Summary: CBS News recently reported that the country of Iceland has almost completely eradicated Down syndrome. What they really mean is that Iceland has almost completely eradicated people with Down syndrome. The story explains, “Since prenatal screening tests were introduced in Iceland in the early 2000s, the vast majority of women—close to 100 percent—who received a positive test for Down syndrome terminated their pregnancy.” There are many in Iceland, including some medical ethicists, who are trying to deny that this is really a big moral issue at all. One medical authority in Iceland said this, “We don’t look at abortion as a murder. We look at it as a thing that we ended . . . And I think that is more right than seeing it as a murder — that’s so black and white. Life isn’t black and white. Life is grey.” Well actually this is very black and white. It is life and death. It is just that distinct. Iceland is murdering babies in the womb simply because they are seen as being genetically deficient, insufficiently valuable in order to have a right or privilege to be born.
