This is another book review!
Book: Defiant Birth: Women Who Resist Medical Eugenics
Author: Melinda Tankard Reist
Section of review: Introduction
I am doing this in parts as I finish various parts of the book. I have not read all the stories, yet, but I wanted to comment first on the Introduction to the book, which reveals the current attitudes, legislation, and culture around pregnancy, abortion and disabled children. Much of the Introduction deals more specifically with Australian and European prejudices, but the United States is sprinkled in there, too.
While I have a lot to say about abortion in general, that is not the point of this book. This book proposes that there is a deep-seated prejudice in society against people that are disabled and not just about bearing disabled children. Her Introduction makes a very good case for this, filled with references, personal communications and personal experiences. Certainly in my own experience I have seen this over and over, too. She points out that people are indoctrinated to the idea that you are doing society, and the unborn child, a favor by aborting them.
She points out that disabled people do not wish they had been aborted! Many of them have happy lives despite the challenges and prejudice they face. (Indeed, in my own experience, I have known many more "normal" people that have committed suicide than disabled people!) She uses the perspective of a woman with Turner's Syndrome as an example of this on pg. 59.
She also notes that doctors make women think that their babies will hate them if they do have them. I have seen this idea played out on TV shows several times, particularly in the case of Huntington's Disease. They make it look like all children will hate the parent that has it and gave it to them, which isn't the truth in many cases!
Then, when it really gets down to the motivations in society to prevent disabled children from being born, it isn't really based on some benevolent desire to shield the mother or the child from suffering or abuse, but to "clean up" society. It is the ultimate form of discrimination - killing the "problem" individual before they are considered to have rights by the government.
Indeed, the only people that seem to think that disabled people shouldn't exist are the ones without disabilities. Even God doesn't think that is right, or He wouldn't keep making them! Who is a mere man to say that the diversity God places on this earth and the baby He makes to grow in the womb isn't just as important (and perhaps more so*) as any other person? Reist includes a quote on this matter that I really loved. I will quote page 60 from her book to share it:
"When a hearing parent said, 'I have the right to want surgery for my child which will make him more like me, a hearing person,' Gary Malkowski, then legislator in Ontario, Canada, replied, 'Then presumably you have no objection to deaf parents requesting surgery to make their child deaf' (in Campbell, 2000, p. 209)."
So here we come to the part of this review that deals with my own beliefs. When a child is born with a handicap, perhaps it is better to let them live with it, too. Perhaps not. But only prayerful consideration of the benefits of having a disability can guide a parent to the right course of action. A particular disability might be a cornerstone for the sanctification of that individual through his or her life.
This is not an objective review at all, since I have strong convictions about the rights of the unborn and the rights of all the individuals God has made. And this leads me to sharing one of my more controversial ideas. So, if you have made it this far into my wall of text, you get to hear one of my crazy ideas.
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*I believe that Isaac (the son of Abraham) was a Down's baby. Hear me out for a moment.
Isaac was born to Sarah when she was very old - even after she had gone through menopause. So, statically, that is a high probability just from a "random chance" point of view, though I don't think there was anything random about it. After she had him, his older brother would make fun of him all the time (not something that is mentioned anywhere else in the Bible with regard to siblings). consider also that Abraham was very worried that he wouldn't be able to find a wife for Isaac even though he was very, very rich. When he sent his servant to find one, even his servant asked God to show him who would be a good wife for such a man. I think the servants "test" was a way to find out if she could handle being a Down's' wife. Additionally, Isaac was a very docile, trusting and naive person. When you look at the stories about him, from the way he let himself be laid on the wood to be sacrificed by his father to the way his son Jacob was able to trick him into giving him the blessing, all of them point to him behaving like a man with Down's Syndrome.
To me this is an amazing and wonderful revelation! Not only does this mean that God plans for such people to be born, but that He considers such babies to be worthy of being the fulfillment of His promise! Isaac was the promised child that God would bless!! Wow! And when you look at the way the Bible talks about Isaac, it is clear that God found him to be a righteous man. And what makes a man righteous? Believing God! (Gen 15:6 and Rom 4:3) I might even venture to say that people with Down's Syndrome have an easier time with believing God because He has made them to have more faith than the rest of us!
I never considered it until several years ago when the Lord asked me if I would accept any baby He would give me - even one that had Down's Syndrome. That is when He showed me Isaac. While the Bible doesn't say anywhere that Isaac had this condition, I have come to believe that it was so. So, yes, Lord, I will accept your Isaac!
_____________________________
My husband reminds me that some people will be very offended by me saying that Isaac was a person with Down's since it implies that a whole race of people are "defective". Just the fact that people would be offended because of that very prejudice way of thinking of another human being is pretty telling and further confirms Reist's assertion that our society would euthanize all disabled people via the practice of eugenics. If God made Isaac a disabled human being, then what does that say about our cultural values and societal practices of aborting them?
