we are exceptions to the rule. So given the ability to breed selectively, and given our fundamental selfishness, we will follow in the footsteps of the Nazis.

Indeed, with 1.3 million abortions in America every year, we already have.

Article source: http://dailycristo.com/religion/abortions-of-down-syndrome-babies-nearly-universal/

Image by Conny Wenk: http://kidswithalittleextra.blogspot.com/

Danger of a Pro-Choice World

A few weeks ago, I told you that there are an estimated 160 missing Asian women: missing because they were never born.   SOURCE: LifeNews.com


These women, victims of sex-selection abortion, are the subject of a new book by Mara Hvistendahl. Hvistendahl begins with what Paul Ehrlich famously called the “Population Bomb” and the population-control movement of the 1960s and 70s. Would-be population controllers discovered that people’s desire for a son was a major impediment to their efforts: Throughout the developing world, especially in Asia, women kept having children until they had a boy.

Thus, as Hvistendahl tells us, “proponents of population control began talking about” sex selection. Ehrlich wrote in The Population Bomb that “if a simple method could be found to guarantee that first-born children were males . . . then population control problems in many areas would be somewhat eased.”

Well, it wasn’t long before western money and technical know-how provided the “simple method” — amniocentesis, followed by abortion. Doctors, first in India, and then throughout Asia, learned how to use the combination to ensure people had a son the first time. And their teachers were groups like the Rockefeller Foundation and the United Nations Family Planning Agency, UNFPA.

The population controllers insisted that the need to curb population growth was so great, that “the drawbacks of a skewed sex ratio” would have to be tolerated. Boy, were they wrong. By 2020 an estimated 20 percent of all Chinese men “will lack a female counterpart.” And as I told you, this lack of women has fueled a growing sex trade in Asia.

Given what Hvistendahl calls the “tragic results” of the “Western advocacy of sex selection,” you would expect her to be angry, and she is. But get this: She’s angry at pro-lifers! Because they dare to cite her research to make the connection between Asia’s missing women and “abortion rights” advocacy.

She has criticized New York Times columnist Ross Douthat for pointing out that it is difficult for supporters of abortion-on-demand to then insist that abortion not be used for sex selection. She laments the “bind” in which Planned Parenthood and United Nations now find themselves.

It’s hard to imagine a clearer example of the blinding power of a false worldview. Having documented the role of abortion-on-demand in wiping 160 million women out of existence, Hvistendahl takes offense when people suggest that abortion on demand may not be such a good thing after all.
Incredible, but a classic example of the post-modern impasse. In a society that worships self-autonomy over all else, when we get what we want, we discover we can’t live with it.

For years I’ve taught how important it is that we embrace a worldview that comports to reality; how important it is that we test the validity of any worldview. Push a worldview to its logical conclusions, and if you can live with those conclusions, well, the worldview proves to be rational.

But one thing is very clear: pro-choicers, entire societies — and at least 160 million would-have-been women — cannot live with the logical conclusions of a worldview that values choice over human life, therefore proves to be irrational or false.