The Abortion Debate No One Wants to Have

My sister-in-law has Downs syndrome. The experts told her family not to expect her to live much beyond adolescence.

She's almost 60 years old, works, lives alone, enjoys her friends, and in fact, enjoys life.

You don't see too many Downs syndrome children these days. Prenatal testing and a society that demands what it defines as "perfection" are killing them off before they're born.

Which is society's loss. Pity it doesn't realize it.

Washington Post columnist Patricia Bauer's daughter Margaret is a Downs syndrome child. With admirable restraint, Bauer describes what it's like to be regarded by society as lacking in sense....and to see her beloved daughter viewed as a "tragic mistake."

She unerringly nails the hypocrisy of these folks when she writes:

I have to think that there are many pro-choicers who, while paying obeisance to the rights of people with disabilities, want at the same time to preserve their right to ensure that no one with disabilities will be born into their own families.

Read the whole column here.