Book: Defiant Birth: Women Who Resist Medical Eugenics
Author: Melinda Tankard Reist
Section of review: Introduction
I am doing this in parts as I finish various parts of the book. I have not read all the stories, yet, but I wanted to comment first on the Introduction to the book, which reveals the current attitudes, legislation, and culture around pregnancy, abortion and disabled children. Much of the Introduction deals more specifically with Australian and European prejudices, but the United States is sprinkled in there, too.
While I have a lot to say about abortion in general, that is not the point of this book. This book proposes that there is a deep-seated prejudice in society against people that are disabled and not just about bearing disabled children. Her Introduction makes a very good case for this, filled with references, personal communications and personal experiences. Certainly in my own experience I have seen this over and over, too. She points out that people are indoctrinated to the idea that you are doing society, and the unborn child, a favor by aborting them.
She points out that disabled people do not wish they had been aborted! Many of them have happy lives despite the challenges and prejudice they face. (Indeed, in my own experience, I have known many more "normal" people that have committed suicide than disabled people!) She uses the perspective of a woman with Turner's Syndrome as an example of this on pg. 59.
She also notes that doctors make women think that their babies will hate them if they do have them. I have seen this idea played out on TV shows several times, particularly in the case of Huntington's Disease. They make it look like all children will hate the parent that has it and gave it to them, which isn't the truth in many cases!
Then, when it really gets down to the motivations in society to prevent disabled children from being born, it isn't really based on some benevolent desire to shield the mother or the child from suffering or abuse, but to "clean up" society. It is the ultimate form of discrimination - killing the "problem" individual before they are considered to have rights by the government.
Indeed, the only people that seem to think that disabled people shouldn't exist are the ones without disabilities. Even God doesn't think that is right, or He wouldn't keep making them! Who is a mere man to say that the diversity God places on this earth and the baby He makes to grow in the womb isn't just as important (and perhaps more so*) as any other person? Reist includes a quote on this matter that I really loved. I will quote page 60 from her book to share it:
"When a hearing parent said, 'I have the right to want surgery for my child which will make him more like me, a hearing person,' Gary Malkowski, then legislator in Ontario, Canada, replied, 'Then presumably you have no objection to deaf parents requesting surgery to make their child deaf' (in Campbell, 2000, p. 209)."
So here we come to the part of this review that deals with my own beliefs. When a child is born with a handicap, perhaps it is better to let them live with it, too. Perhaps not. But only prayerful consideration of the benefits of having a disability can guide a parent to the right course of action. A particular disability might be a cornerstone for the sanctification of that individual through his or her life.
This is not an objective review at all, since I have strong convictions about the rights of the unborn and the rights of all the individuals God has made. And this leads me to sharing one of my more controversial ideas. So, if you have made it this far into my wall of text, you get to hear one of my crazy ideas.
________________________________
*I believe that Isaac (the son of Abraham) was a Down's baby. Hear me out for a moment.
Isaac was born to Sarah when she was very old - even after she had gone through menopause. So, statically, that is a high probability just from a "random chance" point of view, though I don't think there was anything random about it. After she had him, his older brother would make fun of him all the time (not something that is mentioned anywhere else in the Bible with regard to siblings). consider also that Abraham was very worried that he wouldn't be able to find a wife for Isaac even though he was very, very rich. When he sent his servant to find one, even his servant asked God to show him who would be a good wife for such a man. I think the servants "test" was a way to find out if she could handle being a Down's' wife. Additionally, Isaac was a very docile, trusting and naive person. When you look at the stories about him, from the way he let himself be laid on the wood to be sacrificed by his father to the way his son Jacob was able to trick him into giving him the blessing, all of them point to him behaving like a man with Down's Syndrome.
To me this is an amazing and wonderful revelation! Not only does this mean that God plans for such people to be born, but that He considers such babies to be worthy of being the fulfillment of His promise! Isaac was the promised child that God would bless!! Wow! And when you look at the way the Bible talks about Isaac, it is clear that God found him to be a righteous man. And what makes a man righteous? Believing God! (Gen 15:6 and Rom 4:3) I might even venture to say that people with Down's Syndrome have an easier time with believing God because He has made them to have more faith than the rest of us!
I never considered it until several years ago when the Lord asked me if I would accept any baby He would give me - even one that had Down's Syndrome. That is when He showed me Isaac. While the Bible doesn't say anywhere that Isaac had this condition, I have come to believe that it was so. So, yes, Lord, I will accept your Isaac!
_____________________________
My husband reminds me that some people will be very offended by me saying that Isaac was a person with Down's since it implies that a whole race of people are "defective". Just the fact that people would be offended because of that very prejudice way of thinking of another human being is pretty telling and further confirms Reist's assertion that our society would euthanize all disabled people via the practice of eugenics. If God made Isaac a disabled human being, then what does that say about our cultural values and societal practices of aborting them?
