What I'm about to share is something I posted on Instagram just a few short minutes ago. Admittedly, I texted my husband and a few close friends with the words "the day I blew up my IG account."
I was shaking a little as I hit "post" when my daughter Abigail walked in the room... "Why are you shaking ??" she asked with a worried look in her eyes.
The truth is, I do not like confrontation. Ask my friends. I am the last person on the planet to look someone squarely in the eye and say "this is not okay." If Sam has been known by some of our family members as "Confrontational Conrad", I should probably be called "Get Along Gertrude." I don't do controversy well.
However......
Lily's t-shirt inspired me today.
So here we go.
Someone directed me to an article on Yahoo the other day entitled "Why I Terminated My Pregnancy After Learning My Baby Had Down Syndrome." The article was filled with all kinds of matter-of-fact justifications for why someone chose to make the "difficult decision" to end her child's life.
If someone wants to explain that they are not comfortable with raising a child with challenges because to do so would be a burden to THEM, that's their choice. I don't agree with it and I will never agree with it, but it is their choice.
However – don't try to tell me that you were doing the "best thing for your child" by terminating their life. And don't try to justify your actions by saying that there is such a broad scope of functionality when it comes to people with Down syndrome – that not knowing where your unborn child would fall on that scope means your decision to end their life is reasonable. Or selfless. Let's be real.
"Typical" people have various levels of functionality. I know people with the "right amount of chromosomes" who struggle every day of their lives. So which one of them is not worthy of life? Which one of them should have been terminated ? Because after all, we don't want to burden them with such a heavy thing as life.
If I sound passionate – I am.
Because I live every day with a little girl who is anything but a burden. Every single day I bear witness to the fact that different does not automatically mean difficult. And the longer we let others boldly proclaim that an unborn baby with Down syndrome was justifiably terminated, the longer my little girl faces a world that is hostile at worst and ignorant at best.
Because I live every day with a little girl who is anything but a burden. Every single day I bear witness to the fact that different does not automatically mean difficult. And the longer we let others boldly proclaim that an unborn baby with Down syndrome was justifiably terminated, the longer my little girl faces a world that is hostile at worst and ignorant at best.
Any one of us at any point in our lives could become a burden to others. We have no guarantees. At what point do we stop saying that life is only valuable when it is not a (perceived) burden? When do we stop playing God and stop making ourselves the sole arbitrators of who is worthy of life and who is not?
I can't sit quietly by and listen to or read that message - that a baby with special needs is better off dead - and not lift my voice in protest. If that offends some, so be it.
Come look into my little girl's eyes and tell me she isn't worthy of life.
