United Methodists and Down’s Syndrome Abortions
The practice of terminating a pregnancy after diagnosis of a genetic abnormality has decisively changed the nature of the abortion debate in the United Methodist Church.
It has become commonplace for parents, who after genetic screening are told that their child will be born with Down’s Syndrome, to terminate the pregnancy by abortion. While these are sometimes the most conflicted of abortions, with parents protesting that they wanted this child, the high rate of abortion for these children raises serious ethical questions.
No one knows how many children are aborted because of a Trisomy 21 (Down’s Syndrome) diagnosis through genetic screening because no records are kept on this data by abortion clinics. An Obstetrics and Gynecology article in 2000 on the “Cost-benefit Analysis of Prenatal Diagnosis for Downs Syndrome” used as an estimate that 90% of parents who receive this diagnosis in the first or second trimester of pregnancy will choose termination. The study also estimated that more prevalent genetic testing would result in annual savings to society of $95 million per year because of the reduced cost burden of caring for citizens born with Down’s Syndrome.
Mass terminations of Down’s Syndrome children raise new questions in the abortion debate because these children are not individuals doomed to a short, pain-filled life. They are subject to disabilities, but a person with Down’s Syndrome can be a functioning member of society and often a very happy person. As United Methodists, we have a long history of ministry with persons with such disabilities.
I am pro-life, and believe that abortions should be legal only in the case of a clear threat to the life of the mother. Now the compassionate pro-choice argument often voiced in the church states that government intrusion (by protecting the life of the unborn) would do vast amounts of harm by interfering with the woman and her doctor’s decision about what constitutes a tragic conflict of Life vs. Life. Most united Methodists would agree that we shouild deplore abortions of mere convenience, and our Discipline rejects abortions for sex selection and birth control, but wish to preserve the privacy of an individual’s choice in tragic circumstances. If preserving that privacy requires allowing complete freedom of decision about the child’s life for the mother, the trade-off, for them, seems appropriate. Underlying this moral calculus is the assumption that a mother can be trusted to act reasonably and morally when weighing her health risks versus the life of the child.
I submit that once a diagnosis of an abnormality such as Down’s Syndrome is made, that it is no longer reasonable to assume that the decision to terminate the pregnancy is based on concerns for the mother’s health. Moreover, it is reasonable to believe that the decision is being made to be dispose of the child because of the future burden that it presents to the parents and society. Once the evidence exists that the child is to be born with a disability of this nature, the burden of proof that the abortion is anything but an abortion of convenience shifts to the parent.
We have not had a debate in the United Methodist Church about whether persons with disabilities are too much trouble to bear and raise, but we should. The legal, mass destruction of human life for eugenic purposes has already begun. My pro-life convictions already disposed me to believe that anything less than robust legal protections for unborn life provides people a license to kill without fear of punishment. Societies pass laws against murder because we don’t believe that human beings will always count another’s life as having a value equal to their own convenience, prospects for the future, or emotional equilibrium. I challenge those who hold pro-choice positions to enter the debate and justify publicly the continued selective killing of Down’s Syndrome children. Not only might we finally find our common voice regarding abortion, but the arguments put forth on either side would be revealing indeed.
Pastor Harley Wheeler
No comments:
Post a Comment