In the Name of Religion
Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada with a shocking statistic.
Did you know that the nation of Iceland boasts in the success of achieving nearly a zero % birth rate of children with Down syndrome? Unborn children with Down syndrome are systematically aborted to spare the family the cost and inconvenience of raising a child with a significant disability. The government of Iceland prides itself on eradicating an entire population of individuals with Down syndrome, sacrificing them to the idols of convenience and cost-savings, as well as religion. Religion? Yep, you heard me right.
Because recently there was this billboard campaign run by the largest abortion clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, and one of the first billboards to go up says, “Abortion is a blessing.” Another billboard states that abortion is a family value, another billboard says, that abortion is hope, and another one touts abortion as good medicine. Oh, my goodness. The abortion industry explains that this campaign positions abortion as “a necessary part of people’s lives.” No, friend, it ends people’s lives. And the billboard campaign is especially insidious because it twists language, making something that is evil, be perceived as good, even laudable, even, dare I say, religious.
You know, back in the 1980’s when I served on the National Council on Disability; our council reviewed a report by the National Institutes of Health. The topic of that report was disability prevention, and in it, the NIH suggested that abortions should be part of a “disability prevention strategy.” I tell you what, all fifteen of us on the council – Republicans, Democrats, Independents – all of us strongly objected to that recommendation and we told the NIH so. But now, just over two decades later, abortion is not only accepted as a disability prevention strategy, it’s promoted, like in countries such as Iceland and others.
But abortion is merely the most obvious example of the abuse of human dignity among people with disabilities, whether infants or aging. There are other abuses, and they are getting worse. The euthanasia of elderly people who are medically fragile, the infanticide of newborns with simple gastro-intestinal issues, the discarding of embryos during in-vitro fertilization, but most of all, the growing specter of legalizing physician-assisted suicide. It’s the way disability issues are played out in a post-Christian world.
Oh, friend, we need to work and pray that America will return to its foundations, a foundation that was laid on the Word of God. We need to commit ourselves to work and pray sacrificially, asking the Lord to open the eyes of the blind as it concerns everything from abortion to euthanasia. You know, I look back and in 1973 when the US Supreme Court ruled that our US Constitution included an inherent “right to privacy”, it released people to claim every willful determination of theirs as a personal right, whether a right to abort, or a right-to-die. Just earlier this month, we held prayer observances all around the United States as part of the National Day of Prayer. And maybe you joined a prayer event in your church or community. But there’s still so much to pray for. So, how do we pray for our nation amidst all this turmoil and confusion? Well, we do so with the Word of God. It’s why I’m offering you a free “Pray for Our Nation” booklet, filled with Scripture verses to help guide your prayers. Just visit my radio page at joniandfriends.org for your free copy. Again, it’s all there for you at joniandfriends.org.
© Joni and Friends
