On May 27, YouTuber Jesse Ridgeway posted a video of him and his wife, Ashley Ridgeway, discovering that their five-month-old unborn child had Down syndrome. Anyone can understand the anxiety associated with such a diagnosis. Most parents are anxious about potential complications, or how properly to care for a child with special needs.

The Ridgeways’ concern was different. Between guttural sobs, Ashley moaned that she had “the nursery picked out… I was ready!” Her husband’s performative grief similarly implied that their child was already dead.

The next steps were therefore unsurprising. A few days later, Jesse posted on X/Twitter that he and his wife had made the “difficult” decision to abort their baby. The couple faced significant conservative pushback – both for choosing abortion and for monetising it as content. In another X/Twitter post, Jesse defended the decision, implying that he and his wife were victims without agency.

Unfortunately, this scenario happens constantly. The Ridgeways just appear to be the first to post about it. Abortion’s legality has made Down syndrome a death sentence for the majority of unborn children around the world. It has fostered a culture of selfishness that denies the truth about unborn life, justifies the barbaric destruction of that life and then monetises it as content.

The Ridgeways seem to believe that they are the victims in this scenario. Jesse wrote that it was an “extremely traumatic” time for him and Ashley. He said they were devastated. Shockingly, Jesse continuously refers to their aborted child as just that – an unborn child. With these words he recognises the humanity of the precious five-month-old baby whom they destroyed.

At five months, this baby would have been fully formed. He or she had a heartbeat. Their baby could already hear his or her mother’s voice and respond to it. Some babies can survive outside the womb as early as five months. They can also feel pain.

The Ridgeways’ baby would have felt excruciating pain. Abortions as late as five months require dilation and evacuation procedures, which involve the use of forceps and suction to dismember unborn babies in the womb.

The Ridgeways imply that the internet should celebrate their choice. They are clearly not averse to making money from it. They suggest that the gruesome death their baby endured was more merciful than a life with Down syndrome. It is not.

Children with Down syndrome deserve to live just like anyone else by the mere fact that they are human beings. Their worth is not determined by their characteristics or by what they bring to society.

Yet those with Down syndrome do offer so much to society. Those with Down syndrome do not seem to become hardened by life in the way that most of us do. Every person with Down syndrome whom I have met or heard of has a childlike innocence and joy about them that never fades – no matter how old they are.

In our fast-paced world, which prioritises selfish individualism and aggrandisement, family members or friends with Down syndrome remind their loved ones what matters in life.

They teach us to be selfless in caring for someone we love. They remind us to be joyful despite life’s challenges because life itself is a gift. They make us laugh – sometimes unintentionally. They are among the few people who love us completely innocently and purely, and for our own sakes.

Tragically, the perception that individuals with Down syndrome are a “burden” to society has made the diagnosis a death sentence around the world. Iceland and Denmark have a nearly 100 per cent abortion rate for babies with Down syndrome. In Norway, that number is at least 80 per cent. In the US – a country whose Constitution guarantees the right to life yet whose laws permit abortion – the estimated abortion rate for children with Down syndrome is 70 per cent.

Abortion is always wrong because it destroys innocent human life. Yet the legality and “normalisation” of abortion has enabled many people to pretend that aborting a child on the basis of sex, race or disability is not eugenics.

That is exactly what the Ridgeways did – they engaged in eugenics because the characteristics of their unborn child were not exactly to their specifications. They claim that they feared their child would have a difficult life, as if a hard life is worse than no life at all.

The truth, however, is that the Ridgeways are remarkably selfish people who know what they did was wrong. They know that the real reason they aborted was not because their child might have had a hard life – it was because they did not want to be responsible for someone with a disability.

Their YouTube video was an attempt to “normalise” abortion eugenics and garner sympathy for this selfish choice. They hoped the internet would affirm this decision. Their desperation for sympathy and validation shows how deeply they want to convince themselves that killing their unborn child was not evil. It was. But as long as abortion remains legal, American culture will continue celebrating and seeking to validate such choices.

The Ridgeways are not an anomaly; they are the predictable result of a culture that treats human life as disposable and teaches parents that the value of their child depends on whether that child is wanted, healthy or convenient.

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