Immediately following this illegal act (not even the Chancellor of Germany could legally order such a thing), Hitler’s personal physician, Dr. Karl Brandt, created a registry of children with disabilities and a panel of doctors who would decide who should live and who should be killed. Soon it would include adults. More than 200,000 physically or cognitively disabled people would be killed between 1939 and 1945 in Germany.
This was not a single aberration in human history perpetrated by a madman — people with disabilities are frequently the first to be targeted for destruction. And when that practice becomes acceptable, it expands to include more and more people who are "considered" unworthy of life.
Today, that includes aborting one of two healthy twins in the womb. Some women who have gone through significant financial expense and physical hardship to conceive children through medical interventions are voluntarily choosing to kill one of their healthy twins, though there is usually no medical reason to do so. The New York Times looked at this issue of the two-minus-one pregnancy in August 2011 and it frequently came down two things: 1) this isn’t what I planned for; and 2) I don’t want to endure the suffering that comes with twins.
And at least one woman made the case that since it is acceptable to abort children with disabilities it should be equally acceptable to abort one of two healthy twins: “I couldn’t have imagined reducing twins for nonmedical reasons,” she said, “but I had an amnio and would have had an abortion if I found out that one of the babies had an anomaly, even if it wasn’t life-threatening. I didn’t want to raise a handicapped child. Some people would call that selfish, but I wouldn’t. Parents who abort for an anomaly just don’t want that life for themselves, and it’s their prerogative to fashion their lives how they want. Is terminating two to one really any different morally?”
Pause over that last sentence. She is right, you know. There is absolutely no moral difference between a healthy twin and a baby with disabilities. Yet, as a culture, we behave like there is a difference. We see some qualitative difference between the life of a child with a disability and the life of a ‘typically’ developing child. And when we see this way, we open the door to more children being destroyed, including healthy children. And if history can teach us anything, it could also include adults that don't fit our brand of genetic purity. Church, we will not see this way. We will not. We will confound our culture, valuing all children in all circumstances. This is a radical expression of love that we are called to as the redeemed of God. We will see differently and Jesus will be glorified.
Attributes such as ethnicity or gender are socially off limits for such discussion. But it is socially acceptable — many argue ethically necessary — to talk about “options” when disability is discovered in the womb. “Wrongful birth” lawsuits, where the parents declare they would have aborted their child if they had known the child would be born with a disability, have been won with awards in the millions of dollars. Doctors and insurance companies notice such things. Do we need more evidence that discriminatory attitudes remain against people with disabilities? Shouldn’t killing them before they are born or awarding “damages” when they are “wrongfully” born be enough to convince us?
There are signs of hope. Legislators in Indiana are seeking to join North Dakota in banning abortions based on fetal disability. They are rightly shining a light on the deadly, twisted way many think about unborn children who are not genetically “normal.” Opponents of the law, however, have no problem stating publicly that termination options must be available. One mother who aborted her child with significant, fatal disabilities testified that having that child “would have ruined me and it would have ruined my family.” The fact that she had a healthy boy after her abortion was offered as proof of the wisdom of her decision.
I’m glad she had a healthy son, but I doubt her ability to accurately predict the future. How is the birth of a healthy boy a guarantee against future suffering? We’ll never know the true impact of her first child on her family. If you believe in the sovereignty of God in all things, aborting children is outrageous. Period. The God who intimately knits babies together (Psalm 139:13), including some who will live with a disability (Exodus 4:11; John 9:3), does so for his glory and for the good of his people. All the promises of God remain true for that child and that family. God is mighty and full of mercy in the gift of every child, and he equips us to love them no matter what.
