Dr. Marie Peeters-Ney, director for medical research of the Michael Fund:
“The birth of a child with a chromosomal anomaly is now widely considered as a medical error and in certain countries lawsuits are filed against doctors because they failed to diagnose the ‘condition’ in utero. In an insidious manner, mentalities are changing and people now regard persons with a handicap as someone who should not be there.”
Prelude to the New Holocaust, Part ?, (The MOD Brings the Eugenic Spirit Home),” The Michael Fund (a prolife alternative to the March of Dimes), 500 A Garden City Drive, Pittsburgh, PA 15146, (724) 823-6380, www.michaelfimd.org
down syndrome is a chromosomal abnormality which can be detected with amniocentesis and some estimates say up to 92% of all down syndrome babies are aborted.
A columnist for the London Spectator wrote about his daughter who had down syndrome and argued against the abortion of handicapped babies. His column prompted this letter to the Spectator’ s editor:
“I have severe spina bifida and am a full-time wheelchair user. I also run the handicapped division of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children – a group of disabled people. It is difficult for me to express my appreciation of your positive, loving attitude toward your daughter, since it means so much to me. I feel that your acceptance embraces all disabled people, and it represents such a radically different view to the one more commonly expressed. Every day I read in the press about “exciting breakthroughs,” which mean yet another way to kill people like me before birth…”
Paul Greenberg “Perfect Babies Via Abortion” Arizona Republic April 3, 1996
18 weeks
Most abortions of handicapped babies occur in the second or third trimester because problems are often not detected until then.
A letter sent out by Dr. J Cooper and the March of Dimes Arizona Tay-Sachs prevention committee encouraging parents and practitioners to do amniocentesis in order to detect disabilities in the baby (and abort if there are any). This letter was to prospective parents.
“Unfortunately, few hospitals will accept children for long-term care, and when they do the cost is generally prohibitive.”
Randy Engel, “the Rising Tide of Eugenic Abortion”, in Suzanne M Rini. Beyond Abortion: a Chronicle of Fetal Experimentation. (Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publishers, 1988) 55
There are many pressures on the parents of disabled babies to abort. It is easier for society to get rid of the handicapped children than to care for them.
A woman who aborted her Down Syndrome baby said the following:
“Mike and I had discussed what we would do if amniocentesis revealed a serious genetic condition long before the test. For us, the diagnosis of Down syndrome was reason to choose abortion. Our thinking was clear… We were eager to have a child, and prepared to change our lives to make emotional, social, and economic resources available. But the realities of raising a child who can never grow to independence would call forth more than we could muster, unless one or both of us give up our work, our political commitments, our social existence beyond the household…. No single family should have to shoulder all the burdens…”
Rayna Rapp “XYLO: a True Story” test tube women: What Future for Motherhood (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1984)
This quote reveals the selfishness that is present in many men and women who wish to abort their handicapped children. They would rather have their baby dismembered in the womb than accept a child who might require more sacrifice on their part. In reality, most Down syndrome children lead happy lives. It is the parents who often are too selfish to let their children live, fearing extra work. Why do couples have the right to reject “imperfect” children? It is even more tragic when one realizes that there is a waiting list to adopt even Down syndrome babies.
16 weeks- about the age when Down Syndrome can be detected
Keep in mind also that Down Syndrome cannot be detected until partway through the second trimester, so these abortions are late abortions, often done after the fetus can feel pain while he or she is being dismembered.
Sometimes pro-choice activists say that abortion must be legal and should be performed in cases where the baby would be disabled. 90% of down syndrome pregnancies end in abortion. And yet:
There has never been a single organization of parents of mentally [handicapped] children that has endorsed abortion.
John Wilke, Abortion Questions and Answers (Cincinnati, Ohio: Hayes publishing Company, 1988) 211
Dr. Cecil B. Jacobson, Chief of the Reproductive Genetics Unit at George Washington University Hospital at the time of this quote, said the following about the abortion of handicapped children:
“I can’t imagine any reasonably responsible person arguing against the abortion of mongols [derogatory term for down syndrome children]… If we could tell what fetuses are going to be affected with cancer in their 40s and 50s, I would be for aborting them now.”
Cecil B. Jacobson, Chief, Reproductive Genetics Unit, George Washington University Hospital, Washington, D.C. Psychology Today, September 1975, page 22
From a woman who aborted a down syndrome baby – she expresses negative feelings towards a woman who asked her when she was going for the “abortion”.
“The truth was, until I heard the word “abortion,” it hadn’t occurred to me that I was actually having one.
I was, of course. But we’d been using euphemisms for days, ever since my doctor called to say my amniocentesis results “weren’t good.”we’d say “when we go to the hospital” or “the appointment” or “after procedure, we can try again….
I’m quite certain that I made the right choice for the three of us. [Her, her husband, and the unborn baby]”
16 week old unborn baby
The woman maintains that she made the best decision for her baby, who was a boy. Since Down Syndrome is not detectable until 16 weeks or so, the baby was at least 16 weeks old when she had her abortion. At this stage, abortion is done by D&E, where the baby is torn apart with forceps, the doctor first extracting an arm, leg, etc. Read more about D&E abortions here. And watch a video of the procedure here.
It is interesting to note the distortion of language that takes place to justify the killing, and the brutal killing, of the baby.it reminds me of this quote by a Nazi.
Hermann Pfanmuller, who ran a hospital for the disabled and decided which of his patients would die in the gas chambers of Nazi Germany, declared that he:
“worked… solely in the interest of the patients in [his] care.”
Michael Burleigh, Death and Deliverance: Euthanasia in Germany 1900 – 1945 (New York: Cambridge University press, 1994) 129
and
One Holocaust scholar observed that, after poring through thousands of Nazi documents, he happened upon the word “killing” only once – in an edict concerning dogs.
Raul Hilberg, the Destruction of the European Jews (New York: Holmes & Meiers, 1985), volume 3, 1016
Nazi quotes from James F Bohan. The House of Atreus: Abortion Is a Human Rights Issue (Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 1999)
Deborah Kendrick is a mother who is blind due to a rare form of cancer that strikes in childhood and is hereditary. A doctor expressed sorrow that a prenatal test to determine whether the baby was susceptible to cancer had not yet been perfected. In the article “Life-And-Death Decisions Are Made to Easily” Kendrick speaks out against eugenic abortion. At the end of the article, she says:
“If my position on these issues seems uncharacteristic of other opinions expressed in this column, well, maybe it’s because it’s so personal. Had the tests been available when my mother was pregnant with me, I might not be here.
My daughter is the light of my life. She doesn’t know, unless she reads this, the Dr. once told me that her birth shouldn’t happen.”
One woman who had an abortion after tests showed that her unborn baby would be badly handicapped and chose to abort said the following:
“We had only one isolated piece of information, not a whole crystal ball. How were we to know what would be best?…
A person reeling from shock, numbed by a sudden catastrophe, cannot think.”
“Brown, Judy” (pseudonym) The Choice. Journal of the American Medical Association 1989, 262:2735
Many times, couples with pregnancies where the baby is going to be handicapped or very ill are rushed into a decision by doctors once they find out that the baby is going to have problems, and before they fully absorbed the information or the weightiness of the choice that awaits them.
