Flickr-Jim Lynch, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0Earlier this year, YouTuber Jesse Ridgway and his wife decided to legally kill their child due to his high chance of being born with a disability. Genetic testing, which is notoriously faulty, claimed the baby had an extra chromosome and would have Down Syndrome, an abnormality that often results in shorter lifespan, developmental issues, and a lifetime of reliance on others for care.

The prospect of attending your child’s funeral is one no parent wishes for, as Ridgway himself noted when discussing the reasons why he and his wife killed their child through abortion. Yet the Ridgways’ decision was not a complicated, morally-relative choice. It was the calculated termination of a human being who was not “normal,” to use Ridgway’s words.

Like others who are pro-choice, the Ridgways are disgusted by the existence of individuals who demand more than they supposedly should of their parents, family, and society. A child with Down Syndrome, for example, demands more time and attention than his non-disabled peers, and yes, his parents will likely live a life marked by heartbreak, grief, and stress.

Yet a child with Down Syndrome is not only a human being with dignity and infinite worth; he is also a person known to live a life of more joy and love than many of the individuals who believe he should be dead.

So, no, the Ridgways’ “choice” was not merely “personal.” Their story is a mask-off moment for those claiming to be pro-choice, and a story those on the pro-life side should not let die. Indeed, the Ridgways have merited every bit of derision they are receiving.

While Jesse Ridgway is known to create fictitious skits out of real-life stories, in this case, it doesn’t matter if the pregnancy and its termination were publicity stunts. The sad reality is that babies are murdered every day for not being “normal.” Countries like Denmark have functionally eliminated their Down Syndrome population through the systematic and cold-hearted eugenics of abortion.

The abortion industry’s success hinges on society’s ignorance of the physical aspect of abortion. As such, pro-life supporters must realize that they are in a visual battle.

Abortion is not the elimination of a second pink line on a pregnancy test. Real, tiny, helpless bodies are involved, and those bodies are visually recognizable as babies far earlier in pregnancy than the pro-choice side would be comfortable with us realizing.

Some studies indicate that a mother viewing her baby through an ultrasound drastically decreases the chances that she follows through with a planned abortion. But most people who are so coolly in favor of abortion are not thinking about a baby as a human body which must be mutilated, extracted, and disposed of via cremation or medical waste bins, or the tiny body parts that are often shipped off to medical facilities for experimentation.

The Ridgways framed their abortion decision as compassionately saving their child from a lifetime of misery, and themselves from the heartbreak of losing their child. Perhaps more people would realize how insane this rationale is if we normalized showing the bodies of preborn babies – not necessarily the mutilated remains of aborted babies (although in many cases, this is also necessary) – but babies born prematurely, underscoring their humanity.

The youngest baby surviving premature birth was Nash Keen, born in Iowa at 21 weeks. Pro-choicers must confront the pictures of this baby’s tiny living body and explain how tearing him limb from limb and vacuuming out his remains is anything but murder.

Ridgway says he does not want to “bury his child.” Sadly, he already has by aborting him.

—

This article was made possible by The Fred & Rheta Skelton Center for Cultural Renewal. 

Image credit: Flickr-Jim Lynch, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0