I think most frustrated non-woke people who use the r word would NEVER use it towards a person who had any real developmental difficulties. We are talking about people who have an impaired, delayed, developmentally insignificant moral framework. Their thinking, philosophy of life, moral center, and sense of their appropriate place in the world (which is to say, NOT the center of it) has been slowed down to such an extent that they seem incapable of progressing to becoming a fully actuated, morally mature, spiritually thoughtful person who is trying to do more good in the world than evil. The lack of self-reflection indicates a retarded sense of who they should be and as a result, they can never really become an adult.
Children, raising children, committing oneself to family life, is a way of the cross. It is my life for yours every day for the rest of your life. And finding joy in the sacrifice is a tiny way of understanding the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf.
I think the whole point of using it that way is to point out to people that 'to whom much has been given, much is required.' It's a shorthand way of saying, "You want to try again, and think this time?"
When I was in school, saying it to a kid who had real difficulties was the ultimate proof that you were scum. No decent person would say it to a kid like that.
"Augustus tried to pay Romans to have children, and the scheme worked as poorly then as it does now. They were, all of them, replaced by Christians, in part due to the simple expedient of Christians not leaving their infant daughters to die in the gutter. People willing to suffer material privation to bring children into the world will inevitably replace those who aren’t, and that ethic of sacrifice is one that must be cultivated through action."
What was Rome’s fertility rate for five hundred years of the republic? Why didn’t they need Christianity to be fertile while they were conquering the world?
The Ancient Greeks likely increased their population 400% during the expansion period. They settled the entire Mediterranean. No Christianity.
A friend of the family's daughter died yesterday. Three years old. She had a ton of complications and abnormalities on birth and they finally became overwhelming. The parents are crushed, and the mother said the worst feeling in the world was getting a full night's sleep because your child who needed constant care has passed away.
Normal parents don't go through this ghoulish utilitarian calculus. They see their child, and will gladly die for her.
1. Non-believers: People with Down’s Syndrome have testified that their lives are worthwhile and productive. Not just an abstract virtue, there is testimony and witness. Should it be ignored?
2. The comments are replete with anecdotes about prenatal tests that were wrong and the child was born without disabilities.
3. The people who scream about Nazis and fascism are gleefully on the slippery slope to eugenics. First those with ID. Next the elderly (usefulness exhausted). Then those with treatable diseases (too expensive). What makes you think you are safe from this mindset?
We seem to be obsessed with choice: our meticulous shopping habits, for example. And yet it also seems that the deepest meaning in our lives comes from our reconciliation with those things over which we have little power, things we might have never chosen had they not been forced on us. Children, affinities, disabilities, obligations, truths.
Monetizing life degrades life. The current MAIDS program in Canada proves that. Someone calculates the lifetime burden on the state and a gentle offering of death follows.
I also don’t know what it’s like to have a severely autistic child, one who will never be out of diapers and is extremely hard to handle. I wonder how many would choose to end a pregnancy if they knew, and I don’t say that in judgement at all. I know a family like this and it’s a daily struggle that’ll never improve. Downs children are lovable and can have a functioning life.
I fear we’re coming into a time that will test us as a people and if we’re not willing to sacrifice, we’re not going to come out too well.
My son, my only child, is severly autistic in the manner you describe. No speech, needs prompting for bathrooming and help with all basic needs.
He will likely never be useful in this world, but like the Librarian noted in this essay, there is so much Love. It's overwhelming. Certainly the love his Mother and I have for him but also the love he expresses for us and others in his life. His teachers, therapists, etc all invariably comment on how genuinely caring and loving he is.
During our hardest moments I have wished that I could take away his condition. However, in spite of our family's challenges, the daily struggle, the fear for his future; I know that my world and perhaps the greater world would be a far darker place without my son.
I have a severely disabled cousin and it is the same feeling. He’s really a wonder and can communicate much more than anyone outside of his family could understand. He is the hit of his group home. This is the part that the people who would have eliminated him leave out. I often wonder if God delivers these special people to the angels on earth who are the best to care for them.
You cannot choose MAID for someone else, just fyi — and it has nothing to do with money, much as those who are personally opposed to MAID try to argue against it by skewing presentation of its reality. It is a sober personal choice, available only to those who meet strict criteria and pass various levels of consent. There is a strong boundary of legislation (in my province at least, where two elders in my close circle have chosen it — I can only speak from personal experience) that ensures it is only administered in strict circumstances.
