Imagine a world where disease had been conquered by science, where babies were born without birth defects, where there were no severely handicapped or brain-damaged people, where everyone was productive, and only the very young and the very old needed care. Wouldn't that be wonderful?
Or would it? I'm inclined to think that wouldn't be such a wonderful world. For one thing it wouldn't have included my brother Brian.
Brian was born brain-damaged in 1946, a beautiful little boy who appeared to be no different than any other infant. The first evidence that there might be something wrong with Brian was his failure to communicate with us through speech. He could show you what he wanted, cry, yell, but not verbalize.
When he was five years old he began having terrible seizures. For the next 15 years or more, in search of a cure for their little boy, my parents took him to specialists up and down the east coast. From the specialists they received a variety of diagnoses – autism, cerebral palsy, idiocy – but no help. Most recommended committing him to an institution, which in those days usually meant a short and unhappy life for the institutionalized. To their eternal credit, my parents refused to do that.
Brian died peacefully seven years ago, at the age of 53, at home in the loving care of his younger sister. His job was done. Brian's entire life had been spent in the care of his family, which is probably why he lived as long as he did. (We were told that most people in his condition don't live that long.) Brian's job, his purpose in life, was to make everyone who cared for him better than they would have been without him.
Many Americans, however, don't see people like my brother Brian that way. They see them merely as burdens on the rest of us. That's one reason why so many people bought into the dehydration execution of Terri Schiavo a couple of years ago. Severely brain-damaged, she was considered by many to be mostly dead anyway.
It's also why approximately 40,000 unborn babies with potential birth defects are aborted in this country every year. They would be a burden on their parents and society. It's also the reason why, if the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) has its way, that number will probably increase.
Early last month ACOG recommended that all pregnant women should be screened for Down's syndrome before the twentieth week of pregnancy. According to a statement released a couple of weeks later by the National Down Syndrome Congress (NDSC) the primary reason for the new ACOG policy is to "encourage earlier diagnostic testing in 'at risk' pregnancies, in order to facilitate early terminations."
Right now, as you read this, groups of scientists, many of them publicly funded, are working toward the goal of a world free of the imperfect and the burdensome. With their white coats, their microscopes, and their lab animals, they are engaged in what is commonly known as genetic engineering. They are manipulating the genetic codes of plants, animals and humans in that time-honored enterprise — trying to beat God at His own game.
Of course, they don't call it that. They call it "advancing science" and "finding cures." They will enjoy some successes. Nobel prizes will no doubt be awarded for those. And they will suffer a number of setbacks, hopefully none that devastates the world's human population. Ultimately they will not achieve their goal, because, smart as they are, they are not as smart as God.
What they don't understand is that those who need our loving care and compassion are not merely burdens. They are here, as part of God's great design, to force us to focus on something more than ourselves, to make us better human beings than we would be without them. They are here to help us get to heaven.