In June, a doctor in a Milan hospital mistakenly aborted a healthy baby instead of a twin sister with Down Syndrome. After discovering that the abortionist had killed the “wrong” child — the doctor was unaware the fetuses had switched position in their mother’s womb — the mother returned to the hospital to have her remaining twin aborted, as well...
Bishop Elio Sgreccia, president of the Pontifical Commission for Life, told Vatican Radio Aug. 27 that the case should prompt a renewed commitment to respect all human life from conception, including unborn children with disabilities. “And in the case that they have some sort of sickness, that means that they have more reason to be helped.”
One question raised by the double abortion is why the mistaken killing of a healthy child is considered a 'tragedy' while that of a disabled one is not. A major reason, according to moral theologians, is a consumerist and materialist mentality that exalts human perfection." There is a "culture of perfection that imposes the exclusion of all that does not appear beautiful, glowing, positive, captivating.” “The value of human life does not come from its flawlessness, but from its singularity,” said Legionary Father Thomas Williams, dean of theology at Rome’s Regina Apostolorum University. “When we start assigning different values to different persons — based on abilities, health, intelligence or any other qualities — we reduce them to their utility.” This utilitarian outlook leads to a rejection of the intrinsic dignity of the human person, Father Williams said. “If children’s lives matter only insofar as they matter to us, then they don’t really matter at all,” he said. "Do we set the price on their lives, or is every life priceless in itself?"
In an interview Aug. 31 with Corriere della Sera, Bishop Giuseppe Betori, secretary of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, said the idea that only the 'perfect' person is valuable generates indifference when it comes to the killing of innocent, disabled children. That attitude also fosters a sense among parents of being unable to cope with the burden of raising a disabled child, Bishop Betori said. “More love would help us overcome this great timidity that our society, which strives for perfection, sows in our hearts,” he said. “We aspire to a physical and moral perfection that doesn’t exist."
Bishop Betori also commented that it is contradictory to single out the killing of the “wrong” innocent child as exceptionally tragic. "Isn’t it “more tragic still,” he said, that many more unborn children are killed “intentionally, legally and with no remorse whatsoever?”
Said Father Williams, “Choosing who will live and who will die is always an exercise in devilry.”
Thank you, Almighty God, for these holy priests who are boldly proclaiming the Truth in the Culture of Death. Continue to pour Your grace upon them. Surround them with a legion of angels and protect them as they battle the evil one and his lies. Thank you for the NCR and it's dissemination of authentic news and current events.
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