My cousin was a cerebral palsy quadraplegic. Tended to by her mother through adulthood. Died a bit on the younger side, but was loved by everyone and a mainstay of her church's congregation.
I sincerely pray that you find solace in your sacrifice. It seems to be visited upon us randomly, but maybe not. Perhaps you were called because you are worthy.
By “monetizing” you mean that other people should give you their tax dollars. Tax dollars for old people nursing homes. Tax dollars for DS kids. Etc.
Sorry, I don’t think there is anything noble about blowing six figures of the next generations wealth on keeping the reaper at bay a few more painful months.
It’s never “let me like my own decision of how to live my life”. It’s always “the system must subsidize me because I need it.”
Always a pleasure to get a new essay, especially on a lovely Friday afternoon, after I took my 4 burdens, I mean children swimming during lunch. Molech never disappeared, he just renamed himself Chief Justice Warren E. Burger
Not the same and I readily acknowledge that. My daughter's mom is a real piece of work. I was accused of child sex abuse with my daughter numerous times - damn DHR had a huge file on me. All BS, and daughter admitted as much each time - forced by mom to say things. So what does this have to do with topic at hand?
I went thru hell and the stress got me 3 heart surgeries and hundreds of thousands in legal bills. That all sucked. Nevertheless, if given option to do it all again I would easily say "Yes" faster than you can blink. I don't think the cost and effort of downs would be much worse than what I went thru...love is something else.
Never fear about losing subscribers when addressing a sensitive issue like this. If anything, it makes me more likely to continue as a subscriber. Christian or not, it is wrong to judge/measure a life in dollars. I agree completely with your assessment of the barrenness of our society. I believe there is something you haven't considered here, though. There is a very real decline in fertility that is related to the feminization of men and a precipitous decline in testosterone. Men are under attack. Not just by leftist feminism, but in a biological sense as well. I can't prove it, but I believe it's part of a deliberate plan to depopulate the planet. This is another reason why purely economic measures won't cure the problem. It certainly wouldn't hurt, and I'd always argue for more pro-family policies. I recommend Dr. Charles Cornish Dale's The Last Men: Liberalism and the Death of Masculinity for a deep dive into the fertility crisis mentioned above.
Utilitarianism is...well...retarded, and this is coming from a non-religious person. Life is a miracle, and people with down syndrome are not prevented by that fact alone from living rich and fulfilling lives. Tell me your kid has a 50% chance of becoming a living vegetable that can somehow scream the infinite sorrows of Dis, and I may hear your argument for abortion, but otherwise, no, I will not accept you aborting your kid because it will be a financial or emotional burden. Dont have kids if you cant shoulder it
Now, all this being said, I don't actually know how I would personally react in such a situation. I can theorize and moralize all day but reality doesn't care what you think, and sometimes even strong people are weak. Regardless, getting on your social media soapbox and telling everyone about it is pretty fucking gross
I agree. If you are middle class or better off, it’s hardly more expensive to raise a gifted kid or a Downs kid. Put all the math camp and college money into a long-term care trust.
I should hope you gain members (subscribers) rather than lose them. My kids have converted me in a quasi-religious fashion from the shallow self-centred pursuit of stuff to a man who understands a little of what you write. And understands more with every passing day I spend as a father. I have frequently remarked in recent years that I never really grasped to what the literary descriptions of transcendence were referring until my eldest child looked at me for the first time.
We've had 9 children. It's been the hardest thing I've ever done. You tell me it's worth it. Yes, for them. Mostly. But it's not Leave it to Beaver. It's a struggle. And what has it cost me? My entire life. Sunk Cost opportunities. A different life. Picture the Russian father in the movie, 2012. Near the end, he has to hurl his child up to the closing door. In the process he falls to his death. This is the more accurate picture of raising a family. It costs parents their lives.
I ask again, Was it worth it? Yes, but not for the reasons you think. For me, I know I've done my best to be obedient to God. I could have been much more selfish by limiting our children. Two girls and then a boy. "You've had your boy now. Are you done?" For many they said yes. God asked more of me. More of my wife. It hurts. Few support us. Most scoff: "You shouldn't have had so many then if it's such a struggle for you!" Perhaps they're right. But after choosing obedience instead of expedience, I never considered preventing the possibility of children. They have been a blessing (Psalm 127). They will be a blessing to others. They already are.
