Charles W. Colson

Congenital defects do not justify abortion, argues Charles W. Colson in the following viewpoint. Colson, the grandfather of an autistic child, maintains that aborting a fetus because it may be born with severe disabilities is reprehensible. Mentally and physically handicapped people often lead happy lives and challenge others to confront the significance of their own limitations and shortcomings. No one should have the right to decide that such lives are worthless, he concludes. Colson is a contributing editor of Christianity Today.

As you read, consider the following questions:

1. According to Colson, what percentage of women abort their pregnancies after discovering that they are carrying a Down syndrome baby"
2. What kinds of arguments are used to encourage women to abort Down syndrome pregnancies, according to the author"
3. According to Tucker Carlson, cited by Colson, what kind of life can the average Down syndrome child expect to lead"

Sit in Grandpa’s chair.” The laughing voice rises from my office chair as Max bounces up and down. Max is my six-year-old grandson, and his visits are a whirl of McDonald’s Happy Meals and rambunctious splashes in the pool.

When strangers see Max for the first time, they’re immediately drawn to the blond, tousle-haired youngster. But in a few moments, they also notice that Max is different. You see, Max is autistic.

And today kids not very different from Max are being targeted for elimination.

Prenatal testing has become so sophisticated that doctors can now identify many disabilities before birth. But since most have no cure, the only way to “prevent” the disability is to prevent the baby’s birth. Thus abortion is bringing back eugenics—the idea of weeding out “defectives” and upgrading our genetic stock.

Consider: In 1990 Joycelyn Elders said that abortion “has had an important, and positive, public-health effect” by reducing “the number of children afflicted with severe defects.” Here was a public health official praising “the eugenic utility of abortion,” notes Tucker Carlson in the Weekly Standard. Abortion is cast not merely as a private choice but also as a way to improve the species.

The Case of Down Syndrome

Take the case of Down syndrome. Studies reveal that when pregnant women learn they are carrying a Down syndrome baby, 90 percent have an abortion. Many say they are acting under pressure from doctors and insurance companies. In a Canadian study, one in three of the mothers said she felt “more or less forced” to abort.

The arguments wielded to “force” women are often crassly economic. Nachum Sicherman of Columbia Business School calls abortion of Down syndrome babies “a great cost saving.” Dr. Mark Evans, director of Detroit’s Center for Fetal Diagnosis and Therapy, observes that prenatal screening costs $1,000, whereas the first year of a Down syndrome baby’s life costs about $100,000. How many couples, facing such staggering costs, are tough enough to withstand the pressure"

And if we don’t catch all defective babies before birth, some doctors have recommended letting them die after birth. A 1975 poll found that 77 percent of American pediatric surgeons favored withholding food and medical treatment from Down syndrome newborns. And some have done just that, as we know from highly publicized cases like the 1982 Baby Doe decision in Indiana.

Special-Needs Children Are in Demand

Ironically, eugenics is making a comeback just as it has become possible for Down syndrome and other special-needs children to lead fairly normal lives. The average Down syndrome child in America today, Carlson writes, is only mildly to moderately retarded. He can expect to attend school, learn to read, hold a job, and to live independently.

In fact, while these children are being targeted for elimination, one adoption agency can’t keep up with the demand for them. “It’s not at all difficult” to find homes, Janet Marchese of the Down Syndrome Adoption Exchange told Carlson. Her waiting list rarely dips below 100. World magazine recently told the touching story of a couple who adopted two Down syndrome children.

What do these couples know that doctors don’t? They know children like Max. When Max was diagnosed as autistic, I agonized for my daughter, Emily. But he has turned out to be, quite simply, a great blessing to both of us

“Max is bright, charming, witty, creative,” Emily wrote in a letter. It’s just that these talents are “channeled in a different way for him.” And “different” is sometimes better. “Max seems to appreciate the joy of life more than most of us,” Emily wrote. “He brings so much to those around him because of his joyous spirit and exuberance for life. He is a constant reminder of the simple pleasures the rest of us have forgotten.”

A Profound Truth

Raising a child with special needs has transformed my little girl into a mature Christian woman. “I imagine that when God created Max, He took him straight from His heart, cupped him in His hands, and set him down on this earth,” Emily wrote. But “God knew when He created Max that he would need extra help. So God keeps His hands cupped around Max. . . . How could a child who is held by God be anything but a gift"”

“The Handicapped” Have Names and Faces

My youngest daughter is ten years old. Developmentally, however, she is more like an infant. She does not speak in words, cannot feed or dress herself, wears diapers and cannot walk without assistance. Hearing this litany of what she cannot do, many people would say it would have been better if she had not been born.

A few weeks ago, I attended a national conference on mental handicaps. Most of the participants were special needs professionals; many were parents. At one of the scientific sessions, a physician spoke about the remarkable strides which have been made in pre-natal testing, making it possible to detect a whole host of genetic disorders in the womb. Now, of course, she said ominously, the “decision” can be made by the parents.

Her smug certainty that any “normal” parent would choose to get rid of a baby known to have some disability infuriated me. But what I found really astonishing was the temerity that allowed her to say such things to us, people who actually love and cherish the very children she is targeting for destruction. For us, they are not “the handicapped.” They have names and faces. They have their winning ways, their sweet charms, their difficult behavior patterns. They are our children and here she was telling us we had missed the boat by having them too soon, before the technology existed which would have allowed us to get rid of them.

Jo McGowan, Human Life Review, Spring/Summer 2000.

The experience has taught Emily a profound truth: that “God does not define us by our limitations and shortcomings.” If he did, where would any of us be? Some of us are handicapped genetically, others by injury or illness. Some are physically healthy but suffer crippling emotional pain; still others are twisted spiritually by pride or by ambition

Kids like Max force us to confront ourselves. He is a visible reminder that every one of us is broken and fallen, desperately in need of God’s redeeming grace.

Humility about our own shortcomings is the spiritual counter to eugenics. Of course we must craft a persuasive moral case against killing the weak and vulnerable. But we must also pray for spiritual wisdom—for a spirit of humility that refuses to play God and arrogate to ourselves the right to judge these lives worthless.

Emily is devoted to helping people understand children like Max. And as for those who believe such children should be eliminated, I say they are going to have to fight my daughter—and fight me.

For Max, Grandpa’s chair will always be there.