Should babies with Down syndrome be aborted?

“If anyone has ever had the arms of a Down syndrome child or adult wrapped around your necks, you will know that you have encountered profound love that comes from the heart.” So states a Kentucky legislator in supporting a law banning abortions involving a fetus with Down syndrome if the diagnosis is the reason for ending a pregnancy.

Indiana and Ohio have already passed such bills, though a federal judge has temporarily blocked Ohio’s law from taking effect. Last Monday, the Pennsylvania House passed its own bill to ban such abortions. The bill passed with bipartisan support in a 139-56 vote.

If the bill passes in the Senate, it faces an expected veto from Gov. Tom Wolf.

In Iceland, nearly 100 percent of women who discover their unborn child has Down syndrome choose to abort their baby. In Denmark, the abortion rate for unborn babies with Down syndrome is 98 percent. The abortion rate in the US for such babies is 67 percent.

Famous people with inherited challenges

Since I believe life begins at conception and is sacred from that moment to natural death, obviously I oppose the decision to abort a child. Let’s consider this issue in the context of congenital conditions.

Imagine a world in which we abort all babies who have such conditions. Wikipedia lists 127 congenital disorders. Some famous people who may have inherited physical challenges include Frederic Chopin (cystic fibrosis), Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, and Thomas Edison (Asperger’s syndrome), and Abraham Lincoln (Marfan syndrome). Olympic gold medalist Shaun White, Super Bowl winner Tedy Bruschi, Pro Bowl football player Steve Hutchinson, and Arnold Schwarzenegger were born with congenital heart disease.

Brynjar Karl Bigisson was ten years old when he constructed the world’s largest Titanic model built with Legos. The Iceland native spent eleven months creating the replica. It stands twenty-six feet long, five feet tall, and four feet wide. He used fifty-six thousand Legos…