This is excellent, a very visible and enthusiastic support for human exceptionalism and equal moral worth. This years’s “Gerber Baby” has Down syndrome. From the Today story:
The 2018 Gerber baby is Lucas Warren, a 1-year-old from Dalton, Georgia who is the first child with Down syndrome to be named a Gerber baby since the contest’s start in 2010.
“He’s very outgoing and never meets a stranger,” Lucas’s mom, Cortney, told TODAY Parents. “He loves to play, loves to laugh and loves to make other people laugh.”
Don’t tell Iceland. That country has wiped babies with Down off their territory through a pogrom of eugenic abortion targeting fetuses with that condition.
Don’t tell France. That country refused to permit a Down syndrome support organization run a TV ad extolling the joys of raising a Down child because it could make women who aborted Down fetuses feel guilty.
Don’t tell Peter Singer of Princeton. He has advocated the propriety of infanticide of Down syndrome infants–e.g. post-birth abortion.
Do applaud Gerber for making an all-too-rare very positive statement about the inherent value of people with Down.