They said it.
“I saw a little foot – caught in the end of the suction tube.”
Nurse who assisted in a number of suction abortions, after viewing the aftermath of one for the first time.
Thomas Gulick “Even Abortionists are Having Second Thoughts” Human Events April 12, 1980
Some prominent doctors cannot understand why women do not abort their handicapped children. Dr. Cecil B. Jacobson, Chief of the Reproductive Genetics Unit of George Washington University Hospital:
“I can’t imagine any reasonably responsible person arguing against the abortion of mongols [down syndrome babies]… 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.
Share on Facebook“There is no evidence that the handicapped child would rather not go on living. As a matter of fact, handicapped persons commit suicide far less often than normal persons. An interesting study was done at the Ana Stift in Hanover, Germany, a center where a large number of children with phocomelia, due to thalidomide are cared for. Psychological testing on these children indicated that they do indeed value their lives, that they are glad that they were born, and that they look forward to the future with hope and pleasant anticipation.”
Eugene F. Diamond, MD
Eugene F. Diamond MD “The Deformed Child’s Right to Life” in Death, Dying and Euthanasia, Dennis J. Horan and David Mall, eds (Washington DC: University Publications of America, 1977) 133 quoted in Francis J. Beckwith “Politically Correct Death: Answering the Arguments for Abortion Rights” (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Books, 1993)
Share on FacebookAccording to prenatal screening expert Eva Alberman, 92% of women who discover their carrying a fetus affected with Down syndrome choose to have an abortion.
The decision to abort a handicap baby is often framed in terms of concern for the child. Those who support killing these babies often say that they are sparing the children a lifetime of suffering. In reality, often the main reason why women abort their down syndrome children is that the children would be an inconvenience for them. Here is one example:
Natalie and Richard are a couple who aborted down syndrome baby late in pregnancy. Natalie gives the following reasons why she aborted:
“A seriously handicapped child takes a lot from your life that you wouldn’t otherwise have to give… We knew that a Down child would require, at best, constant care from us….”
This quote shows that the true reason that many women abort handicapped babies is their own unwillingness to make sacrifices. While this is understandable, there is a waiting list oof people willing to adopt handicap babies, especially babies with Down syndrome. Adoption is a viable option for these babies.
Mary E Williams. Abortion: Opposing Viewpoints (San Diego, California: Greenhaven Press, 2002) 115
Share on FacebookA woman with a special needs daughter wrote the following:
“My youngest daughter is 10 years old. Developmentally, however, she is more like an infant. She does not speak in words, cannot feed or dress herself, wears diapers and cannot walk without assistance. Hearing this litany of what she cannot do, many people would say it would have been better if she had not been born.
A few weeks ago, I attended a national conference on mental handicaps. Most of the participants were special needs professionals; many were parents. At one of the scientific sessions, a physician spoke about the remarkable strides which have been made in prenatal testing, making it possible to detect a whole host of genetic disorders in the womb. Now, of course, she said ominously, the “decision” can be made by the parents.
Her smug certainty that any “normal” parent would choose to get rid of a baby known to have some disability infuriated me. But what I found really astonishing was the temerity that allowed her to say such things to us, people who actually love and cherish the very children she is targeting for destruction. For us, they are not “the handicapped.” They have names and faces. They have their winning ways, their sweet charms, their difficult behavior patterns. They are our children and here she was telling us we had missed the boat by having them too soon, before the technology existed which would’ve allowed us to get rid of them.”
Joan McGowan, Human Life Review Spring/Summer 2000. Quoted in Mary E Williams. Abortion: Opposing Viewpoints (San Diego, California: Greenhaven Press, 2002)
Share on FacebookFrom former Surgeon General C Everett Koop
“I am frequently told by people who have never had the experience of working with children who are being rehabilitated into our society after the correction of a congenital defect that infants with such defects should be allowed to die or even “encouraged” to die, because their lives could obviously be nothing but unhappy and miserable.
Yet it has been my constant experience that disability and unhappiness do not necessarily go together. Some of the most unhappy children whom I have known have all of the physical and mental faculties and on the other hand some of the happiest youngsters have borne burdens which I myself would find very difficult to bear.”
C Everett Koop “The Slide to Auschwitz” in Ronald Reagan, Abortion and the Conscience of the Nation (Nashville, Tennessee: Thomas Nelson, 1984″ 45 to 46 quoted in Randy Alcorn “Pro-life Answers to Pro-Choice Arguments” (Sisters, Oregon: Multnomah Publishers, 2000)
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The Previous quote was cited in a book by pro-choice author Janet Hadley in her book “Abortion: between Freedom and Necessity” she goes on to say:
“As spending on welfare services diminishes, health policy conservatives are saying that it is better to spend public money on genetic screening (and, implicitly, on selective abortion) than on research into, or treatment of, the diseases themselves.”
Hadley then gives the following statistic: According to studies, in England three out of four doctors require women to agree to an abortion if the fetus is handicapped prior to genetic tests. According to a second study, risk of miscarriage caused by the test itself is not always told to women or is glossed over.
Janet Hadley “Abortion: between Freedom and Necessity” (Great Britain: Virago Press, 1996) 122
Share on FacebookBarbara Katz Rothman, author of The Tentative Pregnancy, discusses the pressure that pregnant women who have been shown to be carrying disabled unborn babies are under to abort:
“It seems that, in gaining the choice to control the quality of our children, we may be losing the choice of simply accepting them as they are.”
BK Roffman “the Meaning of Choice in Reproductive Technology” in Test Tube Women: What Future Motherhood, page 30. Quoted in Janet Hadley “Abortion: between Freedom and Necessity” (Great Britain: Virago Press) 1996
Share on FacebookAccording to a pregnant woman who was interviewed while she was waiting for the results of a test to determine whether or not her baby would be handicapped:
“I was hoping I’d never have to make this choice, to become responsible for choosing the kind of baby I’d get, the kind of baby we’d accept. But everyone, my doctors, my parents, my friends, everyone urged me to have an amniocentesis… and they all told me I’d feel more in control. But I guess I feel less in control. It’s still my baby, but only if it’s good enough to be our baby, if you see what I mean.”
R.Kapp “Real-Time Fetus: the Role of a Sonogram in the age of Modern Reproduction” in G.Downey , J. Dumit , and S. Traweek , editors “Cyborgs and Citadels : anthropological interventions into Techo–humanism ” (SAR: University of Washington press, 1995)
Share on FacebookA pro-choice author had this observation to make about genetic testing and abortion of handicapped babies:
“Genetic screening is feeding the public perception of disability as a medical problem and a maternal responsibility, rather than as a matter of equality and justice requiring social and political change.”
Janet Hadley “Abortion: between Freedom and Necessity” (Great Britain: Virago Press) 1996 page 124