If you haven’t listened to David Mathis’ interview of Justin Taylor on abortion, please ignore this post, go there and be blessed. It is 16 minutes and Justin’s observations about God’s grace and God’s design are thrilling!
Ok, back to today.
Some thoughts I had:
- More than 90% of women who discover their child has Down syndrome choose to abort
- Health professionals tend to assume that when Down syndrome is discovered, the mother will choose to abort; some women report they really didn’t feel like they had a choice
- Currently, relatively few women actually have the test because of the danger to the unborn child
- New and safer diagnostic tools are coming in 2012 that will allow for more accurate determinations of genetic issues like Down syndrome earlier in a pregnancy
- There is a general movement amongst health professionals to encourage most or even all pregnant women to have these tests
- These new tests will undoubtedly reveal more unborn children with Down syndrome, particularly in younger women who currently are not advised to have any tests.
So, I have assumed that even more children with Down syndrome will be aborted when these tests appear.
But what if the opposite happened?
But what if people right now spoke the truth about God’s sovereignty over all things and the value of little ones with disabilities, about the heartache and the joy?
What if mothers of unborn babies and fathers heard that message and responded differently than expected to the news that their baby has Down syndrome?
What if doctors were confronted with lots of parents who were passionately in favor of letting the child live, ready to take on the responsibilities and heartache and joy that God has given to them?
What if that started a change of heart in more medical professionals, guiding them to see that they had not really considered the inherent value of that little growing life, and then considering how they could be more compassionate toward the mother and the child?
What if more mothers and fathers, rather than feeling pressure to abort, were encouraged to let this child live?
What if that actually increased the number of children with Down syndrome being born, which increased their visibility in the culture, which opened people’s eyes to the beauty of God’s master plan in designing some to live with disability their entire lives?
Which made all human life look like the extraordinary gift that it is.
What if God used tests designed specifically to rid the world of people with Down syndrome to break the back of the abortion industry?
Crazy, I know. Fewer babies with Down syndrome being born is obviously more realistic.
But is my thought really crazier than dead people (like us) being awakened to new life in Jesus?
The Works of God 
Thank you. Challenging, encouraging, and Gospel-rooted.
thank you. may the Lord grant you the desire of your heart.
Great post. My wife recently made a similar post (see http://goo.gl/ujpyF) when we had the recent opportunity in Mississippi to vote on an initiative to define “personhood” in our constitution. Very challenging when you’ve been bombarded by the message of cultural convenience. I’m thrilled to see others with a louder voice proclaiming the sanctity of life!
grace & peace.