Wall Street Journal article on Harriet McBryde Johnson

entitled A Life Worth Living was forwarded to me this morning. You can find the article here., and here's an excerpt concerning culturally acceptable choices :

Yet, despite the lip service we pay to "accommodation" (and the genuine good that comes from legislation such as the Americans With Disabilities Act), we now find ourselves in a disturbing situation: As our scientific powers to eliminate disability grow, our acceptance of disability wanes.

To cite just one example, consider the rapid near-disappearance of people with Down Syndrome. ...This at a time when new developments in medicine have nearly doubled the average life span of people who have the condition to 49 from 25 years. As a culture, we have made what Amy Laura Hall of Duke University Divinity School calls a "democratic calculus of worth" regarding Down Syndrome. And that calculus has resulted in a society hostile to people who refuse to make the culturally acceptable choice of ridding themselves of a disabled child before she is born.