The phrase “life changes in an instant” sounds so cliché. Until it does. A phone call. A doctor’s visit. A diagnosis proclaiming an unthinkable future. Where do you put your trust? Faith? Medicine? Supreme Court rulings?
When modern medicine peeks into the womb and sees a deformity it can’t fix, it’s only answer is to destroy it–even when the child is wanted. Why would a doctor pressure an expectant mother to abort her child against her wishes? The answer might surprise you. Eugenics. A philosophy deeply embedded in American culture and medicine.
Supreme Court Justice Thomas recently took several pages of footnotes to explain the history of eugenics and how it is entrenched in racism. Planned Parenthood was founded on its ideals of creating a superior race through birth control, and now, abortion.
Justice Thomas explained, that it was on the centennial anniversary of a 1907 sterilization law, Sex Selection and Disability Abortion Ban attempted to right a historical wrong. At the same time the Indiana legislature adopted a resolution formally “expressing its regret over Indiana’s role in the eugenics movement” and the injustices done under eugenic laws. They recognized and acknowleged that laws implementing eugenic goals “targeted the most vulnerable among us.”
Young Families
Who might that be you ask? The poor, disabled, minorities, and “undesirable” children.
Planned Parenthood pounced in opposition on the new law that would put an end abortions on demand solely due to the child’s race, disability, or sex. The fight went to the Supreme Court. The Court upheld only part of the Indiana law and denied to hear the second part of their petition. Justice Thomas wrote about his concerns of the use of eugenics in America today and explained why the court would have to visit the subject in the future. But first, Americans needed time to think about the subject.
Justice Thomas’s wrote:
“I write separately to address the other aspect of Indiana law at issue here—the “Sex Selective and Disability Abortion Ban.” This statute makes it illegal for an abortion provider to perform an abortion in Indiana when the provider knows that the mother is seeking the abortion solely because of the child’s race, sex, diagnosis of Down syndrome, disability, or related characteristics. The law requires that the mother be advised of this restriction and GIVEN INFORMATION about financial assistance and adoption alternatives.” He goes on to say, that the law prevents them from becoming the sole criterion for deciding whether the child will live or die. Put differently, this law and other laws like it promote a State’s compelling interest in preventing abortion from becoming a tool of modern-day eugenics. The goal of abortion is not hypothetical. Foundations for using abortion for eugenic goals were laid during the early 20th century.”
Eugenics affects families when they are most vulnerable.
Like most mothers, Julie went to her routine prenatal doctor appointment and without question submitted to all of the routine tests. She, like most of us, never asked what they were actually testing for. She simply trusted her doctor to do what is best for her and her unborn baby.
As Julie sat in her obstetrician’s office, the doctor explained that her 18-week-old baby had the chromosome disorder Trisomy 13. All she could think of was Downs Syndrome. The children she knew with Downs were some of the sweetest kids she ever met, she thought to herself as the doctor spoke. So the news didn’t rattle her until the doctor used the term “incompatible with life” and set up an appointment with a specialist.
As she left the office her doctor followed her into the waiting room, where her composure melted into a pile of tears. Her kind and compassionate doctor hugged her and said,
“Doctors aren’t gods. Even though sometimes we think we are. I’m praying that this child will survive.”
The Push to Abort
Between the blood tests and 3D ultrasounds it was clear that Julie’s baby had extra fingers, on both hands, no ears, a cyst and water on his brain, abnormal kidneys and what seemed to be a very large head. The conversation turned to how many days before they could “take care of it.”
Of course, coming from her doctor, Julie assumed he meant a proceedure that would cure her baby boy. But, of course, there is no medicine to heal a chromosome abnormality.
The doctor pressed, “You don’t have much time for us to take care of this in the state. We will have to go out of state to terminate.” It seemed unconscionable to her physician that she would consider carrying a child to term that was so disfigured, and would have no chance to live –only to watch him die. Every visit became an agrument over aborting her baby.
If the only time I have with this child is when I carry him, then I will cherish every minute.
Julie refused to return to that doctor until it was almost time for the baby to be born.
As long as she could feel that little boy inside her. She still loved him. She bought the softest blanket she could find. If he was only going to live a few hours, he was going to spend it in a soft blanket— in his mother’s arms.
Turning Point
She became hyper aware of every movement. And learned to appreciate her pregnancy rather than complain of her aches and pains.
She could see his foot, as it pressed against her tummy. She held it. Thinking this was the only time she would have him.
At one of her last visits, the ultra sound told a different story. To the doctor’s amazment, all he could say was, “It looks as if it has resolved itself.” Julie’s husband stood up. All six foot four of him and said, “It resolved alright. But it didn’t resolve itself. Prayer resolved it.”
At that point there was still water on his brain, and they could still see kidney issues. But this boy was going to be born. Each ultra sound afterwords showed the progression of healing.
When Jonah was born a swarm of medical personall swept him up and whisked him away for examination and observation. They were ready for the worst. What they found was a perfectly healthy baby boy.
A few weeks later Julie ran into a pastor who had prayed for Jonah and his parents. As he reached down an touched his ear— and said this ear is a sign of what could have been— but what God did. It was at that moment that Julie realized that her baby’s ear was slightly deformed, it had the marking of a Trisome 13 baby.
What Kind of a Culture Do You Want to Live in?
Like many elites — still today— the founder of planned parenthood Margaret Sanger believed that birth control— or controlling births— was “the most adequate and thorough avenue to the solution of racial, political, and social problems.” Although Jonah is now a grown healthy man, at one time he was one of the targets Justice Thomas was referring to. His life, in the view of the eugenist, should have been terminated before he had a chance to live.
Julie’s family relied on their faith to see them through a terrifying time of unknowns. As a society, we have to decide what kind of culture we want to live in. One where the laws of the land protect the innocent and the vulnerable or one that seeks to better itself by eleminating anyone who is “undesirable.”
