Patriot’s Corner
“The fetus, though enclosed in the womb of its mother, is already a human being and it is a monstrous crime to rob it of the life which it has not yet begun to enjoy. If it seems more horrible to kill a man in his own house than in a field, because a man’s house is his place of most secure refuge, it ought surely to be deemed more atrocious to destroy a fetus in the womb before it has come to light.” — John Calvin
When I read about disability rights advocates who accept or silently condone abortion, or when I look at pro-life materials and find almost nothing on the disabled, I cringe. Both disability rights and pro-life groups adhere to the same basic principle that humans have inherent dignity based on who they are, not what they can do yet they too often disagree. The two groups should be travelers on a common path. I say this not only because of their common principles but also based on my own experience.
As a Knight of Columbus, I believe that a person diagnosed as a part of the intellectually disabled community, has the same inalienable rights as any unborn person. Abortion, and even euthanasia, are becoming more targeted toward the disabled. And this is the greatest way the disabled can be discriminated against. Killing someone due to a disability is akin to participating to erase the disabled community. Not only is this far worse than, say, refusing to build a wheelchair ramp or to provide signage for the sight impaired, it works toward removing the disabled community from society’s consciousness and thus makes it more difficult to build support for disabled rights.
For example, those diagnosed with Down syndrome prenatally are aborted at alarming rates. In the United States, two-thirds of such babies are killed in the womb. That number is low among developed countries: England aborts 77 percent of these babies, Denmark 90 percent and Iceland 98 percent. Down syndrome is easy to diagnose, as it is an extra chromosome. However, soon we will be able to detect the probabilities of many other conditions in the uterus. A company called Genomic Prediction already offerstestsfor “mental disability” among in vitro fertilization embryos, and it claims that it can detect other intelligence “outliers.” It is easy to imagine that this technology could lead to parents wanting to “discard” those who are predicted to have low I.Q. scores. Also, a current study is investigating the genes of 50,000 families to discover autism genetics, and I can imagine this leading to the search for a prenatal autism test. Referring to selective abortions in these conditions, Pope Francis stated last year, “We do the same as the Nazis to maintain the purity of the race, but with white gloves.”
Brothers, I hope to see you at the South Carolina March for Life on January 6. Let’s defend All life!
Michael Allen, PSD, DM
Master, South Carolina District, DeSoto Province