But never doubt just how much parents sacrifice and give up to do their best to raise children of character, children of faith.
The devotees of Moloch are exquisitely refined. They don’t tell you that when you read your bible, if you are so backwards as to think bronze age literature somehow an authority for modern people who follow the science. Yes, one might conclude that the compassionate class is always ready to destroy the innocent, but then that would be to presume moral categories that hardly qualify as anything more than unmitigated prejudice and hidden arrogations of power. Urban intellectuals with Ivy League degrees and the institutional powers that popularize acceptable orthodoxies worship the idol of convenience? Well, what of it? It is a most efficient transaction. And then, of course, this is all really just the logical extension of the Novum Organum.
Prosperity, health, safety, the proper calculus of pleasures and minimized pains, brutish nature made to serve Enlightened ends . . . the social contract may be a mythology, but it encapsulates a consensus that embraces both the masses and elites. And even if this sometimes has the appearance of relegating humanity to soft and manipulated consumers equally held by mind-forged manacles and totalitarian managerial bureaucracy, isn’t it preferable to the dark, superstitious ages where priests, kings, and warriors established hierarchies so opprobrious to the self-esteem of democratic sensibilities and egalitarian ideals?
Ours is an epoch of voluminous confession without repentance. The therapeutic age of emotive expression offers its own method for wiping the slate clean. Should life become overwhelming, some prospective child fall outside the mean range for acceptable life outcomes, or if some heretofore productive and happy lives become inefficient and unpleasant for folks who are currently happy and productive, there is the hygienic and properly institutionalized practice of euthanasia. One might even usefully rehabilitate organs no longer required for the maintenance of obsolete units. If one insists on moral rhetoric for mere quantitative analysis, all this is rational, is it not?
Naturally, everyone knows nostalgia for Christendom, civilization, and the like is just a fig leaf for racism. One cannot expect philosophical acumen or actual compassion from subhuman illiterates who vote for Trump, the great mass of unwashed that shop at Walmart, the members of the only race so privileged they are able to express their elite power by making victims of those who murder them.
I think one of the most seductive lies prevalent in our age is that abortion is simply a time machine. Don't like your baby? Poof! Try again! It's hidden so we can pretend it's easy, sanitary, risk-free, and even that it *eases suffering for the child.* For our enlightened, rational, scientific selves, it's pretty ironic how little we are willing to understand about fetal development and the risks of abortion procedures itself to a woman's health, if it gets in the way of the magical thinking we want to do.
(I wonder this about euthanasia too. Presented as peaceful, calm, quiet, without suffering. But we used to say the same about lethal injection as an execution method.)
Great as always! I like that you make the distinction between "burdens" and "dependents." Indeed, we are all depending on someone else. The quest for independence, to be "as gods," is alway futile at a certain point. We help those who depend on us, just as we accept the help of those on whom we depend. It's all one big circle of love and dependence that lifts us to greater heights of humanity community.
The discussion of mentally handicapped people is a nevertheless tough one. While you're right to point out that their existence doesn't necessarily inhibits one's ability to thrive and that the ones you know are pretty awesome, I think we have to sympathize with the parents forced to help their teenagers use the bathroom, relieve their chronic pain, and keep them out of harm's way. It's a huge ask for any parent, and I'd even say that public schools' one great virtue is that it provides special services to care for these kids.
Helen Andrews, of all people, talks about this. I think her sibling was mentally handicapped and she spoke of how hard it was. She wasn't arguing for eliminating them in utero, but she made the important point that people were having children later, which put them more at risk of having retarded children. This was why so many otherwise morally upright people supported a seemingly arbitrary 20-week abortion--by that time, they'd do if their baby was okay and they wanted to keep it.
By all means, we need to bring back the love, and disabled people play an important part in a humane society. But we should also acknowledge the challenges that come with this and maybe do more to help our neighbors.
"a fear born of a recognition of a viscerally unsettling kinship, that manifests as a kind of abuse." THIS. Exactly that. What an insightful essay - thank you.
I think most frustrated non-woke people who use the r word would NEVER use it towards a person who had any real developmental difficulties. We are talking about people who have an impaired, delayed, developmentally insignificant moral framework. Their thinking, philosophy of life, moral center, and sense of their appropriate place in the world (which is to say, NOT the center of it) has been slowed down to such an extent that they seem incapable of progressing to becoming a fully actuated, morally mature, spiritually thoughtful person who is trying to do more good in the world than evil. The lack of self-reflection indicates a retarded sense of who they should be and as a result, they can never really become an adult.
