Lots of people make the decision to abort deformed fetuses every year. As a deformed/disabled person, I find this very disturbing. The argument is that the deformed/disabled person will have a lower quality of life, will be dependent on other people, will be a burden on their parents, etc. Therefore, it is supposedly in the best interest of the parents AND the fetus to just kill it. I can't wrap my mind about that. There seems to be a very thin line between this and, say, ethnic cleansing.

From a scientific standpoint, I believe that the human race would be better off without me. I'm going on my 6th surgery this summer to correct all of my genetic deformities. I use up a lot of insurance money. I get in the way of healthy people. I don't know if it's a good idea for me to have children because I can pass on my deformities and further weaken the gene pool.

However, my life still has a purpose. Lots of disabled people have a purpose. There are some people who seem like they may have no purpose at all (such as people who have no independence whatsoever, cannot communicate, are bed-bound, etc.), and some people seem to think they would have been better off dead. I have to wonder if we are really looking at them through God's eyes.

My guess is that their purpose is to teach us compassion. Compassion is severely lacking among many "normal" people, even those of the religious variety. I won't go into my experiences as a disabled person, because to me nothing is more revolting than people selectively breeding their own children. We Americans are disgusted by the Chinese who openly practice sexism by killing off baby girls, since having a baby boy brings honor to the family. We are revolted when a baby is aborted because it is from interracial parents. I can't understand why it is acceptable, even desirable, to abort a child who will be born deformed.

Despite our barbaric tendency to kill them off, God still allows disabled and deformed people to be born. Why? I really think one reason is to teach the rest of us to be compassionate.

This has been a long debated question in bioethics. Personally, I think the strongest case made against selective abortion is the effect the procedure  has on disabled persons. It's understandable that those with disabilities would feel indignant or even resentful toward those who would even think to abort a child simply because of the potential for disability.

However, indignation is only reasonably available to those who believe that the fetus is a person, or that there should be some sort of reverence for the potential of personhood.