Doctor Denied Immigration Due to Son’s Down’s Syndrome

Few things frighten me to the core of my being than stories like this because they highlight this awful dark path that western civilization is skipping merrily down. First, a little background. Australia is suffering a massive shortage of doctors. According to MedIndia:

The shortage of doctors in Australia is so critical that the authorities are resisting compulsory checks on medicos trained overseas lest they fail the test, a study has revealed.

So they’re pretty much accepting everybody with a medical degree even if it’s from a GED Medical course you took in a Venezuelan prison.

But this week, a German doctor in good standing was denied entrance into the country because…his son has Down’s Syndrome. This, according to Reuters:

A German doctor refused permission to live permanently in Australia because his son has Down Syndrome, on Friday promised to fight the decision as an immigration row erupted over his future.

Bernhard Moeller came to Australia two years ago with wife Isabella and three children to work at the Wimmera Base Hospital in rural Victoria state, and was given a temporary visa to help plug a critical doctor shortage in Australia.

But immigration officials refused permission for the Moellers to settle permanently because youngest son Lukas, 13, failed health tests and was judged by officials as likely to be a permanent drain on taxpayer funding due to his condition.

“I think they just use my skills as long as it is necessary, but they don’t welcome my family,” Moeller told Reuters.

Moeller, from Bad Driburg near Cologne, supervises intensive care for a community of 54,000 people. He said he was told by officials he was unwelcome because he had a mildly disabled son. Lukas is able to attend a normal school and play sports including cricket and football.

As most of us already know, 90 percent of babies diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome are aborted. So I guess that denying immigration status to a family because of a child shouldn’t surprise me all that much. But it still does. Horror has a way of always finding a new way to shock.

I think this is an inevitable result of increased statism. Instead of families figuring out what’s best for families, you have committees doing cost/benefit analyses on what should be family decisions. The more intrusive government gets, it seems the more utilitarian it is forced to become.