Glenn Beck’s powerful response to influencer couple who aborted their Down syndrome baby

Social media influencer couple Jesse and Ashley Ridgway had been sharing their excitement about becoming first-time parents with their audience when one day they announced “a very difficult decision”: They were choosing to “terminate the pregnancy” because prenatal testing showed the baby had Down syndrome.

In the announcement, Jesse wrote, “Down syndrome isn’t a ‘blessing,’ it is objectively s**tty from a health perspective,” and listed various medical challenges associated with the condition.

He concluded his announcement by thanking his audience for being “understanding” about their decision.

But the majority of responses the couple received were the opposite of understanding.

The Ridgways’ announcement sparked a furious response from pro-life and disability advocates, as well as parents of children with Down syndrome, many of whom called the couple’s decision “evil” and accused them of being “murderers.”

While Glenn Beck was heartbroken by the Ridgways’ decision, he is plagued by a fear that goes deeper than one couple’s decision to abort their child: What happens when society begins measuring human worth by intelligence, independence, health, or convenience?

Citing LDS premortal life doctrine, Glenn speculates that the valiant angels in heaven who “fought on the front lines and cast Satan out” and thus needed less mortal testing were perhaps sent to Earth as people with Down syndrome.

“Have you ever met a Down syndrome kid? ... Their default is love; their default is kindness,” he says, recalling his years working with Special Olympians.

“As a father of a daughter with cerebral palsy who has taught me more than anyone I know, she is my hero. The way she deals with things, her spiritual connections, the way she’s disciplined herself, the things she’s overcome. She’s my hero,” he continues.

While there have been many challenges that have come with raising a child with a disability, the hardest one, Glenn says, has been “seeing your child left out of things, seeing your child not understood.”

“But through all the pain that our children face and all the pain that we face, it is so worth it,” he says. “But you have to realize that life is not about you.”

But that’s the problem with abortion advocates, Glenn argues. They do have a self-centered perspective of life, believing life is about only them — their freedom, ambitions, and desires. Even those who claim that abortion benefits would-be disadvantaged children are merely masking their egocentrism, Glenn says.

He warns that when we make a practice of eliminating the weak, we “become more and more like an animal and less and less like a human being.”

To hear more of Glenn’s powerful monologue, watch the video above.

Want more from Glenn Beck?

To enjoy more of Glenn’s masterful storytelling, thought-provoking analysis, and uncanny ability to make sense of the chaos, subscribe to BlazeTV — the largest multi-platform network of voices who love America, defend the Constitution, and live the American dream.