Woman with Down syndrome addresses UN: Stop targeting us for extinction

Charlotte Fien is a woman with Down syndrome, who has been passionately speaking out about the right of her community to exist. Around the world, the lives of people with Down syndrome are endangered… thanks to abortion. Our culture of death has taken the benefits of prenatal testing and subverted it, so in many countries, babies with Down syndrome are killed before they are even born. Fien has regularly spoken out about this injustice — including before the United Nations several times — advocating for the right of people like her to live.

Last week, she spoke before the United Nations again, calling for an end to eugenic abortion.

She said, in part:

Women are frequently pressured to have abortions after receiving a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome, and some doctors have admitted to emphasizing or exaggerating the negative aspects to persuade women to abort. And this is exactly why laws banning abortion to due Down syndrome and other disabilities are needed — because the reality is that preborn babies with Down syndrome are all too frequently targeted for death.

Unfortunately, this message is one the United Nations did not want to hear.

In an interview with Live Action, Fien explained that they tried to censor her speech. “I want as many people as possible to hear what I said because the UN tried very very hard to keep me from saying it. They said I need to be more diplomatic,” she said. “They wanted me to remove genocide and my criticism of the UN. I refused. Because if 100% of babies are aborted up to birth it is genocide.”

READ: Discriminating against people like my son, with Down syndrome, must end

Fien was required to send a copy of her speech to the UN first, and they evidently were not pleased. “They tried to bully me to change it, but I said no,” Fien explained. “The moderator said my speech and language wasn’t diplomatic. So, I said I’m not a diplomat or politician so why would I write diplomatically?” But even then, they refused to give up — and went as far as reaching out to Fien’s mother to try to force her to change it against Fien’s will. “They called my mum and asked her to make me change!” she said. “Mum said, ‘You’re not going to change it, are you?’ and I said, ‘Nope, never’.”

After Fien gave her speech, the UN seemingly retaliated. “They didn’t put my speech up [on their website] until I complained,” she explained. “I said they were trying to censor me. Then today, it went up after I tweeted what they did.” Still, she seemed to gain some support. “The UN Ambassador for Disabilities shook my hand and agreed. So did the Ambassador of Poland,” she said. “[But] the others not so much.” Fien said the rest ignored her; however, she wasn’t bothered. “It’s not a popularity contest. I want Iceland, Denmark to be punished for genocide of Down syndrome,” she insisted.

Fien also faced censorship on Twitter, which inexplicably covered a tweet with her speech due to “sensitive” material.

Fien said this, likewise, is a regular occurrence, remarking, “They block all of my pro-life pictures.”

It’s hard to understand what is so offensive or horrifying about the notion that people with Down syndrome have a right to life, but the reason behind it is clear: ableism, which drives eugenics, is alive and thriving across the globe today. People who are viewed as inferior are targeted for death, whether those people have Down syndrome in some countries or are female in others. And regardless of their reasons, eugenics must be fought at every opportunity.

As Fien said, we must end this genocide against people with Down syndrome.