The ProLife Alliance is very concerned that easier, safer screening tests will make it all the more socially acceptable to abort disabled babies. It is also likely that healthy babies will be aborted, purely because of a perceived risk that they are affected by, or carriers of,  some sex-linked condition.  The ProLife Alliance believes that all people have a right to live, whether male or female, disabled or otherwise. 

It is also likely that unscrupulous doctors will use this test for social reasons, particularly in countries such as Korea where boys are the preferred sex.

We call for a more positive attitude towards people with disabilities, rather than the usual unrelenting ‘search and destroy’ approach to those still in the womb.

This was revealed as Dr Trengia was discovered to have falsified paperwork and stated that she had had a miscarriage at 22 weeks. In fact, the woman had flown home from London, her baby having been killed by injection, to give birth back in Italy. Dr Trengia has now been sacked.

Lead obstetricians, including Peter Bowen-Simkins, have decried the incident as irresponsible and dangerous. A woman getting onto an aeroplane whilst still carrying her dead child risks spontaneous birth and haemorrhage, putting her life at risk. Bowen-Simkins commented to the Times:

 “It is extraordinary to kill the baby and then leave it to someone else in a different country to deliver the dead foetus. At best, it’s a bit of a gamble letting her get on a plane after foeticide.”

Department of Health figures show that there are 25 abortions a year after 24 weeks that are recorded as foeticide without surgical or medical removal of the dead foetus. These women could also be travelling home to deliver their aborted babies.

Previously, this information had been readily available and the DoH was increasingly providing even greater detail in its annual abortion statistics, until one case for cleft palate abortion post 24 weeks became the focus of media interest and public outrage. Subsequently, yearly abortion statistics were published in reduced form.

It was this backtracking action on the part of the DoH which the PLA chose to react to, asking unsuccessfully for the missing information under the Freedom of Information Act. Eventually the PLA asked the Information Commissioner (IC) to intervene in the dispute and they successfully argued the case against the DoH in the Administrative Court this April.

Julia Millington, spokesperson for the ProLife Alliance says, this is a great victory for transparency and freedom of speech and we are delighted that full information about the justification for late abortions is now being made available in the same detail as it was in 2001.

The ProLife Alliance is opposed to all abortion at any stage in pregnancy, but terminating the lives of babies at gestational ages when they could survive is always particularly horrifying. We have always argued that if these abortions are permitted under law, there should be no attempt whatsoever to hide details of the numbers or justifications.

We take this opportunity to thank former MP Miss Ann Widdecombe and Prof Stuart Campbell, who gave expert evidence in the Tribunal Court on behalf of the ProLife Alliance.

Fiona Beveridge writes:

Kate Smurthwaite, a pro-choice comedian, wrote a ‘Comment is Free’ piece in the Guardian last weekend about the Information Tribunal’s ruling on the disclosure of abortion statistics. This was in reaction to the unsuccessful attempt by the Department of Health on the 20 April 2011 to overturn the earlier ruling in favour of the ProLife Alliance, who had originally requested this statistical information no less than six years ago in 2005. How arduous is the road to truth!

Ms Smurthwaite’s piece contains a number of factual inaccuracies, in addition to her brushing under the carpet major issues of democracy and human rights. She seems to be somewhat unaware of principal ProLife Alliance activities over the past decade, whilst attributing to us other prolife initiatives (foetal models circulated in Parliament, witnessing outside abortion clinics, operating help lines), none of which is actually the responsibility of the ProLife Alliance. We do not wish to take credit for the work of other prolife groups.

What the ProLife Alliance has done for more than a decade, however, is to defend robustly freedom of speech – a democratic freedom which normally elicits flag-waving enthusiasm from the Guardian newspaper (most recently Wikileaks comes to mind).

