Getting rid of imperfect children. . .

Only a fool or an idiot would argue against the racist eugenics of folks like Margaret Sanger and others.  Their positions have been discredited but that has not tarnished the reputation of Planned Parenthood and other pro-choice organizations among the liberals and progressives.   We have gone from those who sought to promote the right characteristics in our children to those who want to get rid of imperfect children (no matter how you might define imperfect). 

There was a time when it had seemed the West was moving away from the more crass forms of eugenics but that day had come and gone.  Now, the same have come around and appear to be embracing eugenics not simply in part but the whole.  You may have read my thoughts here about the growing rarity of children with Down syndrome.  That is not because we have eradicated the cause of this birth defect.  Is is, rather, we have made it normal to kill them in the womb.  Nearly 90% of children diagnosed with Down syndrome in the womb are aborted.  This has made abortion seem the kinder or more noble response to birth defects and, in fact, abortion activists in the US are using disabled or sick children as a reason why abortion, feticide, must be legal, widely available, and free. There seems to be no attempts to hide the worldview of these liberals and progressives which insists We need abortion to be legal so we can get rid of imperfect children. 

Wrongful death lawsuits are now accompanied by wrongful life lawsuits.  Parents and mothers, in particular, are suing for the failure of abortion to kill the child.  This actually happened in 2019 when Planned Parenthood was indeed sued for a failed abortion by those seeking to recover damages in the form of the costs of raising said child.  In the same year, it was reported that an Australian couple sued an ultrasound clinic for its failure to diagnose and inform them of the Down syndrome condition of their child before birth.  If they had only known, they would have aborted her.  In the UK a woman sued the government after she found out she could have aborted her now four year old daughter.   Now it has been reported that an Austrian “doctor will be forced to pay out tens of thousands of dollars to parents angry their child was born with a disability, and they were not given the chance to have an abortion.”  The couple was expecting a perfect baby but were outraged by the birth of a daughter missing a limb and with other defects that would not affect normal life but did offend the parents expecting a perfect baby.  The Austrian Supreme Court ruled that this little girl should not have been born.

Eugenics is from Greek εύ̃ (eû) 'good, well', and -γενής (genḗs) 'come into being, growing') and means a set of beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population or “good birth” — ensuring that only those deemed worthy are allowed to be born.  The claim that some children have been “wrongfully born” is the logical outgrowth of eugenics and to sue for compensation means that the courts will determine who should be born and who should not.  For those who may think that this is far removed from the US, consider that First Lady Jill Biden chose to invite Kate Cox to the State of the Union -- a woman whose particular merit was discovering she was pregnant with a disabled baby, denied an abortion, and is considered a political martyr for her trouble.  Indeed, the goal of the modern pro-choice movement is to get rid of imperfect children as well as unwanted.  Sadly, there is no real standard to define what constitutes either imperfect children or unwanted and so that will remain the nebulous domain of those who feel they have been so wounded with either.  I write this as a grandfather of a special needs child who is my special joy.