UK commission calls for changes to abortion laws of disabled

A parliamentary commission in the United Kingdom is calling for changes to abortion laws — specifically, laws that amount to eugenics against babies with disabilities. For a “normal” baby, an abortion can only be performed up until the 24th week of pregnancy. But if your baby is “disabled”? Mothers can abort them right up to the 40th week, even for something as small as a cleft lip. MPs are saying that this discrimination needs to stop.

The rules are being applied in a “haphazard” way with no clear legal definition of how seriously disabled a child is thought likely to be in order to justify a termination, the report finds.

Parents are being “steered” towards aborting babies with disabilities without proper information on the alternatives available to them, it adds.

In extreme cases it has led to foetuses being aborted purely because screening has detected a cleft lip or club foot, conditions which can be dealt with after birth, according to the committee. Under the 1967 Abortion Act, a termination can be carried out up until 24 weeks gestation if two doctors agree that the physical or mental health of the woman or the child would be at risk if the pregnancy were to continue.

But doctors can also approve an abortion up to 40 weeks if doctors think there is a “substantial risk” that the child will be “seriously” handicapped. This reason is given in around 2,700 cases a year.

In addition to discriminatory laws allowing for the abortions of the disabled, the commission found that more support was needed for parents who chose to keep their babies.

Part of what sparked interest in the issue was a report that found a 17% increase in the number of abortions due to disability in the last year. Babies with Down syndrome were about a quarter of the babies aborted, and 90% of the babies diagnosed prenatally are killed. Yet the law was meant to allow for abortions of the “seriously handicapped”. On what planet are cleft lips and Down syndrome considered serious handicaps?

Calling the current state of affairs eugenics is absolutely correct. That babies can be killed simply for having a disability — even a very minor one that can be repaired, such as a cleft lip — right up into the 40th week is abhorrent. It becomes even worse when you add in the fact that babies without a disability cannot legally be subjected to third trimester abortions. Unsurprisingly, a British pro-abortion group has come out against the report. Evidently, the pro-aborts want discrimination based upon disabilities, even minor disabilities, to continue. If you don’t have a perfect baby, then that baby doesn’t deserve to live. Cosmetic issues that can be fixed with minor surgery are good reasons to deprive a child of their life.

Is this the kind of world we want to live in, where a child only deserves life if they meet some ridiculous standard of perfection?