“Love Doesn’t Count Chromosomes”: Reflections on Disability, Law and Religious Ethics

Abstract

In July 2021 Heidi Crowter took the UK Secretary of State for Health and Social Care to court with the aim of challenging the aspects of the Abortion Act that in her view discriminate against people with Down's Syndrome. The case ignited the civic debate on disability, law and public ethics, re-exposing the shaky grounds and inherent contradictions of human rights discourse and legislation and revealing the acute dangers of utilitarian logic that sustains the status quo. In this paper I argue that if we are to safeguard the dignity and rights of those among us who might not satisfy the utilitarian criteria of “worthiness of existence”, the values that underlie human rights legislation need to be firmly situated in the realm of the absolute and the unconditional. This is an area where religious ethics can offer invaluable contribution. The transcendental grounding of faith-based morality endows the notion of human dignity with universality that is not conditional on any “worldly” category of worth (the concept of “ability” being one such category). Also, it provides a radical and counter-cultural redefinition of the notion of what it means to be a “contributor” to the social sphere, a redefinition that does not exclude those among us living with a disability.