Lisa Belkin maintains the Motherlode Blog for the New York Times Magazine. Unlike most parenting blogs, she frequently covers the subject of disability.
And I was delighted to see “Deciding Not to Screen for Down Syndrome” as the headline of her blog yesterday. She invited Amy Julia Becker, who is pregnant with her third child and already the mother of a girl with Down syndrome, to explain why she was not going to have prenatal testing on her third child.
This is not a defense of life under the umbrella of the sovereignty of God – there is not one mention of God.
But it highlights the fact that some of the most dangerous people our babies with disabilities will face are not ‘out there’ in the culture. Rather, it is the doctors, the very ones who should be caring for these precious, vulnerable, little ones, who are too often recommending a child’s destruction.
One answer to that: a program at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in which medical students meet families experiencing disability to get the real story. I liked that idea.
This is not sufficient to change the culture, of course. Only Jesus can do that.
But may God use this article to make many mothers and fathers – and hopefully doctors – pause to think before they make a horrendous, final choice about their child.
The Works of God 
We were advised to receive genetic counseling after having one child with Trisomy 13, one with brain damage and one with third degree cleft lip and palate. Findings showed that they were all unrelated. The comment of the doctor was, “Too bad you didn’t receive counseling before they were born; you could have ended the pregnancies.” We told them we would never do that. All this happened thirty years ago. I can only imagine the pressured advice that parents get these days, leading terrified and distraught moms and dads to succumb to the pressure and agree to abort their child.