Autistic Children, How Soon Until the "Culture of Death" Targets Them?

A couple of days ago I was reading an article in the Knights of Columbus Magazine Columbia. The article,   Treating Disorders, Transforming Lives was about the work being done at  the Knights of Columbus Developmental Center at the SSM Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center in St. Louis with autistic children. You might remember that Cardinal Glennon was where Baby Joseph was taken for life extending surgery after the Ontario courts had overruled the parents wishes & were going to allow the doctors to take him off of life support instead. The surgery allowed him 6 more months of life than he would have had. & it allowed him to die with the true dignity he deserved.

The article hilighted the wonderful work that the Center is doing helping  children with intellectual developmental  In particular it looked at the work done to diagnose & treat children with autism.  The professionals at the Center can make an autism diagnosis as early as 18 months of age. In 2007, the Center was designated a Missouri Autism Center. It has helped the state develop screening & treatment guidelines for this spectrum of disorders. The Center is now evaluating & treating almost 2,000 children a year.

The article also talked about an expansion in the works. "The new facility will provide more space for Higgins to interact with the children, and his crate will no longer be jammed in a corner of the conference room. The new examining rooms, meanwhile, will be big enough to accommodate more family members and specialists. Maxim is also glad to have room for new, evidence-based programs like PEERS, which teaches social skills to teenagers while their parents get coached on the material in another room." (FYI: Higgins is a specially trained  goldendoodle that helps ease the childrens fears & make them feel more comfortable as they go through the tests & exams.)

& while all that is going on there is good news, something in the article caught my eye that raised a red flag about the future safety of these children, especially before they are born. "'Autism is definitely a genetic disorder,' Maxim says. (Dr. Rolanda Maxim, the center’s medical director) 'Every day we are identifying more genes that are linked to autism.' Those genes only create a predisposition to the disorder, though. 'There are certain triggers in the environment,” Maxim explains, “and we have only identified a few of them.'” (emphasis mine)

My thoughts ran back to how our society is dealing with another genetic condition, Down syndrome. As I have pointed out many times before, with current pre-natal testing & diagnosis, about 90% of those pre-born children who have been diagnosed to have Down syndrome are being aborted. Down syndrome occurs in one out of every 733 babies born in the U.S. The Centers for Disease Control & Prevention has estimated that, on average, 1 in every 110 children has an autism spectrum disorder. But, in some studies, the prevalence has measured as high as 1 in 80. Add to that the fact that in 2009 a test was being developed for pre-natal screening of autism was being developed & just this year another prenatal test that allows doctors to diagnose some 3,500 genetic defects previously undetectable before birth has been developed.

I think by now you see where I am heading.  If these tests become standard, how long before children with the genetic predisposition to autism will be aborted as regularly as those with Down syndrome? Or children with other genetic problems as well?

Add to that, the recent article published in the Journal of Medical Ethics (JME) calling for the normalization of infanticide for any reason.   After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?, was written by  Alberto Giubilini (Department of Philosophy, University of Milan, Milan, Italy; and Centre for Human Bioethics, Monash University, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia), & Frencesca Minerva (Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia).

In their abstract, the authors state:

“Abortion is largely accepted even for reasons that do not have anything to do with the fetus’ health. By showing that (1) both fetuses and newborns do not have the same moral status as actual persons, (2) the fact that both are potential persons is morally irrelevant and (3) adoption is not always in the best interest of actual people, the authors argue that what we call ‘after-birth abortion’ (killing a newborn) should be permissible in all the cases where abortion is, including cases where the newborn is not disabled.”

(emphasis mine)

Add to that:

“Therefore, we claim that killing a newborn could be ethically permissible in all the circumstances where abortion would be. Such circumstances include cases where the newborn has the potential to have an (at least) acceptable life, but the well-being of the family is at risk. Accordingly, a second terminological specification is that we call such a practice ‘after-birth abortion’ rather than ‘euthanasia’ because the best interest of the one who dies is not necessarily the primary criterion for the choice, contrary to what happens in the case of euthanasia.”

(emphasis mine)

Yes you read that right, "after-birth abortion".

As Dr. Gerard M. Nadal put it "In that last breathtaking sentence, the authors leave behind Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the “Death with Dignity’ movement, euthanasia, and even the vile excesses of the Dutch physician assisted suicide experience, propelling us into the scenario where those who may be perfectly healthy apart from even the mildest limitations imposed by a genetic condition may be murdered by their parents." He also said the article was "worthy of the rabid Nazi propagandist Julius Streicher’s screeds in his publication, Der Sturmer." As you may remember, Streicher and the other Nazi leaders who went to the gallows with him deemed Jews, homosexuals, the mentally retarded, & those with autism (among others) as, “Life unworthy of life.” (emphasis mine)

Add to this the work being done by Princeton University Professor Peter Singer to promote a simlar agenda, & Dr. Catherine Constable's saying  all patients evaluated as being in a “permanent vegetative state” (PVS) should by default have artificial nutrition and hydration (ANH) withdrawn unless they have made a prior wish to be kept alive among others & you see the "culture of death" in full swing to dehumanize anyone who doesn't fit into a group's definition of what it means to be human. In short, we will see a full scale eugenics effort to clean up all those who are unfit to be considered human & thus having a right to live.

Where does it end? Well we already have a prime example of that in Hitler & his slaughter of the Jews as unfit to live & less than human. Other groups he slaughtered included Catholics, Christians, Gypsies & homosexuals as unfit to live as well.

& we have seen how Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood held similar ideas. & Planned Parenthood is still working to promote them as well (Maafa 21).

I have to add to the mix one more thing, ObamaCare. If it is upheld, it will add soon add abortions to the mix. It already has death panels as a part of it. You can be sure that those panels will limit, if not ban most or all of what is being done to help children with autism as to expensive for the results. That will encourage even more women to abort their potentially autistic children,

That is why I asked the question "How soon?" rather than will the "culture of death target children with autism. If we allow our culture to continue on this path, you can be sure that what I have said in this post will happen.

Before I conclude, I would suggest you read the entire Columbia article. You will see a prime example of what happens when the Culture of Life is allowed to flourish.

In conclusion, I remind everyone that we must continue to pray & work at building a Culture of Life in the USA & elsewhere. As I have said before, we must begin, end & undergird all our efforts with prayer. We must ask the Blessed Virgin Mary, San Giuseppe & other saints like Blessed Margaret of Castello & St. Gerard Majella to intercede as well. This is, in the end, a spiritual battle. & it is spiritual weapons that will win it.