Denmark is following Iceland in the cause to eradicate Down syndrome. In 2016 alone, the number of Down syndrome babies diagnosed in the womb: a not-so-fantastic four.
According to LifeNews, the Danish government denies that their policies seek to wipe Down syndrome babies off the planet. The country’s ambassador to Ireland, Carsten Søndergaard, told an Irish committee set on debating their country’s legalization of abortion that Denmark has no direct policy to kill Down syndrome babies.
“In 2016, there were four children born in Denmark with Down’s syndrome after prenatal diagnosis and there were 20 children born with Down’s syndrome diagnosed after birth,” Søndergaard wrote to the Irish committee.
“In general it should be noted that it is not the policy of the Danish health authorities to eradicate Down’s syndrome, but it is their duty to provide the pregnant woman with the best possible basis for her to make her own decision about her pregnancy,” he continued.
His statement essentially boils down to this: Denmark does not specifically target Down syndrome babies, but it does not prevent mothers from deciding their fates.
While Denmark has stricter abortion laws than the United States, allowing abortion only in the first 12 weeks, they do allow for later abortions for women whose babies have been diagnosed with certain defects that won’t look so rosy on the family Christmas card — Down syndrome among them. On the statistics, LifeNews has more:
In 2014, the Danish government reported 98 percent of unborn babies who tested positive for Down syndrome were aborted.
This massive discrimination against unborn babies with disabilities has prompted some U.S. states to pass laws prohibiting abortions on unborn babies with disabilities. Indiana became the second state to prohibit abortions based on an unborn baby’s disability in 2016, following North Dakota in 2013. A similar bill also currently is moving through the Ohio legislature.
In the neighboring country of Iceland, the eradication of Down syndrome babies has reached near 100%. France has gotten in on the race too; most recently, the country banned a television commercial featuring Down syndrome children because it upset the mothers who previously aborted them.