In a recent Breakpoint commentary, John Stonestreet responds to the assertion by atheist Richard Dawkins that women should abort any child they know will have Down Syndrome. Stonestreet writes: “Worldview matters. Followed to its logical conclusion, the atheistic worldview says that human life has no inherent meaning or value and is therefore disposable. True to his utilitarian impulses, Dawkins makes a distinction between humans who can ‘contribute’ to society and those who can’t. Those with Down Syndrome, Dawkins decrees, simply are ‘not enhanced,’ and therefore expendable. In fact, he says it’s wrong to let them live.
“I’m guessing that Dawkins never met Tim Harris, the owner of Tim’s Place, the amazing restaurant in New Mexico…Tim has Down Syndrome.
“Dawkins, trapped in his atheistic worldview, doesn’t understand that all humans, including those such as Tim, are made in the priceless image of God. He never will see that those with disabilities ‘pull us away,’ in the words of my colleague Stan Guthrie, ‘from our besetting narcissism.’ Sometimes suffering, which Dawkins so abhors, actually makes us better people.
“In Dancing with Max, Emily Colson’s great book about her autistic son, Chuck Colson wrote that through the huge trials of Max’s disability, the family came to a ‘new understanding of what love really is.’
“As we face the pressure to conform to the respectable barbarism of our times, we ought remember what Jesus said about treating those considered ‘the least of these.’ Perhaps He had in mind the infirm, the poor, the prisoner and the baby with genetic disorders.”