A bill is on its way to North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple’s desk that would ban abortions based on genetic abnormalities like Down Syndrome. This is the first legislation of its kind in America. HB 1305 would also ban sex-selective abortions, making North Dakota the fifth state to put such a ban in place.
As we discussed at the last Pro-Life meeting at Lindenwood, sex-selective abortion has become a startlingly common practice across America, a deplorable practice proven by Live Action to be condoned by the likes of Planned Parenthood. From ProtectOurGirls.com, a project of Live Action:
“Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen estimated that as early as 1990, approximately 100 million women were demographically missing worldwide due to sex-selection abortion, female infanticide, and other such practices. Current estimates now put that number at 200 million missing women and girls globally.”
Even more shocking is the statistic that 92% of babies who are found to have Downs Syndrome are aborted. That means only 8% of these precious babies have a chance at life. This bill banning abortions based on genetic imperfections will undoubtedly save lives. (Click here to read a beautiful blog post by Bristol Palin, daughter of Sarah Palin, about her little brother, Trig, who has Down Syndrome.)
God bless North Dakota, Governor Dalrymple, bill sponsor Rep. Bette Grande and the entire North Dakota legislature for moving forward with this legislation!
Lindenwood Students for Life 
I think your numbers on the percentage of aborted DS fetuses is a bit off.
I speak as a father of a three, one of which is a newborn with DS.
This proposed law in Nebraska is likely to make things worse for children with DS, and for society as a whole. There are so few resources available to help families with the massive costs of medical care, physical therapy, vocational/occupational therapy, speech therapy, etc., associated with raising a child with DS.
DS can present with a wide range of problems, ranging from mild cognitive impairment, to serious and fatal complications.
Friends of our family have had to declare bankruptcy due to the medical costs associated with a dozen major heart surgeries in 3 years for their child with DS. Our child’s birth cost well over $90,000 (the bills are still trickling in, four months later). The great majority of this was not covered by insurance.
I admire your dedication to your cause, and I would never abort my child, or abort because of a DS diagnosis. That’s my choice.
It is unreasonable and unfair (and I would argue ‘un-Christian’) to require others to think and act like me.
Our society prides itself on the individual independence and personal freedom of its citizens.
If society is going to deprive a number of people of the most basic freedom – the freedom to live our own life, according to our own conscience, with the counsel of our own God, (i.e., the freedom of choice), society should provide greater resources/assistance to the families it is requiring to deal with massive financial obligations, massive life and life-style changes, and massive social difficulties.
I would agree that “God Blessed Nebraska” only if there were provisions in this bill that require all members of society to share, equally, the cost of medical care for all children with DS until they reach the age at which they are able to function independently in our society.
I would agree that “God Blessed Nebraska” only if this bill includes mandatory training of police officers how to handle interactions with people with cognitive difficulties so that they don’t wind up dead at age 24 like Ethan Saylor (See, http://littlebirdsdad.com/2013/02/20/update-no-downs-specific-police-training-available-in-the-u-s/ ).
I would agree that “God Blessed Nebraska” if its schools (public and private) had programs that enabled children with cognitive impairments to learn and live and function in a modern society.
Short of that, this proposed bill is nothing more than totalitarianism and legislated morality – and borders on communistic ideology and religious oppression.
In fact, I would argue that it is going to push people with DS back into horrific private and state mental institutions, basements, etc., and could well set back all the advances in social acceptance of children with DS that have been made over the last century.
As written, I pray that this bill fails.
Peace,
LBD
LBD,
Firstly I want to say congratulations on your new child and I pray that things go well. I agree that society is not very acceptable of children with disabilities and I pray that it may one day be acceptable because we are all God’s children on this earth and therefore are all made in God’s image. I am also sorry for the struggles that you and friends are going through with the DS children. But remember that as God gives us struggles, he does so because we can handle them not by ourselves but by the strengths and graces he surrounds us with.
We all have choices to make in life. Whether it is to eat a sandwich now or later or whether it is to abort a child or not, we all make choices. I want to make this point though. The choice of eating a sandwich is your choice because it affects you and your well-being and it is physically in relation in to your body. However, abortion affects not only your life but the life of the child as well. Therefore it is not YOUR choice. Who is to say when people die other than God? That may be an extreme relationship but it does somewhat make sense.
Children with certain in-formalities are at higher risks of abortions than other children and that should not be the case. Have you ever though of the option of adoption? It is a great alternative to aborting a life, especially since God put us here for a reason. For now, and I pray that it ends soon, those reasons for the aborted are to help stop this evil sin.
As far as the police officer situation, it is a fair argument that police officers should be trained to handle situations but this really does not affect the fact that children are being aborted. So I don’t want to go into that subject since I don’t have the background to do so.
I pray that this bill does indeed pass since we should not be able to make the stance on whether the baby lives or dies.
God Bless,
PAM