The Abolition of Man

March 13, 2006

(via New York Times)
While reading “A Wrongful Birth?” from the magazine section of yesterday’s New York Times, I couldn’t thinking about the following quote from The Abolition of Man: “What we call Man’s power over Nature turns out to be a power exercised by some men over other men with Nature as its instrument.”

“A Wrongful Birth?” is an article on lawsuits by parents who are upset over the fact that they have children with conditions that could have been detected so that the child could have been aborted rather than born. The author points out that abortions for abnormalities are on the rise, as are the number of available prenatal tests. However, the tests are not always accurate, and many people have misconceptions about what life would be like with and for a child born with a condition such as Down syndrome, for example. Our society now faces questions such as “Should it be O.K. to terminate a deaf child? What about a blind one? How mentally retarded is too mentally retarded?” because our society has in large part accepted the idea that some lives are not worth living, that it is acceptable to eliminate the sufferer rather than care for them.

“Man’s conquest of Nature turns out, in the moment of its consummation, to be Nature’s conquest of Man,” The Abolition of Man.

Al Mohler’s column today also addresses “A Wrongful Birth.”