Unborn showing disabilities are being denied a chance at life

For decades, feminists have held the view that abortion is a form of liberation. Liberals believe it the lesser of two harms. Libertarians relegate it to the realm of choice. And everywhere, fair-minded folk ignore inconvenient truths about abortion, including the targeted extermination of foetuses with disabilities.

Western Australia’s Depart­ment of Health reported that “the number of induced abortions performed at 20 weeks’ gestation or more increased from 31 in 2002 to 76 in 2015, an ­increase of 145 per cent”. The reason provided for abortions performed at 20 weeks or more was most frequently ­“foetal anomalies”.

University researcher Susannah Maxwell and colleagues found that about 93 per cent of women given a prenatal diagnosis of foetal Down syndrome in WA chose to terminate the pregnancy.

SA Health reported 90 abortions performed at or after 20 gestational weeks in 2015. The majority (55.6 per cent) were for “foetal reasons”. There were a total 170 abortions performed for foetal reasons overall, 96 for chromosomal abnormalities and 70 for “other foetal abnormalities ­detected or suspected prenatally”.

The popular narrative is that late-term abortions are performed mainly for foetuses with terminal conditions, but data shows those detected with Down syndrome are targeted.

While there is no national ­reporting scheme for abortion in Australia, the data is indicative of a global trend towards aborting foetuses with disabilities and suspected genetic abnormalities. Iceland is nearing a 100 per cent termination rate of foetuses diagnosed with Down syndrome. A CBS News documentary reported high termination rates of Down syndrome foetuses in European countries — 77 per cent in France and 98 per cent in Denmark. The news has sparked controversy but not enough to correct the practice.

China is giving Iceland a run for its money. Its Communist Party is the world’s most powerful atheist outfit and it permits the termination of babies with Down syndrome very late in pregnancy.

The Vatican ­appealed to ­UN members in March to stand against the abortion of children with Down syndrome. Archbishop Bernardito Auza said: ­“Despite the commitments made in the Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities to promote, protect and ensure the full and equal enjoyment of all human rights … many members of the international community stand on the sidelines as the vast majority of those diagnosed with trisomy 21 have their lives ended before they’re even born.”

Combined with research demonstrating foetuses can sense pain around 20 weeks, evidence that late-term abortions are being used to selectively target foetuses with disabilities has outraged US Republican politicians. Donald Trump has condemned late-term abortions. But repeated efforts to curb the practice have been met with resistance from Democrats.

The research on foetal pain capability is especially relevant to ethical concerns about abortion because many terminations at 20 weeks’ gestation or more are foetuses with disabilities.

The question of whether foetuses can feel pain arose initially from the empirical observation of infants in neonatal intensive care units. Pediatrics, anaesthesiology and neurobiology professor Kan­wal­jeet Anand was a pioneer in the foetal pain capability field. During the 1980s, he observed post-operative infants showing signs of distress. At the time, it was believed that neonates did not ­require ­anaes­thetic because they did not feel pain. Anand’s clinical trials demonstrated that newborns ­exhibit pain avoidance ­behav­iours and suffer post-operative distress. He concluded they were capable of pain and recommended the use of ­anaesthetics. His research findings reduced the mortality rate of neonates undergoing cardiac surgery from 25 per cent to less than 10 per cent.

Anand’s work set new standards for neonatal care. In 2009 he won a distinguished international award for pediatric medicine, the Nils Rosen von Rosenstein Medal. However, his research that preterm babies as young as 20 weeks produce stress hormones and pain avoidance ­behaviours became controversial once it was applied to the practice of abortion.

Medical and technological ­advances are reducing the mortality rate of premature babies and foetuses with life-threatening conditions. But advanced screening techniques can result in the expectation that mothers will consent to aborting foetuses with disabilities.

Parents of children with disabilities are going public about being pressured by doctors to terminate pregnancies if prenatal screening reveals foetal abnormalities. Some Australian mothers are fighting back. They have created the group T21 Mum Australia. The name refers to Down syndrome, where abnormal cell division results in extra material from chromosome 21.

In an article for news.com.au, Benedict Brook interviewed mothers from the T21 group. They told of appalling treatment at the hands of doctors who ­expected mothers to abort ­unborn children if they tested positive for Down syndrome. ­Expectant mothers were verbally abused for nurturing the life ­inside them. In one ­instance, a GP reacted by asking the parents if they were Christian. When they said yes, he explained: “All the people who don’t ter­minate are Christians, and martyrs of parents.”

US legislators are trying to ban late-term abortions on the basis of foetal pain capability and to prevent the targeted termination of foetuses with disabilities. However, in the absence of a strongly Christian voting base, there seems to be little incentive for Australian politicians to address the issue.

The Queensland Labor government is set to introduce a bill to decriminalise abortion. Feminists are celebrating the anticipated reform. Critics fear it will follow the example of other states and allow late-term abortion, including the termination of foetuses with disabilities.

The question of how to balance women’s rights with the rights of the child will become more complicated as prenatal screening technology advances. An ­informed choice might include emerging research on foetal pain capability and the fulfilled lives led by many people with Down syndrome.

Remember that the first victims of Nazism were people with disabilities. They were considered a financial burden on the state and a threat to social purity. ­Remember, too, that medical ­professionals ushered in the final ­solution by killing infants deemed imperfect.