Children, raising children, committing oneself to family life, is a way of the cross. It is my life for yours every day for the rest of your life. And finding joy in the sacrifice is a tiny way of understanding the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf.
I call myself and my best friends retarded all the time, because from time to time, we are.
The ID guy who bags groceries at the local store? Never in a million years.
I think the whole point of using it that way is to point out to people that 'to whom much has been given, much is required.' It's a shorthand way of saying, "You want to try again, and think this time?"
When I was in school, saying it to a kid who had real difficulties was the ultimate proof that you were scum. No decent person would say it to a kid like that.
"A society that embraces the ethic of sacrifice is fertile in every sense." You said it. And it's all that need be said. TY
"Augustus tried to pay Romans to have children, and the scheme worked as poorly then as it does now. They were, all of them, replaced by Christians, in part due to the simple expedient of Christians not leaving their infant daughters to die in the gutter. People willing to suffer material privation to bring children into the world will inevitably replace those who aren’t, and that ethic of sacrifice is one that must be cultivated through action."
You got me, changed my mind. Thx.
Christians were known for rescuing babies abandoned by Romans and raising them.
Not killing their own girls and raising other’s girls meant they were exponentially more fruitful than the pagan and hedonistic Romans. A twofer.
Got the impression you were shouting when you wrote that.
I hope you are serious, because this is a profoundly serious point.
What was Rome’s fertility rate for five hundred years of the republic? Why didn’t they need Christianity to be fertile while they were conquering the world?
The Ancient Greeks likely increased their population 400% during the expansion period. They settled the entire Mediterranean. No Christianity.
A friend of the family's daughter died yesterday. Three years old. She had a ton of complications and abnormalities on birth and they finally became overwhelming. The parents are crushed, and the mother said the worst feeling in the world was getting a full night's sleep because your child who needed constant care has passed away.
Normal parents don't go through this ghoulish utilitarian calculus. They see their child, and will gladly die for her.
1. Non-believers: People with Down’s Syndrome have testified that their lives are worthwhile and productive. Not just an abstract virtue, there is testimony and witness. Should it be ignored?
2. The comments are replete with anecdotes about prenatal tests that were wrong and the child was born without disabilities.
3. The people who scream about Nazis and fascism are gleefully on the slippery slope to eugenics. First those with ID. Next the elderly (usefulness exhausted). Then those with treatable diseases (too expensive). What makes you think you are safe from this mindset?
We seem to be obsessed with choice: our meticulous shopping habits, for example. And yet it also seems that the deepest meaning in our lives comes from our reconciliation with those things over which we have little power, things we might have never chosen had they not been forced on us. Children, affinities, disabilities, obligations, truths.
We are built for duty. To faithfully discharge your duty is to be free of overwhelming choice, to have a mapped course through a featureless desert.
Monetizing life degrades life. The current MAIDS program in Canada proves that. Someone calculates the lifetime burden on the state and a gentle offering of death follows.
I also don’t know what it’s like to have a severely autistic child, one who will never be out of diapers and is extremely hard to handle. I wonder how many would choose to end a pregnancy if they knew, and I don’t say that in judgement at all. I know a family like this and it’s a daily struggle that’ll never improve. Downs children are lovable and can have a functioning life.
I fear we’re coming into a time that will test us as a people and if we’re not willing to sacrifice, we’re not going to come out too well.
You put your finger right on it.
My son, my only child, is severly autistic in the manner you describe. No speech, needs prompting for bathrooming and help with all basic needs.
He will likely never be useful in this world, but like the Librarian noted in this essay, there is so much Love. It's overwhelming. Certainly the love his Mother and I have for him but also the love he expresses for us and others in his life. His teachers, therapists, etc all invariably comment on how genuinely caring and loving he is.
During our hardest moments I have wished that I could take away his condition. However, in spite of our family's challenges, the daily struggle, the fear for his future; I know that my world and perhaps the greater world would be a far darker place without my son.
I have a severely disabled cousin and it is the same feeling. He’s really a wonder and can communicate much more than anyone outside of his family could understand. He is the hit of his group home. This is the part that the people who would have eliminated him leave out. I often wonder if God delivers these special people to the angels on earth who are the best to care for them.
