The following comes from a November 27 story in Catholic World Report.
In September 2012, a new blood test that screens preborn babies for Down syndrome was put on the market in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Lichtenstein by LifeCodexx, the biotech business that developed it. Kurt Kondrich, whose 9-year-old daughter Chloe has Down syndrome, responded to the news in an article entitled “The Silent Repeat of Eugenic History” that was originally posted by RenewAmerica* and reprinted by American Life League at www.all.org.
The new prenatal test is “targeted exclusively toward women in their 12th week of pregnancy and beyond who are at an increased risk” of having a child born with Down syndrome, and the reality of this test is that it places unborn children with Down syndrome at a higher risk of abortion. “In the near future, the PrenaTest will also be able to identify other chromosomal mutations such as trisomy 13 and 18,” said Dr. Michael Lutz, CEO of LifeCodexx, and the goal seems to be a society free of … “imperfections”.
Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Archbishop of Vienna, criticized the test by stating: “The issue here is artificial selection or eugenics, pure and simple. Is the infernal expression ‘life not worth living’ going to become reality again?”
The German Down Syndrome Information Centre sums up the issue well: “People with trisomy 21 will, in the long run, be the first people with a different genetic makeup to disappear from our society, and with the tacit approval of the majority.” Eugenic history in German-speaking Europe is recent and very well documented, and there are survivors who can recount the dark horrors of this movement….
Current statistics indicate that 90%+ of children diagnosed prenatally with Down syndrome are indentified, targeted and terminated. This new prenatal test will only make it easier to select abortion over life, and it may lead to the extinction of all human beings deemed defective by a culture of death.
North American readers may be interested in the English-speaking branch of the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation, with a website at https://lejeuneusa.org/ .
To read original Catholic World Report story, click here.
Lets pray for this Cardinal Schönborn. The battle the Church faces for the soul of Europe is a long and hard one against forces so dark, it will take the Light of Christ shinning from every catholic to extinguish.
Mbuku Kanyan Mbithuka, you are exactly right.
will do
Will one day science be so advanced that we will be testing for babies who may need glasses someday, or who fail to be blue-eyed blondes or superior both intellectually and physically? Tacit approval by society to abort such specimens of imperfection will allow Nazi Germany to win the war to create supermen and women to rule over any less dazzling creatures whose parents were not rich enough or tiny-hearted enough to test their unborn children for imperfection before murdering them. For the good of humanity, of course. Ja, wohl.
More likely, they will be tested to be sure they will have brown eyes and dark skin. It’s a new age now. In any case, God forgive us and Science leave us alone in this field.
It is just wrong and immoral to abort any baby for any reason.
As a mother of a seven year old son with Down Syndrome, this breaks my heart. Our son is the light of our family. A treasure I would not have thought to ask God for. He makes our family more compassionate and caring. He brings a special love to us. His life is as precious as the person with the highest IQ. A person’s worth is not in their looks or brains, but in their heart and soul.
Indeed! My best friends have a daughter with Down Syndrome. She is simply an amazing little girl who brings light and life to everyone she meets. Her smile and manner are gifts from God that have made ME a better person. God’s ways are not our ways! and as you said…He bestows us with gifts not thought of! May you and your family be abundantly blessed throughout this Christmas Season and always!
Beautiful testimony……that people need to hear over and over….God Bless your family
For almost fifty years, the Pro-Life Movement has been at the forefront of the anti-eugenics movement fighting for the right-to-life of all handicapped children, born and unborn. Had AmChurch originally supported the ♠early pro-life action against the eugenic-based March of Dimes, perhaps this sad tale could have been averted. In any case, readers need to know that there is hope for future therapies for the unborn child with Down syndrome. We here at the International Foundation for Genetic Research/Michael Fund are currently preparing for clinical trials which will be taking place in California. Instead of cursing the darkness, would it not be better to light a candle by supporting U.S. pro-life therapeutic research in the chromosomal field by supporting The Michael Fund? Randy Engel, Director, IFGR/Michael Fund
Thank you, Randy Engel for this information.
