Issues@Hand

AFA initiatives, Christian activism, news briefs

January-February 2021 – In its December issue, the Atlantic magazine published a lengthy cover story titled “The last children of Down syndrome: Prenatal testing is changing who gets born and who doesn’t. This is just the beginning.”

The author wrote, “Few people speak publicly about wanting to ‘eliminate’ Down syndrome. Yet, individual choices are adding up to something very close to that.” She said 95% of mothers who receive a prenatal Down syndrome diagnosis in Denmark choose to abort.

In her research, she spent time with various parents of children with Down syndrome, some of whom loved and cherished their children, and others who aborted or regretted not aborting.

Many readers were shocked and outraged by the incongruency of the Atlantic’s frigid method of communicating about the widespread eugenics of children born with Down syndrome together with personal stories and visually stunning photos of those very children. Release of the article caused a firestorm of comments on Twitter, with some perceiving it to be a promotion of mass murder.

foxnews.com, 11/19/20; theatlantic.com, 12/20