You cannot choose MAID for someone else, just fyi — and it has nothing to do with money, much as those who are personally opposed to MAID try to argue against it by skewing presentation of its reality. It is a sober personal choice, available only to those who meet strict criteria and pass various levels of consent. There is a strong boundary of legislation (in my province at least, where two elders in my close circle have chosen it — I can only speak from personal experience) that ensures it is only administered in strict circumstances.
My cousin was a cerebral palsy quadraplegic. Tended to by her mother through adulthood. Died a bit on the younger side, but was loved by everyone and a mainstay of her church's congregation.
I sincerely pray that you find solace in your sacrifice. It seems to be visited upon us randomly, but maybe not. Perhaps you were called because you are worthy.
Sorry, not being sarcastic, I initially read your post as having a severely autistic child. My mistake.
Your words were very kind.
By “monetizing” you mean that other people should give you their tax dollars. Tax dollars for old people nursing homes. Tax dollars for DS kids. Etc.
Sorry, I don’t think there is anything noble about blowing six figures of the next generations wealth on keeping the reaper at bay a few more painful months.
It’s never “let me like my own decision of how to live my life”. It’s always “the system must subsidize me because I need it.”
Magnificent essay.
Always a pleasure to get a new essay, especially on a lovely Friday afternoon, after I took my 4 burdens, I mean children swimming during lunch. Molech never disappeared, he just renamed himself Chief Justice Warren E. Burger
Not the same and I readily acknowledge that. My daughter's mom is a real piece of work. I was accused of child sex abuse with my daughter numerous times - damn DHR had a huge file on me. All BS, and daughter admitted as much each time - forced by mom to say things. So what does this have to do with topic at hand?
I went thru hell and the stress got me 3 heart surgeries and hundreds of thousands in legal bills. That all sucked. Nevertheless, if given option to do it all again I would easily say "Yes" faster than you can blink. I don't think the cost and effort of downs would be much worse than what I went thru...love is something else.
Never fear about losing subscribers when addressing a sensitive issue like this. If anything, it makes me more likely to continue as a subscriber. Christian or not, it is wrong to judge/measure a life in dollars. I agree completely with your assessment of the barrenness of our society. I believe there is something you haven't considered here, though. There is a very real decline in fertility that is related to the feminization of men and a precipitous decline in testosterone. Men are under attack. Not just by leftist feminism, but in a biological sense as well. I can't prove it, but I believe it's part of a deliberate plan to depopulate the planet. This is another reason why purely economic measures won't cure the problem. It certainly wouldn't hurt, and I'd always argue for more pro-family policies. I recommend Dr. Charles Cornish Dale's The Last Men: Liberalism and the Death of Masculinity for a deep dive into the fertility crisis mentioned above.
Utilitarianism is...well...retarded, and this is coming from a non-religious person. Life is a miracle, and people with down syndrome are not prevented by that fact alone from living rich and fulfilling lives. Tell me your kid has a 50% chance of becoming a living vegetable that can somehow scream the infinite sorrows of Dis, and I may hear your argument for abortion, but otherwise, no, I will not accept you aborting your kid because it will be a financial or emotional burden. Dont have kids if you cant shoulder it
Now, all this being said, I don't actually know how I would personally react in such a situation. I can theorize and moralize all day but reality doesn't care what you think, and sometimes even strong people are weak. Regardless, getting on your social media soapbox and telling everyone about it is pretty fucking gross
I agree. If you are middle class or better off, it’s hardly more expensive to raise a gifted kid or a Downs kid. Put all the math camp and college money into a long-term care trust.
I should hope you gain members (subscribers) rather than lose them. My kids have converted me in a quasi-religious fashion from the shallow self-centred pursuit of stuff to a man who understands a little of what you write. And understands more with every passing day I spend as a father. I have frequently remarked in recent years that I never really grasped to what the literary descriptions of transcendence were referring until my eldest child looked at me for the first time.
We've had 9 children. It's been the hardest thing I've ever done. You tell me it's worth it. Yes, for them. Mostly. But it's not Leave it to Beaver. It's a struggle. And what has it cost me? My entire life. Sunk Cost opportunities. A different life. Picture the Russian father in the movie, 2012. Near the end, he has to hurl his child up to the closing door. In the process he falls to his death. This is the more accurate picture of raising a family. It costs parents their lives.
