BTN 10-27-05
October 27, 2005
Patricia E. Bauer, a former reporter and bureau chief for The Washington Post warns that prenatal testing techniques have now shifted the medical question from an ability to abort babies judged to be defective to a duty to abort.
She's right of course, and the shift in this logic is inevitable.
Once human dignity is redefined in terms of what is an "acceptable" and an "unacceptable" baby, it's only a short jump to the argument that no one should be allowed to impose a "defective" baby on the society.
Bauer is the mother of Margaret, who was born with Down syndrome.
Now that prenatal tests are used to reveal potential genetic problems, parents are simply aborting babies that they judge to be defective.
There has been a reduction of almost 90 percent in babies born with Down syndrome.
They are simply being aborted.
This use of prenatal diagnosis threatens to undermine the very foundation of human dignity and to replace the sanctity of life with a sliding scale of "acceptable" human beings.
I'm Albert Mohler
Beyond The News Commentaries, produced daily by Salem Communications, bring concise and penetrating insight to everything from the current headlines to challenges facing the church, from our culture wars to the Middle East conflict and from Hollywood to Washington, D.C. These daily features cover politics, culture, religion and science with perspective from the sharpest minds in the Christian and conservative world today: David Aikman, Terry Eastland, Hugh Hewitt, Michael Medved, Albert Mohler, Dennis Prager and Janet Parshall.
Originally published October 26, 2005.
