Eugenics: aborting the disabled

The UK government following a lengthy legal battle has revealed the precise numbers, gestational ages, and types of disability of babies aborted between 2002 and 2010 in England and Wales. 

According to a Daily Mail report published under the  banner headline “Revealed: The thousands of pregnancies aborted for ‘abnormalities’ including cleft palates and Down’s syndrome” which was based on Department of Health figures, a total of 2,290 babies were aborted last year for so called “medical conditions.”
In 2010 alone, 482 babies with Down’s syndrome were aborted, including ten who were over 24 weeks gestation.

·         “There were also 128 terminations for the nervous disorder spina bifida, including 12 after 24 weeks.

·         “Musculoskeletal problems such as club foot were the reason for 181 abortions, including eight over 24 weeks.

Anthony Ozimic, communications manager for the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) commented as follows

“Between 2001 and 2010, the number of abortions on the grounds of disability rose by one-third, 10 times that of abortions generally. It is clear that legal abortion is a system which discriminates, fatally, against the disabled.”

The full response from the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children  SPUC can be found here SPUC report  and the response of the SPUC affiliate No Less Human can be found here No Less Human

Survival of the fittest

Will you take me as I am?

Now that you have seen the scan.

You fear I could be born deficient

Is my presence not sufficient?

Will you love me and accept me

Or will you callously reject me

Focus not on my defect,

Please accept and don’t reject.

What about the blind and lame

Surely they deserve a name

If only the perfect may be born

What you practice is profane 

Patrick Buckley        

Article: Influence of age on infertility and birth defects

The London Independent (3 September 2010) carries an interesting article entitled: ‘Revealed: why risk of infertility and birth defects rises with age – Study pins blame on declining protein levels’.

Now, it is very possible, and probable, that declining protein levels do indeed affect fertility. But it does happen also that couples, who for reasons of career, etc., postpone having children until their later years, find at that stage that it is not possible or it is less possible to become pregnant. For those who find themselves in such a situation do they ever wonder how it is that they remained ‘un-pregnant’? Do they realise (maybe they were never told) that the contraceptive pill, and other methods of contraception, could very well have contributed to their infertility? As the Independent says:

‘ The trend of later motherhood is one of the most significant social developments of recent times, but it has brought heartache as an increasing number of women discover they left it too late to have a baby.’

And it also says,

‘Births to women aged 35 and over have soared 50 per cent in the last decade and among women in their 40s by 90 per cent (to 2009). Down’s syndrome pregnancies rose by more than 70 per cent in the 20 years to 2008, driven by the trend to later motherhood.’

The article is accompanied by a photograph of an ultrasound scan of a baby in her mother’s womb. Beautiful. So the baby is a human being in the process of growing! It’s good to see this acknowledged.