Despite all the rhetoric about “alleviating suffering,” the bottom line in targeting the disabled in utero is the bottom line. As Business Week puts it, “the social cost of accommodating [their] birth is increasingly being seen as exceeding [their] worth.”

Oh my! This utilitarian view of life inevitably leads us exactly where the Nazis were creating a master race. Can’t we see it?

My heart goes out to parents who are raising autistic children. I know what they face because my daughter is raising a 15-year-old autistic son. But I also know firsthand the joy and blessing these children can bring into our lives. The answer is not to play God and keep them from being born—rather we need to help them and their parents. That’s what “alleviating suffering” really means.

Human Dignity in the Biotech Century: A Christian Vision by Charles Colson and Nigel Cameron, eds.

Tom Strode, “Bioethicist: Not just autistic at risk if sex screening approved,” Baptist Press, 29 June 2006.

Virginia Bovell, “We don’t need to wipe out autism . . . we need to care more,” Daily Mail (London), 19 June 2006.