Iceland is very proud of having “cured” the problem of Down’s syndrome.

In recent years almost no children have been born with the genetic disorder. Norway, too, is almost free of Downs’ Syndrome children. In fact, almost all babies born today in most European countries can be expected to not suffer from Down’s Syndrome, and we are supposed to applaud this “accomplishment.”

Using an ultrasound, blood test and the mother’s age, the test, called the Combination Test, determines whether the fetus will have a chromosome abnormality,  the most common of which results in Down syndrome. Children born with this genetic disorder have distinctive facial issues and a range of developmental issues. Many people born with Down syndrome can live full, healthy lives, with an average lifespan of around 60 years.

Other countries aren’t lagging too far behind in Down syndrome termination rates. According to the most recent data available, the United States has an estimated termination rate for Down syndrome of 67 percent (1995-2011); in France it’s 77 percent (2015); and Denmark, 98 percent (2015). The law in Iceland permits abortion after 16 weeks if the fetus has a deformity — and Down syndrome is included in this category.

It turns out that there is a surefire cure for Down’s Syndrome: death. If somebody is dead then genetic abnormalities are no longer an issue. And this is the desired result for a vast majority of people who are both pro-choice and…what, exactly? Pro…death for inconvenient people?

I have written before about how many on the Left are death worshippers, or eugenicists, or proponents of euthanasia. Canada is all in on Medical Assistance in Dying. However you want to characterize it, there is a substantial fraction of the Left who are still tied to the eugenicist roots of progressivism.

This is most obvious in how the Left treats the most vulnerable in society, and there are few human beings more vulnerable than pre-born babies with genetic abnormalities.

In many Western countries these children are targeted by Leftists for elimination. For, not to put too fine a point on it, extermination. And children with Down’s Syndrome there is no hiding the impact. The goal is full on elimination.

In Britain, 90% of babies diagnosed with Down Syndrome are aborted before birth according to the National Down Syndrome Cytogenic Register.

In Denmark, the Danish Cytogenetic Central Register, shows an average of 98% of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome before birth are aborted each year.

In 2016, according to official figures  137 preborn babies were diagnosed the condition in Denmark. 133 children were aborted while just 4 were born. Six years previously, in 2010, of the 156 babies diagnosed with Down syndrome in utero, every single one was aborted.

This shocking and tragic reality is not brought about by chance. In a 2015 interview with Vice News, the Professor of Gynaecology and Obstetrics at the University of Copenhagen, said: “I think that Danish women are less sentimental about aborting malformed fetuses partly because that view is supported by professional medical staff. Recommending abortions isn’t an obligation but we give very realistic prognoses….. We give parents realistic expectations about future problems and generally, women carrying fetuses with severe malformations are recommended to terminate the pregnancy.”

In Iceland, almost 100% of babies with Down syndrome are aborted, because the take-up for screening is very high and almost all babies then have their lives ended. According to official statistics reported in the Icelandic Parliament in the period from 2008-2012, all babies diagnosed with Down Syndrome in Iceland were aborted.

We often hear about how the Left is motivated by compassion, but the numbers do not lie. “Compassion” is not afforded the most vulnerable in society, but rather to those who would be expected to aid people in need.

To the extent that people are “aided,” it is in avoiding having to provide love and care to their own flesh and blood. Compassion is expressed as murdering the inconvenient.

Time and again we hear about how burdensome it is to care for others; about how awful it is to ask a mother to care for her own child. We are told that people who are ill, depressed, disabled, or disabled should shrink away and embrace death in order to bless others with an unburdened life.

Compassion, in other words, should be extended to the privileged. The healthy, the wealthy, and the productive. The less fortunate should be sacrificed to benefit the more fortunate.

This is progressivism.

It is difficult to argue that anybody can demand of another that they sacrifice for one’s own good. How can a child demand of a parent that they give up their lives, their wealth, or their freedom to cavort in order to take care of them? There is no obvious rational answer, other than “am I not yours? Am I not human and worthy of cherishing?”

If you read modern philosophers the answer is clear: the child owes the parent a simple, clean death. Free of guilt. Free of care. Free, simply.

This is the result of “liberating” people from the complexities inherent in a full human life. We are born into this world as children of both man and God, and are ourselves both animal and ensouled. We are divine and corporeal. Once the divine aspect of our existence is denied–the fact that we are children both of man and God–we deserve no more moral respect than cattle or cockroaches.

Western society has embraced a soft version of this view, and in the process we have embraced death as a solution to inconvenient life. This is not only why Canada and eventually every Western country has or will embrace medical assistance in dying, but it is also why we have embraced murdering children who are other than perfectly genetically formed.

We can continue down this path–the ‘Logan’s Run” future where only those who are perfectly healthy are accepted in society and all the rest are disposed of, or we can take a step back and reconsider our moral foundations.

Death? Or life? Indifference? Or Love?

Which do you choose?