Down Syndrome Causes Abortions

In calling for a presidential disability-focused debate, David Rundle posed this as one of his most pressing questions:

When potential parents discover their unborn child has Down syndrome, they abort it 85 percent of the time. Are you concerned by that?

I don't know whether or not the next American president is concerned about that, but I wish he was. Abortion is no doubt a difficult issue. Most people acknowledge that you are killing a human through abortion (and that is certainly how I feel), but we start to diverge when it comes to whether or not that act (or murder) is right.

Here's what the "85%" fact above tells us though - it tells us that those parents-to-be are asking questions about the value of that life. It seems to me they are asking:

1) Who would want to live a life with Down Syndrome?
2) Why would I/we want to go through life as the parent(s) of a child with Down Syndrome?
3) What prospects are there, really, for this person's life, when he's stuck with this disorder?

Now, I will not be naive and say, "Living with Down Syndrome is a joy and utterly painless." But I will tell you, with the experience of knowing dozens of families who have struggled with the effects of Down Syndrome and other developmental disabilities, that disabilities are not equal to, and do not deserve, the death sentence, and abortion is a death sentence.

A person is not defined by their disability, and when people abort children with a disability, they are doing exactly that, letting the disability define the person.

More than that, a disability requires struggle. Struggle requires perseverance. Perseverance, and the reliance upon God that it requires, are what brings God glory. Therefore, we testify to His strength through our weakness. When 85% of people choose death instead of life for a child with a disability, they ignore the blessings and life education that God will provide.