Down syndrome child is Gerber’s “Spokesbaby of the year”

Congress voted early this morning to reopen the federal government by passing a $400 billion budget deal. Meanwhile, the Winter Olympics opening ceremony began in South Korea just a few minutes ago.

These events are leading the news, but I want to focus on a completely different story.

Lucas Warren is eighteen months old and lives in Dalton, Georgia. He was chosen this week to be Gerber’s new “Spokesbaby of the year.” Lucas was selected from more than 140,000 entries in the company’s photo search contest.

He is the first child with Down syndrome to be chosen.

As Nick Pitts notes, Lucas would probably have been aborted if his parents lived in the Netherlands. Their termination rate for babies with Downs is between 74 percent and 94 percent.

In Denmark, the abortion rate for Down syndrome babies is 98 percent. As much as 80 percent of the Danish population is irreligious. Here’s my question: Should not such a secular culture be especially committed to the value of this life since they don’t believe in the life to come?

My son Ryan and I were discussing this subject and he asked the converse question, “Why would we mourn death if we don’t value life?” If life has no intrinsic meaning, why would death matter?

Ryan noted that Christians don’t fear death because we value the life to come. We know that death is not the end of life but the beginning of its next stage. That’s why Scripture teaches, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints” (Psalm 116:15).

“Make me know my end”

Genesis 3 records the banishment of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden after their sin. The Lord sent Adam from the garden “lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever” (v. 22).

Being barred from the tree of life was not an act of punishment; God’s purpose was to keep humans from living forever in our fallen bodies and broken world. Would you want to spend eternity in your body as it…