Already families of disabled children have to suffer financially because of lack of available resources and lack of funding to pay for such resources (by resources I mean therapy, schooling, medical equipment, you name it).

The lack of financial support results from our society’s lack of regard for persons with disabilities. We don’t want to see them, we don’t want to go to school with them, we don’t want them in our workplace, and it takes government mandates and federal laws to force us to scrape the bottom of the barrel and give them their fair share. And for that, we make them (and their caregivers) fight and fight and fight.

As a result, having a disability becomes an increasingly horrifying prospect. When we worry about the physical/mental/social challenges caused by a disability, we are also worrying about society’s lack of regard for the person.

So we put our money into genetic research. We say by identifying the genes responsible for the disorder, we can isolate the cause and come up with treatment. Sounds promising. But finding the gene and finding treatment are usually decades and decades apart. Look at Down Syndrome. How long have we known the chromosomes responsible for this…about 30 years? And where is the cure, where is the treatment?

Whether it’s Down Syndrome or autism, the need for help TODAY is tremendous. A genetic test won’t help the “1 in 166″ that are already diagnosed. That “1 in 150″number should set off alarms that SERVICES and EARLY INTERVENTION must be a priority. Treatment makes a difference.

But we push more money into genetic research. While children go untreated, families struggle to keep it together, and schools fail miserably at educating our kids.

The moral issue for me, is not about abortion (that is for another topic). The moral issue is how well we are taking care of the needs of disabled people today by giving them the necessary help. And if the money we raise is going mainly to genetic research, then we are taking money away from children in need.