I really worry that someday scientists will find a test that will tell if a baby is going to be gay. My parents are good Catholics and never would have aborted me if they knew I was going to be a lesbian but I think a lot would.
Also, these tests arn’t all for abortion reasons. My sister, in her first trimester had a screening which showed a marker for posible down’s syndrome. Thank God it turned out to be what they call a false positive. She never would have aborted but, had it been confirmed, her, her husband and our whole family would have had to get ready to care for a special needs child.
Narcissism is a disorder. It is often displayed with signs of self-centeredness and a lack of consideration of others. There will always be those who steal from the show in order to have the spotlight placed on them. Narcissism is an equal opportunity disorder.
Oh, Catherine, dear – don’t be so hard on yourself!
Just because you see yourself as narcissistic, this doesn’t mean people don’t love you.
God loves you, too – don’t forget.
Even if they had a test for this sort of stuff, they would not find a single baby to abort because it’s a learned thing. It’s not genetic.
Its like doing a test for cannibals. How would you find them?
No one is born gay just as no one is born a cannibal. You learn to do unnatural stuff from your environment.
Catholics do not abort their children
C&H what a sick comment you made…but what can I say, this is the mentality of today’s modern sinful thinking…fretting over something that will never be while there are real issues before us…Catherine is right…there is a tone of Narcissism!
If we were given the opportunity to place a video cameras inside the home of each and every one of these Lifecodexx scientists to capture their each and every action and word, I am sure that many in the world could also say, “Wow! Look at the many huge imperfections of these mere men or women. How in the world could we have ever let THEM play the role of God to tell us who was fit or deemed worthy of life!”
Strangely enough, I do live across the street from a brilliant scientist. Many people in the neighborhood say that this odd scientist is the strangest acting person they have ever met, yet I do not think that we should develop a test to see if brilliant but odd acting scientists should be deemed unfit to have life.
If you are a scientist who thinks that you are more brilliant than God then please set down your lab beakers. Peel off the labels on those beakers that read. “I’m playing God” and then do some more research which just might save your soul. There is the sweetest little book that was published in 1953, that you should read. The book is titled ‘Angel Unaware’ and there have been 500,000 copies sold. “In 1953, six of the top ten non-fiction best sellers were books with an overtly religious or spiritual theme. One of these was Angel Unaware. an enormous success for Dale Evans Rogers. Her 1953 book was and still is widely haled as a breakthrough in public acceptance of understanding children with mental disabilities. Little Robin Evans was born in 1950 with Downs Syndrome. Little Robin passed away after her second birthday from contracting a serious case of the mumps. To deal with her tremendous loss, Dale Evans Rogers wrote this best selling sweet book. Dale wrote, “Both Roy and I are grateful to God for the privilege of learning some great lessons from this tiny messenger.”
So it seems that since 500,000 copies of this book were received and STILL selling with such love, that would make at least 500,000 people who would also might deem those Codexx scientists greatly lacking in the genes for love and compassion. This is why God is the ONLY author of all life. This is why scientists should never play the role of God.
“But the foolish things of the world hath God chosen that he may confound the wise; and the weak things of the world hath God chosen, that he may confound the strong.”..Corinthians 1:27 Douay Rheims Catholic Bible
There is this myth that scientists are supposedly smarter than you. They are not. The typical scientist stands on the backs of others, through discipline of study, and based on what others know, looks around in nature and observes what is happening and writes it down using accepted methodology. Their field of specialization is usually super small, such as 1 folding protein or an amino acid.
That is generally their entire expertise, and they spend a life time watching this acid and writing about it. And then they walk around with this smug look because they can watch the acid and write about it. Seriously?
To develop a drug, they rely not only on other researchers but project management folks and accountants and all the workings of the economy to put it all together.
Bottom line, science does not give them any rights over other people.
While its respectable and dignified work, without Christ, its nothing. It leads to evils like this.
And, Mbuku, the person with Down Syndrome who washes the dishes where the scientist eats might be far more holy and acceptable to the Almighty than the scientist himself.. As you well know and have implied or said, “God does not judge as man judges.”
