Aborting Imperfect Babies
— Posted by John (May 30, 2006 at 5:10 pm)
A recent article in the British newspaper The Daily Mail sheds some light on a disturbing practice in the UK: late-term abortions of babies with webbed fingers, extra digits, or a club foot — defects that can usually be corrected with a simple operation or physiotherapy.
There is much of interest in the article, including these comments from Michaela Aston of the UK pro-life group LIFE:
One sympathises for many of the parents of these unborn children aborted after disability has been detected.
What information are they being given by healthcare professionals so that they can make a truly informed choice?
We suspect that many parents make the decision to opt for abortion in complete ignorance of the help and support available to children with disabilities and their families.
For this, health care professionals must shoulder a large part of the blame.
If, as a society, we are truly committed to equality for people with disabilities then such blatant discrimination against the disabled unborn must stop.
HT: Amy Welborn
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mary kay says:
You know when you’re house gets so dirty that you’re overwhelmed and don’t even know where to begin…?
It feels like the world is so dirty that sometimes I fear that we can never crawl our way back to the light…
Where did it begin? How is it possible? When did they open the doors of the psych wards and let the insane people start running the world?
Where does it end?
It gives new meaning to the words “Lord, have mercy”.
God help us. We need it. I am sickened by what I just read and am ashamed to be a member of the human race sometimes…
MK
Comment posted May 31st, 2006 at 5:32 am
rosie says:
“She however vowed to continue in her fight to make terminations illegal after 24 weeks and to ensure cleft palates were not included within the term ‘serious handicap’ and used to justify late abortions.”
Did you know that if you lose a baby after 20 weeks you get a death certificate? They wouldn’t do that if the baby wasn’t in fact a baby ,a human being.
Comment posted May 31st, 2006 at 9:38 am
Pansy Moss says:
I don’t understand, even if these things were not correctable with surgery, why would your want to abort your child because of it?
Comment posted June 1st, 2006 at 5:24 am
mary kay says:
Pansy,
None of us understands…in is incomprehensible.
God help us…
MK
Comment posted June 1st, 2006 at 6:12 am
Lucy says:
Lovely. Did it ever occur to anyone that people with percieved disabilities are simply in a position where they learn to do things in a different fashion than those, making Differently abled more appropriate then Disabled, which would apply to those who cannot, not those who do so in a different manner.
Of course to those who would deprive a woman of her rights to her body because she is a woman I imagine differently shaped feet must be reason enough to pity a person. Of course, one might take into consideration that some of these babies will survive only for a few painful hours, and loving mothers are more apt to attempt to spare such pain when the medical conditions are actually life threatening. There is also the fact that while the ‘simple’ surgery that you so freely offer as though somehow in preventing stem cell research you encourage medical advances, may cost more than some parents can afford, meaning that the child will endure life without care that would allow them to function.
Apparently there was a baby born with three legs a bit ago. A woman I know remarked that this was an indication that something was wrong. I responded that this was an indication of the advancement of medical science,(discouraged by those who wish to prevent stem cell research), that previously such a fetus would not have been likely to have survived the pregnancy, let alone make it through birth. Of course, these advances have been made despite the people who now wish to offer them as options, not because of them. I always find this amazing. You do realize of course that early physicians robbed graves for bodies at night in order to sneak, against the churches wishes, to obtain a better understanding of the human body, so as to now know how to perform such operations.
It will be in spite of the objections of the Religious Right that Stem Cell Research will discover a wide array of new methods of improving life, extending life, and permitting children who would have otherwise never made it out of the womb for reasons not pertaining to a womans choice, not because of it. Yet, as usual, the Religious Right will be the first to step up and scream that respect for life ensures the entitlement of products and procedures they would have prevented from ever existing.
It will never, ever cease to amaze me. If you are going to insist upon using medical science as a quick fix for the problems you see in the world then please get out of medical science’s way. Afterall, it was against the will of God to operate on a corpse once upon a time, and on a live person, let’s not forget that.
Comment posted June 3rd, 2006 at 3:26 pm
Lucy says:
I am seeking for someone to define life. Not to explain when they believe life begins, but to define what they understand it to be. For people that define themselves as Pro-life this should be a simple task. After all, what are you Pro.
What is life.
Comment posted June 3rd, 2006 at 4:56 pm
Young Christian Woman says:
We do not object to stem cell research. We object to the destructive and less promising form of stem cell research: embryonic stem-cell research. “Adult” stem cell research, performed with stem cells which can be harvested without killing the donor, from sources such as umbilical cord blood, is perfectly ethical.
Comment posted June 4th, 2006 at 1:57 pm