I need to be regularly reminded that, as a Christian, the world and I are looking at things from two completely different directions (John 15:19). When I read the story of a nine-year-old child with Down syndrome bringing joy, all I could think of is the world’s double-standard. Remember 2017, when Iceland claimed it eradicated Down syndrome? It turned out they used prenatal testing to identify the malady in the womb and encouraged abortion.

A sinful world hostile to God (Genesis 8:21) fosters the notion that perfect children born in a perfect family are perfectly valuable to an evolving society. In contrast, Christians have been taught that they themselves are imperfect (Romans 3:10), yet are of such immense value that God sacrificed his own Son to save them eternally (John 3:16).

The Apostle Paul encourages us,

Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. (Colossians 3:2)

Quality of life issues represent one of those “earthly things.” That doesn’t mean we ignore them. We are to do what we can to improve the lives of others (Matthew 25:35-40; Galatians 6:10; 1 John 4:19-20) because life in this world surely comes in differing qualities. What we are not to do, however, is prejudice against a life the world considers to be of low quality. In fact, those lives are to be valued (Proverbs 31:8-9; Galatians 6:2), even ahead of our own (Philippians 2:3-5).

Instead of relieving the burdens of those deemed to have a low-quality life, a society without God sets out to relieve the burden of society by eliminating those people. Within godlessness, life is expendable.

Without God, people try to create heaven on earth. They spend exorbitant amounts of money and time to create a temporal paradise and to extend life. In that quest, some people get in the way. It still seems barbaric to just “kill” them, so they shroud the deed in euphemisms like “reproductive freedom,” “mercy killing,” “death with dignity,” and “compassionate choices.

Learning to cherish a life of less than ideal-quality requires introspection to understand our own disabilities because of sin. Then we can observe perfect love in action that went to the cross for the wanted and unwanted, loved and unloved, whole and disabled. Loving others regardless of their quality of life is just one way we communicate the love God has shown to us. We cherish all human life.