Parents in the UK who claim they would have aborted their children if they had known they were disabled in utero have been awarded what amounts to 87 million tax-payer dollars in a “wrongful birth” lawsuit. Yes, “wrongful birth,” as in specific babies, in this case with disabilities, should not have been born, but murdered in the womb.
If that sounds vile, that’s only because it is.
As noted by Life News, the UK’s National Health Service shelled out the multimillion dollar sum over the past five years to a total of 16 families after a “High Court judge ruled that doctors had been negligent in their cases.”
Parents claimed that doctors failed to detect and inform them of abnormalities, such as Down Syndrome and microcephaly, before birth. In every case, such parents said they would have aborted their child had they been properly informed of their disability and the associated “risks.”
According to The Christian Institute, a mother in one of the cases argued that she would have aborted her now-eight-year-old daughter who suffers from microcephaly had she known then about the condition:
The mother had undergone ten ultrasounds during the course of her pregnancy, but two doctors were found to have failed to carry out their duties correctly in two of them.
The couple’s daughter is now eight years old and has microcephaly, which affects the size of her head.
Her mother would have aborted her if she was aware of the condition, but says she loves her deeply now.
Of course, this discriminatory practice is horrifying and an exercise in modern day eugenics: deciding who is worthy of life and who isn’t based on genetic ability. Pro-life organizations have reacted in kind.
“Who in a civilized society would dare say to a person with a disability, ‘You should not have been born’?” wrote the ProLife Alliance in a statement. “‘Wrongful birth’ is a horrifying term which gravely offends against genuine commitment to concepts of inclusiveness and anti-discrimination.
“It would be interesting for the media to explore some of the positive responses which have resulted from prenatal screening, however, including incredible surgery which has been performed either in utero, or with the developing baby temporarily outside the womb,” the statement continued. “These examples show medicine in a more positive light.”
Christian Concern’s Andrea Minichiello Williams also reacted to the “wrongful birth” suit.
“To say the birth of a child is a ‘harm’ to an individual or family and to use taxpayers’ money to compensate for the harm is unkind; it is not a mark of a civilized society,” said Williams. “It is wrongful that taxpayers are funding a culture which sees disabled children as an inconvenience.”
Pre-screening procedures for the unborn are a testament to the impressive advances in modern medicine and can even lead to lifesaving surgeries in utero. These advances are not the issues, but instead, how we react to them, notes Life News:
“It is certainly not screening per se that is the problem. It is what is done after the screening. In this instance the focus does not seem to be on curing but simply a search and abort approach.”
This “search and abort” approach is not lacking in the United States either, unfortunately. According to study presented by the Charlotte Lozier Institute, the Down Syndrome community has decreased by a whopping 30 percent due to abortion following prenatal diagnosis.