Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Against a Culture of Death

Amos Yong’s Theology and Down Syndrome

Thomas Reynolds’ Vulnerable Communion

Hans Reinders’ Receiving the Gift of Friendship

Each of these books considers theological questions surrounding physical and mental disability. All address what it means to be human and to anticipate a fully redeemed, restored, and perfected humanity. These writers stand against eugenic abortion of Downs Syndrome and abortion for convenience (murder).

If this election is about picking an issue, we should vote against the culture of death. Abortion, which Obama wants to further liberalize, takes thousands more lives in a year than have been lost in the Iraq war.

Columnist George F. Will reports: In Britain, more babies with Down syndrome are aborted than are allowed to be born. In America, more than 80 percent of the babies diagnosed prenatally with Down syndrome are aborted. This is dismaying to, among others, the American Association of People with Disabilities, whose premise is that "disability is a natural part of the human experience."The AAPD worries that increasingly sophisticated prenatal genetic testing technologies will mean that parents who are told their expected babies are less than perfect "will experience pressures to terminate their pregnancies from medical professionals and insurers."

Will is right. Eugenic abortions undermine human dignity and the sanctity of life.

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