It's interesting that my last blog followed the one about Ranch neighbor Dud Morris, WWII vet. Dud and his war buddies were the human line of defense against Japan and Germany's intent to take over the world. We owe them our freedom.
Jay Leno roams around asking young people questions about our nation's history. They think the Civil War happened 50 years ago and never heard of the Revolutionary War.
They've heard of Ben Franklin and think he might have been a president.
Jefferson wrote, in a passage we all used to know well because we had to memorize it that we are “…endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable rights.” As Americans, we officially believe that our rights are God-granted.
That confers, rightly, enormous dignity on the individual. It was the basis for ending slavery in the 1800s and granting of full rights of citizenship to African-Americans in the 1960s. (Jefferson was posthumously hoisted on his own petard, as it were.)
In the intervening years, these these e rights were claimed by others, including people with disabilities. A person with Down syndrome can today seek redress for violations of his civil rights.
IF he can manage to get born.
The government of Denmark has just announced that there will be no babies born with Down syndrome in Denmark by the year 2030. Announced, proudly, without irony, that individuals with an identifiable disability shall be systematically targeted and eliminated as being unworthy of life (do the Danes recall who gave the world that little phrase?)
Not a problem for most Americans, who abort babies with disabilities at a 90+ percent rate.
To do this, they pretend they are not human, which is what we say of of people we consider nuisances. Ask the Jews, the Tutsis, the Albanians, the Native Americans of long ago, the baby girls of China.
We do this because they are very small and very weak. Because we don't want them. Because we are careless with the gifts God gives us.
Every life comes into the world bearing a message from God.
Don't kill the messenger.