All Things Supercinski

Here’s an informative look at Egypt’s Christian-Muslim Divide in The International Herald Tribune.

I recently read this wonderful article in the Washington Post by Patricia Bauer, the mother of a young woman with Down’s Syndrome. With the advancement of medical testing, she makes the point that children with disabilities such as Down’s Syndrome are not being born anymore. She says that up to 90 percent of those children are aborted. It amazed me as we began our prenatal visits, the barrage of tests that are available should we choose to have them. We told our doctor that we did not want to have one of the routine tests as it would not change anything about our pregnancy. She clarified by stating that if we would not choose to terminate it, then the test was unneccessary. I was shocked and saddened that we encountered that with a healthy pregnancy.

Bauer makes the point that in ancient Greece, babies with disabilities were left out in the elements to die, but here in America, we have a much tidier solution. She also writes,

“What I don’t understand is how we as a society can tacitly write off a whole group of people as having no value. I’d like to think that it’s time to put that particular piece of baggage on the table and talk about it, but I’m not optimistic. People want what they want: a perfect baby, a perfect life. To which I say: Good luck. Or maybe, dream on.”

Perhaps this issue is one of the major driving forces for abortion today–not just the ability to choose to have a baby, but what kind of a baby. I will admit that not long ago, I was confused over why God would create people with disabilities, but I realized how I was buying into the Western idea that if a person is not of “value” to society in the way they can work and produce, they are of no value. However, God did not create us to be producers and to derive our worth from what we can accomplish. He created us, though not perfect due to sin, but the way that we are and he has a plan and purpose for everyone, even if it doesn’t make sense to the rest of us.