The Works of God

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way to death. Proverbs 14:12

January 22 marks the 38th ‘anniversary’ of the decision to legalize abortion in the United States.

This website highlights abortion services available for ‘fetal anomaly.’  They include:

For the past 14 years we have terminated pregnancies for fetal abnormalities such as 1) Central Nervous System that include: holoprosencephaly, encephalocele, encephalomyelocele, hydrocephalus, Spina Bifida, holorachischisis, Dandy Walker, anencephaly, holoanencephaly, absence of corpus callosum; 2) Cardiac abnormalities that include: Primary Pulmonary Hypertension, Hypolastic left and right ventricle, holoacardius, tetraloy of Fallot, Eisenmenger’s complex, transposition of great vessels; 3) Chromosomal abnormalities that includes a) Common: trisomy 13, 18, 21, b) less common: trisomy 16, short arm and long arm deletions; 4) Skeletal abnormalities: Polydactyly, Achondroplasia, Osteogenesis imperfecta, lethal dwarfism, 5) Kidney abnormalities: Adult and Infantile Polycystic Kidney diseases, Potter’s Syndrome; 6) GI abnormalities: gastroschisis, omphalocele.

Some of the above are lethal to the child; he or she will die shortly after birth.  Others, like Trisomy 21 (otherwise known as Down syndrome), include a lifetime of living with disability.  And a lifetime with family and communities who both suffer and benefit from the life God has given.

Still others, like omphalocele, are not always disabling: “Complete recovery is expected after surgery for an omphalocele. However, omphaloceles often occur with other birth defects. How well a child does depends on which other conditions the child also has (Google Health).”

And they are all on a list, grouped impassionately together like groceries.

Disability does that in this culture – individual human beings created for God’s glory cease to be recognized as people, and the sum value of their lives is entirely defined by their disability.  So, we eliminate a disability, not a person.  But every one of those listed ‘procedures’ was done on a child, cruelly in the name of ‘compassion’ to prevent suffering in the child or the mother.

Disability is hard; I certainly understand that.  But we should not wrap what is happening to our unborn children with disabilities in the pretty language of compassion, either for them or for their mothers.  Once again, the strong are making permanent decisions about the interests of the weak.  And the weak are being destroyed.