Animal Farm Revisited

In George Orwell’s classic book, Animal Farm, some animals were deemed “more equal” than others. In the America of 2005, some human beings are more equal than others, too. At least, that’s what many people in our morally confused society seem to think. How else can you explain the killing of more than 40 million unborn human babies since abortion was legalized in 1973?

The disabled constitute another group that Americans view as “less equal” than the rest of us.

Former Washington Post reporter Patricia E. Bauer has a daughter named Margaret with Down syndrome. Writing recently in the Post, Bauer says that up to 90 percent of unborn babies diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted.

“As Margaret bounces through life,” Bauer writes, “I see the way people look at her: curious, surprised, sometimes wary, occasionally disapproving or alarmed. . . . To them, Margaret falls into the category of avoidable human suffering. At best, a tragic mistake. At worst, a living embodiment of the pro-life movement. Less than human. A drain on society. That someone I love is regarded this way is unspeakably painful to me.”

And it should be to the rest of us. Joni Eareckson Tada, after a diving accident left her paralyzed 38 years ago, knows such private attitudes inevitably impact public policy. “People have a fundamental fear of disabilities,” Tada tells Christianity Today. “That fear drives social policy.”

Indeed. Fear of disability—such as the paralysis that afflicted the late Christopher Reeve—is one reason many Americans support killing human embryos to use their stem cells in medical research, even though adult stem cells and other developments have shown much more real-world promise.

Senators Sam Brownback and Ted Kennedy and Representative James Sensenbrenner have introduced legislation in Congress to provide more information and support services for women who receive a positive test diagnosis for prenatally diagnosed conditions. Such government efforts are a good step, but they don’t really address the attitude that some humans are more equal than others.

That kind of attitude adjustment should come from the church. Our responsibility as Christians is to lovingly demonstrate that no human is “more equal” than another, because we all bear the image of our Creator. When it comes to the disabled, we should make every reasonable effort to remove the physical barriers to our houses of worship. But just as important is an attitude that welcomes the physically and mentally challenged with open arms, not merely as objects of ministry, but as ministers in their own right. Yes, the disabled need the church—almost as much as the church needs the disabled.