Because even people in the church can get disability very, very wrong.
From the Anglican Church of Canada, Task Force on Human Life, Interim Report, 1977:
Our sense and emotion lead us to the grave mistake of treating human looking shapes as if they were human, although they lack the least vestige of human behavior and intellect. In fact, the only way to treat such defective infants humanely is not to treat them as human.
As quoted by Dr. C. Everett Koop in his chapter, Ethical and Surgical Considerations in the Care of the Newborn with Congenital Abnormalities, in Infanticide and the Handicapped Newborn, p. 100.
(Update: Please note that Dr. Koop does NOT endorse this statement and stands strongly for children with disabilities.)
To their credit, the General Assembly of the Anglican Church of Canada did not approve the report.
But the fact that anyone would speak of another human being this way is not acceptable. For an official group representing a church body to say such things is astonishing.
We will not repeat their mistake of 35 years ago. And we will not be led by ‘sense and emotion,’ but by the very word of God.
God creates human beings for his glory. Let those who would speak of them as defective and act as if they do not matter be mindful that God himself has regard for their well-being:
You shall not curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind, but you shall fear your God: I am the LORD.
(Leviticus 19:14 ESV)
The Works of God 
I agree with your evaluation of this statement. It would have been salient for me to see just a bit of how Dr. Coop responded to this along with what you did quote from the interim report. I suspect that he was not supportive of their evaluation, but that is left vague.
That was helpful, Ronald. Post has been updated to reflect Dr. Koop’s support for the lives of infants with disabilities.
No one is perfect save for Christ… if a disabled person’s life is not valued than no other life should be esteemed. But God says all who call on His name shall be saved and Christ died for all men, so every person has value to Him… and He is the only one that matters.
This could have been better worded. Spent a few minutes in shock at Koop!
this post makes it look like Dr. Koop concurs.
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