your mama's culling

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Mar 25, 2008

Wesley Smith’s latest in the Weekly Spectator is titled Politically Correct Eugenics. Steps taken to ensure genetic purity are much more acceptable in polite society when the inferior stock is eliminated one surgical procedure at a time.

With the development of prenatal genetic diagnosis, the drive toward eugenics has returned with a vengeance. Americans may heartily cheer participants in the Special Olympics, but we abort some 90 percent of all gestating infants diagnosed with genetic disabilities such as DS [Down Syndrome], dwarfism, and spina bifida. Not only that, but a study published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology in 2005 found that of the approximately 5,000 babies born with DS annually, only about 625 were born to mothers who knew of their baby's condition before birth. Together, these figures suggest that under the regimen of universal prenatal genetic testing urged upon us by the American College of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the number of DS babies born each year could plummet below 1,000.

Ironic, isn’t it, that the contemporary push for the Perfect Baby should coincide with a society-wide forfeiture of traditional parental responsibility.