On June 3, a debate about the silent genocide of unborn children with Down syndrome exploded on social media. The unlikely catalyst was an X post by YouTube influencer Jesse “McJuggerNuggets” Ridgway. For months, the Ridgways had been producing and posting news of their pregnancy for a massive online audience, including their pregnancy announcement on March 29, a gender reveal (a boy), ultrasounds, and finally, a disturbingly personal video of the grief-stricken couple finding out their baby likely had Down syndrome.
The journey culminated in Ridgway’s announcement that the couple had decided to abort the baby at twenty-one weeks. (Last year, a preemie born at twenty-one weeks in Iowa survived.) Ridgway listed the health problems his son might have suffered from—heart defects, hearing challenges, learning disabilities, decreased lifespan—and concluded: “Down syndrome isn’t a ‘blessing.’” He assured his “fans” with autism and Down syndrome that “we appreciate you,” but said that the abortion “will be beneficial for our family” and that “thankfully, we had a choice.”
The post has been viewed over 24 million times and has garnered 18,000 mostly negative comments. Many were livid at Ridgway’s openly eugenic justification for having his unborn son destroyed; hundreds posted stories, photos, and videos of their loved ones with Down syndrome, expressing their gratitude for their love, lives, and contributions. The photos put faces to society’s most endangered population—as Ridgway pointed out in his post, around 90 percent of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome are killed in the womb.
Many prominent figures responded to the post, most notably Speaker Mike Johnson. “When a culture devolves to the point of depravity where ‘influencers’ can go online and so casually dismiss the deliberate murder of their own precious child, the survival of that culture itself is at risk,” he wrote. “God have mercy on our nation as we pray and work for an end to this evil, for hearts and minds to change, and for a renewed understanding of the self-evident truths and the sanctity of all human life.”
Ridgway was stunned by the response; on June 4, he wrote a follow-up post calling the condemnations of their decision “disturbing” and evidence of “the depravity of people online,” adding that “I’ve never seen such hate and vitriol for two people grieving the loss of their unborn child and making an impossible decision.” He noted that some had reached out with support, and that he was confused as to why aborting a baby with Down syndrome, which is “the most common outcome for Trisomy 21,” was even newsworthy.