Catherine I use to work for NOVARTIS Pharmaceuticals. Met some really nice scientists…I think that Novartis is a little bit less controversial than those other big Pharma companies who produce immortal stuff.
God, being good, always in the best interests of man. If you have a child with down syndrome it is because having that child will elevate you spiritually and provide comfort for you in life (as others have already testified to in this blog). If you abort such a child, not only do you commit a murder, but you also deny yourself the grace and happiness that the child would have brought to you and your family. In some cases, a child like this was your only chance to be truly happy. Also, how can anyone assume that the child itself is doomed to a sad, unhappy and unfulfilled life. This is hardly what we observe in such children.
Ando: I know it has been part of my spiritual growth to have experienced the joy, then loss of two little sisters in infancy to juvenile ALS. One died at 7 months when I was 10, another at 9 months when I was 12. When people like “Professor” Singer and the eugenicists call such darlings less than human and not fit to live, it makes my blood boil. As the Ghost of Christmas Present put it to Scrooge: ARE THEY NOT OF THE HUMAN RACE?
When my wife was pregnant with our son, we went for the obligatory utlrasound. The tech turned to us with a grave look on his face and said, “There are several markers here indicating your son will have Down syndrome”. I looked at my wife and she looked at me, and both of us, at the exact same time, said “So? It’s not like we’re going to have an abortion or anything”.
Our son was born and does not have Down syndrome (so much for the markers) But …… if God had chosen that he should, we would not love him any less.
Markers bull.
Larry – When my sister had the same situation we talked about if we should start to learn and plan about how to raise a Downs child. My dad said that before we started looking up things on the internet we should pray that the test was false. “Pray not panic” he said. “If we do get a definative test that
the baby has Downs, then thank God we’ll have time to learn and plan.” A month or so later, we all prayed prayers of Thanksgiving.
All of our children are precious. Tests should be made to help children, not harm them. Thank you for all the supportive comments showing love for Down Syndrome children.
Mark from PA, on that we are agreed.
“Tests should be made to help children, not harm them.” Yes Mark and one of those many important tests that God allows is the test to see just how sincere someone is about NOT harming children. This is called the test of using our free will to vote or not to vote for a President who did not even want the survivors of abortion to receive medical assistant. Many people failed that test and voted for a President that believes in harming (murdering) unborn children and children who have been born. Those children are precious too, yet many people still voted for Obama.
God knows the motives behind all of our actions. There is no fooling God.
Catherine right on….glad you are great at pointing out hypocrisy. I can’t stand hypocrisy…there is to much of that going on today. Now we will have to be persecuted 4 more years with OBAMA. God have mercy.
This breaks my heart. My daughter, 28, has Down Syndrome. I have found her to be perfect the way she is. I would do it all over again, even if I knew about it before her birth. She is a blessing to me and to everyone that knows her. She makes life worth living.
Those born with Down Syndrome are some of the most innocent and pure of heart people that I have ever met. I too believe that those who give birth to a child with Down Syndrome and take care of them will receive many blessings and graces from Almighty God.
I am acquainted with various people who work daily with children who have more distressing conditions than any Downs child I’ve ever run into. These people are joy filled. I’ve watched them work with severe special needs kids, and it is occasion for great happiness that God would instill such devotion among these workers. I do not understand it, but I see it with my own eyes and what I see does a work on my heart. It is really beyond expression; you have to go and see for yourselves.
This very sad tale reminds of the lovely t.v. Series “Touched By An Angel,” in which one of the angels had Down Syndrome.
Whom are you killing?
Rather like Abraham offering hospitality to strangers/angels in the desert tale – whom are you welcoming?
Cardinal Schoenborn, mentioned in this article, really has his hands full.
If you Google Austrian priests you will probably find many articles about the revolution this poor man is facing – Austria, once so staunchly Catholic, now has a group of laity and priests calling for all kinds of changes.
They want married clergy, female priests, Communion offered to just about anyone who walks in the door, etc. – in short, a dumping of all standards to make the Church more hip, popular, relevant, cool, or whatever.
I would not want to be the Archbishop of Vienna for a million dollars right now: when your own flock, led by zany priests, is tearing down Catholicism as we know it, what a nightmare!