This year, the theme for The March for Life is “Unique from Day One.”

I thought a lot about the truth of this phrase and its multifaceted significance when it was first announced. But from the start, I found my thoughts returning to a segment of the population that I believe uniquely embodies the message “Unique from Day One,” and whose existence and flourishing, I believe, makes the pro-life case better than other.

These are individuals with disabilities.

I spent this last semester thinking a lot about what it means to have a disability, what it means to care for someone with a disability, what it is to respond to disability, etc.

Initially, my curiosity was piqued because of my enrollment in an American Sign Language course, but through a series of random incidents, my interest ballooned.

I started following blogs, reading books, and watching youtube videos dedicated to people living with physical and/or mental disabilities.

Full disclosure: In my life, I’ve encountered little more than a handful of individuals living with some sort of serious disability (so I am in no way an authority on the subject), but in the latter half of 2018, I was quickly made aware of just how profound my ignorance was.

The breadth and the magnitude of disabilities that are experienced by millions of people around the world are staggering. But the responses to these disabilities are equally so, both in their beauty and in their cruelty.

Well known evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins once famously responded to a question about children prenatally diagnosed with down syndrome by saying, “Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice.”

Everytime I think about that, air whooshes out of my lungs like I’ve just been kicked in the chest, and I think to myself, “What a thing to say. What a thing to believe.”

But Dawkins is hardly alone.

Last year, an op-ed written in the Washington Post said virtually the same thing. After bemoaning the difficulties of raising a child with down syndrome, deputy editor Ruth Marcus wrote, “I’m going to be blunt here: That was not the child I wanted. That was not the choice I would have made. You can call me selfish, or worse, but I am in good company.”

I’d assume that Marcus would find Iceland to the be the best of company given that it has virtually “eradicated” down syndrome, boasting a 100% termination rate for children prenatally diagnosed. There, the stigma of keeping a child diagnosed with down syndrome is far greater than the stigma of killing one.

But down syndrome is a drop in the bucket of disabilities, and as prenatal testing becomes more affordable, exhaustive, and accurate, this “abort and try, try again” philosophy is set to unapologetically swallow the entire spectrum of children with disabilities.

The thought of this never fails to make me shake with disgust and with despair.

A disability should not be a death sentence, but right now, we are selectively pruning our citizenry without shame and flirting with wide-spread eugenics in a real and horrifying way.

Margaret Sanger would be proud.

We should be ashamed.

Today, I am marching for life.

Beyond that, I am marching for all the people with disabilities, born and unborn, who are targeted within a culture that is willing to kill for the sake of control and convenience.

However, I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge my three biggest inspirations: Peyton, John, and Anthony. They are living proof that life is beautiful in every iteration.

Peyton is a vibrant nine-year-old with Bixler syndrome, an incredibly rare genetic disorder that causes deformity and malformation of the skeleton and greater body, leading to rapid and dangerous overheating. She is also deaf. When asked what the best thing about being her is, Peyton replied, “God made me special. God said, ‘I want her nose to be like this. I want her ears to be like this—I want her to have fairy ears.’ And I was born with a cleft, and He said, ‘That’s fine!’”

John Hudson Dilgen is a teenager living with Epidermolysis Bullosa or “Butterfly Skin,” a condition that leaves him with less than half his skin and causes what remains to blister, bleed, and ooze, risking chronic infection. It is an excruciating and currently incurable condition, but even so, when asked what the purpose of his life is, John replied, “Everything happens for a reason. And every once and a while, I meet someone, and they say that I’ve helped them… If this is the payment for helping other people, then bring it on.”

Anthony is a twelve-year-old who survived an HOUR without oxygen as an infant. Currently, he is non-verbal and confined to a wheelchair. When asked how much she loves Anthony, his mom tearfully replied, “He is my world… He has truly changed my life for the better. Because of him, I see love differently. The way he loves people is indescribable, and that has helped me to love other people differently.”

There are some that would say people like Peyton, John, and Anthony are a burden. They’ll evasively suggest that the world, as an aggregate of individual experiences, would be better off without them. Lives would be easier. Cheaper. Better.

These people see only a burden—not a blessing.
They see disability instead of dignity.
They see a choice—not a child.

It is my sincerest wish that this will change, and I hope and pray that one day we will see the blessing before the burden, the dignity instead of the disability, and the child—not the choice.

“This life’s dim windows of the soul
Distorts the heavens from pole to pole
And leads you to believe a lie
When you see with, not through, the eye.”
— William Blake