“If a child is diagnosed with Down syndrome or other conditions in the womb, it is better to get an abortion.”
Many abortion advocates, and even some who loosely consider themselves pro-life, believe that it should be legal to abort a baby if there is a negative prenatal diagnosis.
One such example has recently gone viral online.
Jesse Ridgway, a YouTuber with more than 4,000,000 subscribers, posted on X giving a long explanation for why he and his wife had their child aborted.
He explained that the baby was diagnosed with Trisomy 21, also known as Down syndrome. He listed statics about how some children with Down syndrome have heart problems, hearing issues, or learning challenges. He mentions that they spoke with doctors who told him 90% of their patients who had children with Down syndrome chose to abort them.
Throughout the post, which has now been seen over 2,700,000 times on X, he attempted to frame the decision to kill his child as the merciful option for the child.
But so-called mercy killing is not merciful at all.
Let’s break down the logic here step by step to show the grave error.
- A child with a condition like Down syndrome may suffer in the future in ways that other people do not.
- To prevent future suffering, a parent chooses to intentionally, premeditatedly, and proactively kill their child.
- The child does not suffer in the future because they have no future, instead they suffer now, facing a brutal death via abortion.
How could it possibly be merciful, loving, or just to kill someone so that they don’t suffer? Is this something that they would support outside of the womb?
Killing people because they are different is literally eugenics. It is to say that they may be human, but they aren’t human enough. They aren’t smart enough, or fast enough, or strong enough. “They aren’t as good as me, so I get to kill them” is the argument of the eugenicist.
If this “logic” justifies the killing of innocent children in the womb, why does it not also justify the killing of innocent people outside of the womb? If a caregiver decides that an elderly patient with dementia is no longer good enough, can they kill them? If a person loses their job and will soon lose their house and car, can we preemptively kill them so that they don’t suffer homelessness?
Killing a child simply because he or she has a diagnosis of Down syndrome is lethal discrimination. It is eugenics.
The viral post said, “To all of my fans who have weighed in on this topic who have Autism, Down Syndrome or any other conditions…we appreciate you.”
But this statement cannot possibly be true in light of his decision. How could he appreciate his fans with Down syndrome? He just killed his own child purely because he or she was diagnosed with Down syndrome.
We have the right to life not because of what we can do, but because of what we are.
Devaluing life does not happen in a vacuum. The normalization of eugenic mercy killing in the womb will not stay in the womb.
Defending Life,
Victor Nieves
President, Life Issues Institute
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