ANCHORS OF SANITY

Events in Charlottesville and the President’s response to them have all but sucked the oxygen out of the public square. It’s understandable. Neo-nazis and their ilk live by a creed most of us find absolutely disgusting. They have earned the condemnation being heaped on them, even if the President refuses to see it.

There are also other stories that hit the back pages of the news that are no less important than Charlottesville. That became very evident when I read the news coming out of Iceland and France on the morning of the 16th. In a dispatch from C.B..S. News, the people of Iceland reported that only two Down Syndrome are born in Iceland annually, thanks to mandatory pre-natal screening, which in turn has led to abortions of most unborn Down Syndrome children. They were quite proud of what they’d accomplished.

It’s also  being reported that that France has gotten the same sort of result with their mandatory pre-natal testing. Over 90% of pre-born Down Syndrome children in France are aborted before they’re born.

Apparently, the result didn’t completely satisfy the French authorities. On the morning of the 17th I read an essay written by J.D. Flynn written in “First Things,” the publishing arm of  the “Institute on Religion and Public Life.” This is from one of his early paragraphs:

“Last year, the Conseil d’Etat upheld a government ban on a television commercial highlighting the lives of people with Down syndrome in video was judged to be “inappropriate” for French audiences because it conveyed happy people with Down syndrome, who were “likely to disturb the consciences of women who had lawfully made different personal life choices.”

I guess French sensibilities are fragile, just not fragile enough to stop the abortions.

It makes me wonder who the next target might be. The autistic? Those with cleft palate? Spina Bifida? Fragile X Syndrome? It makes me wonder when, or if, this will be coming to America.

One of my great joys in life is spending time with Nancy’s developmentally disabled brother, James. I’ve known him for 31 years now.  I know him alternately as James, Beanblossom the Great, and my twin brother-in-law.

James wasn’t born with any syndrome. He was the older of a set of twins. But, early on in life he developed spinal meningitis and double pneumonia simultaneously. The result is his developmental disability. Some of his cognitive skills are very limited, but one thing I’ve always seen in James is his uncanny ability to read discomfort in other people. He’s a great judge of character. He also a has one of the firmest moral compasses I’ve ever seen in a person. You can’t make James do something he morally objects to, not even under the threat of death. You’ll never find James preaching hate or carrying a Tiki-torch around Emporia.

Can James be difficult? You betcha.’ I’ve had more than one occasion when I’ve told him he’s driving me up the wall. Those little flare ups almost always end with James and I hugging tightly and forgiving one another.

The developmentally disabled can often teach us profound life lessons. My next door neighbor, Dewane Reed, is autistic. I think his disability may be profound, although I’ve never discussed it with him. The degree of his disability isn’t important when compared with his simple humanity. One of the connections we had early on was our mutual love of slapstick comedy. We both love the Three Stooges. I’ll sometimes see him early in the morning or the evening when my day’s labors are done and launch into my bad imitation - “Hey, Dewane, How you doin? Whoop, whoop, nyuck, nyuck, nyuck...coitenly!” I usually top if off by slapping my head, a la Curly. The silliness amuses Dewane no end.

Like James, Dewane just wants to be loved and do a good job. It makes life pretty simple. You’ll never find him sporting a swastika or carrying a Tiki-torch around town. And, unlike our political leaders and fat cat developers, James and Dewane aren’t dreaming up clever ways to pick their neighbors’ pockets.

The people of France and Iceland have decided the world is a better place without the likes of James or Dewane. It seems to endow them with a sense of superiority. As Flynn put it in his essay, “Shunning—or aborting—disabled people lets us pretend that we are stronger, smarter, and more independent than we really are.”

God, I hope this never comes to America. I don’t think I’d want to live in a world without James and Dewane. They’re anchors of sanity in an otherwise insane world. We need them far more than we need the spectacle of neo-nazis in their jackboots. In fact, we probably need them more than we need slick politicians or fat-cat developers.