I ask again, Was it worth it? Yes, but not for the reasons you think. For me, I know I've done my best to be obedient to God. I could have been much more selfish by limiting our children. Two girls and then a boy. "You've had your boy now. Are you done?" For many they said yes. God asked more of me. More of my wife. It hurts. Few support us. Most scoff: "You shouldn't have had so many then if it's such a struggle for you!" Perhaps they're right. But after choosing obedience instead of expedience, I never considered preventing the possibility of children. They have been a blessing (Psalm 127). They will be a blessing to others. They already are.
But never doubt just how much parents sacrifice and give up to do their best to raise children of character, children of faith.
The devotees of Moloch are exquisitely refined. They don’t tell you that when you read your bible, if you are so backwards as to think bronze age literature somehow an authority for modern people who follow the science. Yes, one might conclude that the compassionate class is always ready to destroy the innocent, but then that would be to presume moral categories that hardly qualify as anything more than unmitigated prejudice and hidden arrogations of power. Urban intellectuals with Ivy League degrees and the institutional powers that popularize acceptable orthodoxies worship the idol of convenience? Well, what of it? It is a most efficient transaction. And then, of course, this is all really just the logical extension of the Novum Organum.
Prosperity, health, safety, the proper calculus of pleasures and minimized pains, brutish nature made to serve Enlightened ends . . . the social contract may be a mythology, but it encapsulates a consensus that embraces both the masses and elites. And even if this sometimes has the appearance of relegating humanity to soft and manipulated consumers equally held by mind-forged manacles and totalitarian managerial bureaucracy, isn’t it preferable to the dark, superstitious ages where priests, kings, and warriors established hierarchies so opprobrious to the self-esteem of democratic sensibilities and egalitarian ideals?
Ours is an epoch of voluminous confession without repentance. The therapeutic age of emotive expression offers its own method for wiping the slate clean. Should life become overwhelming, some prospective child fall outside the mean range for acceptable life outcomes, or if some heretofore productive and happy lives become inefficient and unpleasant for folks who are currently happy and productive, there is the hygienic and properly institutionalized practice of euthanasia. One might even usefully rehabilitate organs no longer required for the maintenance of obsolete units. If one insists on moral rhetoric for mere quantitative analysis, all this is rational, is it not?
Naturally, everyone knows nostalgia for Christendom, civilization, and the like is just a fig leaf for racism. One cannot expect philosophical acumen or actual compassion from subhuman illiterates who vote for Trump, the great mass of unwashed that shop at Walmart, the members of the only race so privileged they are able to express their elite power by making victims of those who murder them.
I think one of the most seductive lies prevalent in our age is that abortion is simply a time machine. Don't like your baby? Poof! Try again! It's hidden so we can pretend it's easy, sanitary, risk-free, and even that it *eases suffering for the child.* For our enlightened, rational, scientific selves, it's pretty ironic how little we are willing to understand about fetal development and the risks of abortion procedures itself to a woman's health, if it gets in the way of the magical thinking we want to do.
(I wonder this about euthanasia too. Presented as peaceful, calm, quiet, without suffering. But we used to say the same about lethal injection as an execution method.)
Great as always! I like that you make the distinction between "burdens" and "dependents." Indeed, we are all depending on someone else. The quest for independence, to be "as gods," is alway futile at a certain point. We help those who depend on us, just as we accept the help of those on whom we depend. It's all one big circle of love and dependence that lifts us to greater heights of humanity community.
The discussion of mentally handicapped people is a nevertheless tough one. While you're right to point out that their existence doesn't necessarily inhibits one's ability to thrive and that the ones you know are pretty awesome, I think we have to sympathize with the parents forced to help their teenagers use the bathroom, relieve their chronic pain, and keep them out of harm's way. It's a huge ask for any parent, and I'd even say that public schools' one great virtue is that it provides special services to care for these kids.
Helen Andrews, of all people, talks about this. I think her sibling was mentally handicapped and she spoke of how hard it was. She wasn't arguing for eliminating them in utero, but she made the important point that people were having children later, which put them more at risk of having retarded children. This was why so many otherwise morally upright people supported a seemingly arbitrary 20-week abortion--by that time, they'd do if their baby was okay and they wanted to keep it.
By all means, we need to bring back the love, and disabled people play an important part in a humane society. But we should also acknowledge the challenges that come with this and maybe do more to help our neighbors.
"a fear born of a recognition of a viscerally unsettling kinship, that manifests as a kind of abuse." THIS. Exactly that. What an insightful essay - thank you.