Down syndrome is at the center of the most recent trend in pro-life legislation. Several states are considering laws prohibiting abortions sought solely because the unborn baby has been diagnosed with Down syndrome.
As someone who steadfastly believes that it is the fundamental duty of government to protect human life at every stage of development, I am deeply sympathetic to these efforts. And yet, I have misgivings about this approach. Let me explain.
Several years ago, I read a book by journalist Mara Hvistendahl, entitled, “Unnatural Selection.” In this book, Hvistendahl (who notes that she has “always believed in a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy”) chronicles her study of the international crisis caused by the widespread practice of sex-selective abortion in Asia. Specifically, 160 million females have been aborted solely because their parents wanted male children.
The evidence is conclusive; abortion is the ultimate weapon of discrimination.
This conclusion ought to have shaken abortion-rights activists to their very core. After all, isn’t their whole purpose to “empower women”? Aren’t they the loudest, most staunch opponents of all forms of “discrimination”? And yet, save for Hvistendahl herself, I wasn’t hearing any outrage from the Left about the ultimate sex discrimination that had resulted in the killing of 160 million baby girls, solely because they were girls.
There is a sad consistency, however, to the left’s hypocritical silence in this regard. After all, it has never been any secret that America’s No. 1 abortion provider, Planned Parenthood Federation, was born of a white woman’s passion for dramatically reducing the population of blacks in America. It is no accident that today, the vast majority of abortion clinics are situated in minority neighborhoods.
Where is the left’s outrage over this most consequential form of “inequality”?
After reading “Unnatural Selection,” I was compelled to act. I joined forces with a handful of my state legislators and began advocating for a law to prohibit abortions requested solely because of the baby’s sex. I hoped to use the process as an opportunity to educate the public about the undeniable link between abortion and discrimination. I hoped to force abortion activists into the uncomfortable position of having to defend sex discrimination in order to defend abortion. And, yes, I believed that if the resulting law were to save a single life, all the effort would be worthwhile.
I marshalled the evidence and prepared for the first committee hearing. I gave my presentation. And then, it happened. A pro-life legislator observed that the bill prohibiting sex-selective abortion was basically akin to a “hate crimes” law. He found this troubling, he said, because abortion is wrong in all cases. It isn’t more wrong because of the motivation behind it.
In the end, the committee tabled the bill, and to this day, I wonder if it may have been right to do so.
Here is the conundrum all pro-lifers face: We know that every intentional abortion is wrong. Each one is an injustice. But we find ourselves stuck in a culture that insists upon a logically and legally inconsistent treatment of the unborn. The same human being who could be the victim of a “homicide” if killed by a third party is simply the victim of his mother’s lawful “choice” if aborted the same day.
So in desperation, the pro-life movement looks for ways to capitalize on values our political opponents still share with us – like anti-discrimination – in constructing laws to protect life.
While we must continue to seek incremental legal restrictions on abortion, we must also beware of building a legal framework upon false moral principles. One abortion is not more wrong than another because it takes the life of a girl or a baby with Down syndrome.
We must remain faithful to the true foundation of the pro-life movement: that every human being, from the moment of conception, is precious and inherently valuable – an image-bearer of the Creator. The purity of this truth is our greatest strength.
When we measure the morality of abortion by characteristics of the unborn victims or the mother’s rationale, we imply approval of moral constructs that are fundamentally wrong: that class-based discrimination is a greater evil than the killing of innocents, and that the mother’s motivations are relevant to the morality of killing an unborn human being.
We must steadfastly advocate for the protection of all innocent, helpless human beings, regardless of their individual characteristics, the circumstances of their conception, their socio-economic status, or anyone’s subjective feelings about them.
