Last month, a headline caught my attention; but like so many these days, I felt compelled to refrain from comment because there were others that presented even more dastardly news. But the headline came back to my attention yesterday, thanks to the heroic efforts of a father in Pittsburgh who sent the following, touching e-mail to us:
Dear ALL,
THANK YOU for getting the Truth out and for being a Beacon of Light. I am the father of a beautiful seven-year-old daughter Chloe who has Down syndrome, and I write about the silent, prenatal eugenic movement against these beautiful, precious children. Here is a recent article I had published: http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/apr/10041917.html. My daughter Chloe and our family were recently featured on the national pro-life TV show Facing Life Head-On, and here is a link to the episode, “Going to Bat for Down Syndrome” http://www.facinglife.tv/episode/season_4/episode_15/episode_415.html. I truly believe that exposing this silent eugenic movement can break the culture of death in this nation and please let me know if I can ever be of assistance. I also have a site that shows all the positive seeds Chloe has planted in just seven years, and she never ceases to amaze me http://chloesmessage.blogspot.com/ .
May God bless and guide your work,
Kurt Kondrich
Right then and there, upon reading his words, I remembered that horrible headline again. You might also recall it: “Sarasota doctor’s license revoked for aborting wrong fetus.”
Mathhew J. Kachinas is a medical practitioner with a rather blotched record, whose latest error in killing the “wrong” preborn twin finally resulted in at least one punitive action being taken against him. The sad reality is, though, that had this wicked man selectively reduced the pregnancy by killing the “right” baby, many would have considered him a hero for performing a service to society by eliminating an allegedly problematic Down syndrome child. If things had worked out the way the parents of the babies had wanted, nothing would have been in the newspaper, the parents of the remaining twin would have been happy and all would have been right with this tragic world.
As it is,
The parents of the twins, who had achieved the pregnancy through in-vitro fertilization with an egg donor, were not identified and were not at the hearing. Records show that after the normal fetus was inadvertently killed, they ended the pregnancy altogether the following week.
Records show the fetal twins were at 15 weeks’ gestation when the botched “feticide” took place. The normal fetus was a girl; the twin with anomalies — Down syndrome and a possible heart defect — was male.
Selective reduction is practiced a lot more than any of us realize, particularly among families who opt for in-vitro fertilization and wind up expecting two or more children. As Chris Kahlenborn, M.D., details, selective reduction is practiced for a variety of reasons including the existence of “too many” babies:
[F]ive percent of the couples who use in-vitro fertilization end up with triplets. The clinician will now offer the woman the “option” of “selective reduction” of one or more of her children. This revolting procedure involves reducing the number of children that the pregnant woman is carrying by piercing a large bore needle through a woman’s abdominal cavity or vagina and “injecting potassium chloride into the fetal thorax via a needle.” [William’s Obstetrics, 1997] ….
“Selective reduction,” which involves the killing of a child by piercing his or her chest via a steel syringe and injecting potassium chloride is inexcusable. Couples who have made the mistake of participating in [artificial fertilization] should not compound their error by killing another child, in order to increase the “odds” that the remaining children will survive. Of note, 10 percent of couples who undergo “selective reduction” will lose all of their children in the process.
Gruesome? Of course it is. But men like Kondrich are fighting back. The reason is that, in the particular case of eugenic abortion, killings are performed on those children prior to birth who are diagnosed as being possibly imperfect in some way. Kurt’s commitment to oppose this practice stems from his recognition that one of those victims could have been Chloe. Kurt always reflects on her and her precious contribution to his family, not to mention the positive impact Chloe has on all who meet her or learn about her.
LifeSiteNews explains that Kondrich was so deeply troubled by the Florida “selective reduction” news item that he could not sleep and penned the following at three in the morning:
This past week I read an article that disturbed me deeply concerning a Florida doctor who had his license revoked. …
My beautiful six-year-old daughter Chloe has Down syndrome and has brought immeasurable good and blessings into this world, and I have observed no “deformities” about her. Parents of children with disabilities have fought very hard over the past decades to have our children fully included and accepted in schools and communities. We have made great progress with “inclusion” since the days of institutionalization, but with prenatal testing we have now entered a slippery slope that is rapidly turning into solid ice. If our society devalues the life of a person with a prenatal diagnosed disability and targets them for termination then this represents the ultimate “exclusion” and eventual “extinction”.
Currently 90-plus percent of children diagnosed prenatally with Down syndrome are “excluded” from ever shining their bright light in a lost world that has become obsessed with perfection and unrealistic traits. If the proper practice of medicine in our culture includes the skill of identifying and eliminating a prenatal twin who fails to meet the criteria of “normal”, then we truly do need a massive overhaul of the “health care” system, and it is the soul of our nation that is “deformed”.
Kondrich’s Chloe, a princess in every way, shares with all of us in her eyes and her smile the truths of which her father writes and speaks. And as her web site, Chloe’s Message, attests, “The smallest voice can make the largest impact.”
To this, I can only add that indeed this is the case if only these voices of love and affirmation of God’s goodness are welcomed into the world. As it is today, many are snuffed out by the eugenic practitioners, social engineers and others, who prefer their particular type of quality to the indelible qualities imprinted on every human being by God.
Kondrich has his own blog as well, and has written for several online sites, including Renew America. This past April 30th, he wrote,
“A baby boy abandoned by doctors to die after a botched abortion was found alive nearly a day later. The mother, pregnant for the first time, had opted for an abortion after prenatal scans suggested that her baby was disabled.”
As I read this article, I began thinking about my past career as a police officer. When a police officer makes an arrest, the suspect is always presumed innocent until proven guilty. In the case of a capital murder offense, the suspect can be given the death penalty only under certain circumstances. It takes a long series of appeals and judicial proceedings before a convicted murderer can actually be put to death by the state and these procedures can last for years.
This innocent baby boy received no defense, no assistance and no appeal, when he was placed on the floor and left to die after his birth. His death sentence began the moment he was diagnosed prenatally with a disability and deemed not worth welcoming into this world. He fought his initial death sentence valiantly and was able to enter this world still breathing and his heart still beating.
This valiant struggle, however, was not enough for him to overcome his predetermined “death sentence,” and when a compassionate soul realized the “miscarriage of justice,” it was too late to reverse the torturous harm and neglect that had been exacted upon this “innocent” human being.
We all need to appeal society’s “prenatal disability death sentence” and ensure that innocent children are not left to die on a floor because society has found them “guilty of imperfection.”
Join with Kurt and Chloe and American Life League and spread the word. Defend life by learning all you can about the practices human beings pursue in the cause of self-interest and personal comfort. And remember, God does not make mistakes, but man makes more than his share—many of which result in death.