October is National Down Syndrome Awareness month.
This month, your social media feed may be filled with adorable photos and videos of Lucas Warren, the first Gerber baby with Down syndrome, and other beautiful witnesses of life with Down syndrome. Some videos may have facts about life with down syndrome; facts highlighting that their life is a life worth living and are not so different from any other life. There may be stories about individuals with Down syndrome, and reasons why they are wonderful daughters, sons, siblings, students, employees, coworkers, and even husbands and wives.
What the social media posts most likely will not highlight is the fact that for every three faces you see with Down syndrome in these pictures or in person, there are seven faces who never had a chance to live outside the womb because they were killed in an abortion. In the U.S., there is an estimated average abortion rate of 67% for babies diagnosed with Down syndrome in the womb. Other countries like Iceland and Denmark boast of eliminating Down syndrome almost completely, with abortion rates of nearly 100%.
Children’s lives like the ones all over social media who smile, laugh, clap, and grow up tying their shoes, getting A’s in class, succeeding at sports and jobs, living independently, and being worthy of life every bit as much as everyone else who can do these things, are being targeted for termination through abortion.
Even though an overwhelming majority of children’s lives are ended because they were diagnosed with Down syndrome, the majority opinion in the U.S., according to a recent Gallup poll, is that Down syndrome abortions should not be legal. The poll shows that 51% of Americans believe it should not be legal to abort a baby with Down syndrome even in the first trimester, and 71% believe it should not be legal in the third trimester.
However, Roe v. Wade and Doe v. Bolton make it legal to abort Down syndrome babies at any point for any reason, even though a majority of Americans find that morally abhorrent.
Would more children with Down syndrome be given a chance at life if doctors weren’t able to suggest an abortion after the diagnosis? What if instead they offered encouragement and support or other options such as adoption? Perhaps our social media and our daily lives would see more of these faces if 67% of them weren’t missing and more were given the opportunity to live their valuable lives.
TARGETED ABORTIONS FACTSHEET
