Down Syndrome and the Immorality of Eugenics
A new article in the New York Post, entitled “The End of Down Syndrome,” details a new type of scientific test that can detect Down Syndrome in unborn children.
However, based on the article’s shocking implications, it would be more aptly titled “The End of Down Syndrome Children.” Though the article’s original title seems to promise a cure to the genetic disorder, the piece instead delivers a look at our culture’s obsession with perfection and our willingness to kill for it.
According to the article, biotech company Sequenom has “released a test that allows doctors to screen for the most prevalent type of Down syndrome with only a blood test from the mother.” Up until now, the screening tests for Down Syndrome required much more invasive procedures that carried an increased risk of miscarriage.
The new test is being hailed as the future of screening for Down Syndrome, but the ethical implications are deadly, quite literally. According to the article:
“The safer prenatal screenings will likely mean more women will be tested, and the number of women carrying babies with Down syndrome who terminate their pregnancies could increase, if not skyrocket (emphasis added). Today, 92% of mothers who get a definitive diagnosis of Down choose to abort, surveys show.”
That 92% of mothers choose to kill their unborn children diagnosed with Down Syndrome is a staggering and heartbreaking statistic. Figures show that around 6,000 babies with Down Syndrome are born each year, meaning many more thousands are murdered in the womb after being prenatally diagnosed with Down Syndrome.
The implications of skyrocketing abortion rates for Down Syndrome children are not hard to imagine. The article cites an ethicist who realizes the potential consequences of the easy new screening test:
A very bad thing. Using abortion to cull the world of those with Down Syndrome is an incredibly evil proposition because murder angers God (Proverbs 6:17). abilities that have actually turned into liabilities. Just because we have the ability to screen for genetic abnormalities like Down Syndrome doesn’t mean we should exercise that ability, especially when it enables an increase in a great evil like abortion.
The debate no longer centers around the personhood of each unborn child as a bearer of God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27), but now revolves around whether society deems certain persons as worthy of living. The article again quotes ethicist Wolpe: “We have to understand that we are engaged in a project of eugenics. It’s not Nazi eugenics, but we are creating embryos, we are testing them and we are deciding which ones are fit to implant.” In reality, though, murdering those who are seen as less than perfect is exactly what the Nazis did and it’s the exact purpose of screening for Down Syndrome children.
Even the term “eugenics” itself shows the human desire to flail against the Curse. It’s a compound Greek word that basically means “good birth.” The scientific effort to create only “good births” serves as a testament to humanity’s refusal to acknowledge the body-marring effects of sin. It also illustrates our futile efforts to cleanse ourselves not only from the spiritual penalty of sin, but also the physical penalty. But the Bible teaches us that our bodies and souls are hopelessly marred by sin from the very moment we are conceived (Psalm 51:5).
Perhaps we should begin to realize that physical imperfections exist to remind us of exactly that: We are imperfect. We are fallen beings, and although each human possesses the indelible image of God, our souls and bodies attest to the fact that we are fallen creatures (Eph. 2:1). While some people’s physical bodies display this truth more visibly than others, apart from Jesus Christ the souls of all humans are equally depraved and deformed by sin (John 6:44).
The problem is a misunderstanding of sin’s true effects on both the body and soul. People disgusted with physical defects in others totally fail to see just how deformed they themselves are in the sight of a holy God. The Bible teaches that all humans, without exception, are utterly marred by sin and altogether unlovable (Rom. 3:23). Though we deserve only Hell, God the Father crushed His Son Jesus, laying on Him the just penalty for our sin (Rom. 6:23; Is. 53:10; 1 John 2:2).
RELATED INFORMATION
Last month, San Diego-based Sequenom released a test that allows doctors to screen for the most prevalent type of Down syndrome with only a blood test from the mother. The screening is available in 20 cities and is expected to hit New York soon. Two other companies have plans to release similar tests next year.
“What you end up having is a world without people with Down syndrome,” says Paul Root Wolpe, director of the center for ethics at Emory University. “And the question becomes is that a good thing or bad thing?”
Genesis 1: 26–27
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” So God created man ain His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.