The Other Side of Down Syndrome

'The closer you get to Down syndrome, the less scary the diagnosis becomes.’

M eet Josh. Josh is three years old, and according to his dad, Dave Bruno, he is exactly what you would expect from a three-year-old. He loves trucks; he loves dogs; he loves to play outside; he loves his siblings; he loves life.

Josh also has Down syndrome. Dave and his wife got the initial diagnosis early on, at roughly ten weeks pregnant. “We were surprised, and we were scared,” said Dave, but “the closer you get to Down syndrome, the less scary the diagnosis becomes.”

Despite the couple’s initial fears, Josh is thriving because Dave and his wife refused to give up on their son. “That initial news had seemed so dark, but what we couldn’t see then is the joy that Josh brings to everyone he encounters in the way our family would grow and become stronger as a result of our journey with him.”

I came across Dave’s testimony beneath a gut-wrenching X post: A young couple announced the “termination of their pregnancy” after a prenatal screening resulted in a Down syndrome diagnosis.

Popular YouTuber Jesse Ridgway (a.k.a. McJuggerNuggets) shared, “This week, my wife and I made the very difficult decision to terminate the pregnancy due to Trisomy 21.” He explained that he “signed on to be a parent, come what may,” but he “just didn’t fully understand what Down Syndrome entailed.”

In other words, they aborted their child for having Down syndrome.

Trisomy 21, more commonly known as Down syndrome, is “a genetic disorder whereby a person has three copies of chromosome 21 instead of two,” per the Global Down Syndrome Foundation.

“I didn’t realize just how rough it is for the child, let alone the family,” Ridgway wrote. “More often than not, [the child] would be fully dependent on others for the rest of their life.” The couple received immediate backlash as their comment section filled with moral indictments and threats; then, it was flooded with stories of hope and resilience from proud parents of children with Down syndrome.

When I asked Dave what compelled him to respond to the post, he said, “I was really heartbroken by it. Not just because of the rampant misinformation and logical fallacies that it contained, but also because of what it said about the value of every person, especially those with special needs.”

In the announcement, Ridgway attempted to justify his and his wife’s decision, citing all the health complications and difficulties the child would have encountered. “50 percent of babies with DS have heart defects. 75 percent will have hearing challenges. Over 50 percent will have vision problems. Impaired immune function, developmental disabilities, learning disabilities, delayed physical development, poor muscle tone, structural issues with face, decreased lifespan, etc…Sadly, the list is long, feel free to look it up… . Down Syndrome isn’t a ‘blessing’, it is objectively sh***y from a health perspective.”

The health complications Ridgway cited are real, and Josh is not immune to them. “There were some hard days, and we encountered some, but not all, of the medical issues that we were told about,” explained Dave. Being born early, Josh spent the first month of his young life in the hospital. At just one year old, he had open-heart surgery. However, Dave and his family viewed these complications as challenges to overcome, not excuses to surrender. “Josh is one of the most incredible and resilient kids that I’ve certainly ever met.”

Ridgway, meanwhile, returned to X with another post, writing that “the last 24 hours have exposed a side of humanity that is deeply disturbing.”

“What shocked me most of all was that this story has become mainstream news… A couple’s abortion is suddenly newsworthy in 2026…? There are over 1,000,000 abortions every single year for a myriad of reasons, this is happening on a DAILY BASIS and is the most common outcome for Trisomy 21, yet this one blows up and people are surprised…? The reason this blew up is quite simple: IT’S BECAUSE NOBODY TALKS ABOUT IT.” 

Unfortunately, Ridgway is right; no one talks about it, and thousands of children, just like Josh, pay the ultimate price.

The Ridgway case is one among thousands of cases every year. Some 4,100 Down syndrome abortions were performed after prenatal testing as of 2018 in the U.S.

According to a study on the births and population of people with Down syndrome in the U.S., reductions in live birth rates of children with Down syndrome increased dramatically after the introduction of prenatal testing. Between 60 and 70 percent of expectant parents in the U.S. who receive the diagnosis choose to abort. Around the world, in places like Iceland, Denmark, and the U.K., these percentages range from 90 to 100 percent.

The pro-life stance is clear. All children, starting at conception, are worthy of life because they are human, and humans have intrinsic value outside of all other factors: ability, health, personality, etc. A child’s value is not altered by the results of a Trisomy 21 test.

Pro-choice advocates argue that it is the woman’s choice to decide whether or not to “keep the pregnancy” because it is her body. They say this, but based on the provided statistics, abortion decisions are being made on the basis of the genetic disorder of another human body. Choosing to end the pregnancy after a Down syndrome diagnosis indicates that the bias was not against having a child; it was against having this child. It is the sign of a deeply misguided, misinformed, and selfish desire to have children only for one’s own gratification rather than for the pursuit of caring for another.

Lila Rose, president and founder of pro-life non-profit organization Live Action, condemns this practice, telling National Review: “Children with Down syndrome are precious gifts from God. The average life expectancy of a child with Down syndrome today is 60 years. Medical technology and care have increased and improved over time, and these babies deserve to be loved. This lie that they have little quality of life has really pervaded our culture. This idea, that if a child won’t have a good quality of life then they should be killed in the womb, has got to be rejected once and for all.”

Rose said that the outcry over this viral post “tells us that America still has a conscience.”

This idea is so normalized that many health officials often expect and even pressure newly pregnant couples to abort their unborn children after a Trisomy 21 diagnosis.

“Like many others have shared . . . when we got the news, we were faced with kind of an onslaught of information . . . what can often be presented as negative news,” Dave explained. “Including,” he added, “multiple doctors and staff members encouraging or just assuming that we would end the pregnancy.”

A survey by Down Syndrome Australia in 2018 found that 49 percent of families “felt pressure from their healthcare provider to terminate their pregnancy,” 42 percent of families “said they received negative information about Down syndrome,” and 69 percent of families “felt that the information provided did not give them an understanding of the lived experiences of people with Down syndrome and their families.”

This kind of negative pressure from the medical establishment treats children with Down syndrome like a failed experiment rather than a life to protect. Many couples believe termination is the only option because it is the first option presented to them.

Legislation to protect those most vulnerable has been introduced in the U.S. in the past, such as the Down Syndrome Discrimination by Abortion Prohibition Act sponsored by Senator James Inhofe (R., Okla.). The bill proposed to “prohibit discrimination by abortion against an unborn child on the basis of Down syndrome.” It never made it past referral to the judiciary committee.

As necessary as laws are, they won’t pass the introduction stage unless a cultural shift towards the protection and recognition of human intrinsic value occurs, starting in the womb.

Dave and Josh’s story is not unique. There are thousands of families, exactly like theirs, ready to open their arms and welcome new expectant parents of children with Down syndrome. “There is a whole community here that’s ready to embrace and support new parents and anyone who finds himself in this place,” Dave said.

“Most of all, we just tell people, ‘Don’t give up.’ The hard days don’t win. Your child’s worth fighting for. So don’t give up. It’s gonna be okay.”