When fielding candidates at the General Election in 1997, some will remember that the ProLife Alliance fought a protracted legal battle against the BBC and its censorship of abortion images in our planned election broadcast. The accurate depiction of abortion, a procedure which takes place some 200,000 times a year in the United Kingdom, was censored on grounds of taste and decency. We argued successfully – at least in the Court of Appeal – that showing images of abortion was fundamental to our political message that abortion is unacceptable in a civilised society. The broadcasters, in imposing censorship, were in fact ironically illustrating our point: if something is too terrible to look at, should we be tolerating it?

Following our successful Court of Appeal ruling, the BBC appealed to the House of Lords, who sadly ruled in favour of the BBC’s censorship.

But back to the current case.

In subtitling her piece ‘the decision to publish individual figures on late terminations will needlessly expose vulnerable women to public scrutiny’ Ms Smurthwaite seems to imply that the aim of the ProLife Alliance’s battle for transparency over the abortion statistics is to identify individuals. This is an absurd accusation. It is neither the aim, nor even a likely consequence, as has been reiterated throughout the various court hearings. Individual identities can be totally protected at the same time as precise statistics about abortion (i.e. numbers, gestational age of the baby, and reasons for abortion) are made available for public scrutiny. How can a proper democratic debate be conducted in the absence of these basic facts?

The ProLife Alliance takes a compassionate, non-judgmental attitude to any woman facing a crisis pregnancy or the aftermath of abortion. We want women to have every possible support to help them continue with the pregnancy, and we want the best medical care and support for babies with disabilities and their families.

We do not believe it is in anyone’s interest for the reality of abortion to be hidden from public view. Women considering abortion have the right to information, including on the gestational age of the baby, the reality of the abortion procedure, and alternative support and help available. And society has an absolute duty to provide support for the weakest members of society – which includes providing support for anyone affected by disability or those caring for someone with a disability.

Most importantly, we have a duty to uphold the human rights of those with disability from the very beginning of human life. This means that the discriminatory practice of aborting a child on the grounds of disability – potentially legal even up to the moment of birth – should not be allowed to continue. It is not a coincidence that disability rights campaigners supported the legal inquiry taken forward by the Rev Joanna Jepson over the baby who was aborted post-24 weeks on the grounds that he/she had a cleft palate. Anyone who genuinely supports equality rights should join the ProLife Alliance and disability campaigners in opposing abortion for disability.

The political left in the United Kingdom is almost automatically associated with endorsement of human rights. What about the right to life of disabled people and the public right to freedom of information on the practice of abortion? These are the questions Ms Smurthwaite should be addressing in her Guardian article, rather than scaremongering about the ProLife Alliance.

Many children with Downs Syndrome are aborted following ante-natal screening tests. In the UK, abortion for disability can be carried out up to birth.

We mourn for those children who are not given the chance to live and for all who are affected, especially parents or other children in the family who do not have the opportunity to love and know a child who was judged less than perfect.

Pro-abortion Virginia Ironside, media regular and agony aunt for The Independent newspaper, caused colossal outrage after saying it would be the act of a good mother to hold a pillow over the face of a child in pain. The presenter, Susanna Reid, not sure if she had heard correctly pressed Ms Ironside to repeat her position, and together with the two other studio participants, the Rev Joanna Jepson and  Hindu Community Leader Kiran Bali, was momentarily silenced as this shocking statement was reiterated.

Ms Ironside had earlier described abortion ‘as an act of a loving mother’, where it was of a baby severely adisabled or otherwise totally unwanted.  She then moved her focus outside the womb to the smothering of an older suffering child . ‘If I were the mother of a suffering child – I mean a deeply suffering child – I would be the first to want to put a pillow over its face… If it was a child I really loved, who was in agony, I think any good mother would.’

When discussing abortion Ms Ironside suggested that if a child is unloved and unwanted by his/her mother it should be legitimate grounds for abortion, and she cited suffering children in Eastern European orphanages in defence of this statement.  But once the child is born it is the loving mother who Ironside argues should smother her suffering child.   It is surely more than time to view the lives of the unborn and children in terms of their own intrinsic rights, and not on vacillating ‘she loves me, she loves me not’ maternal positions.

Disability networks are rightly up in arms about the smothering comments.  It would be good to hear them equally vociferous about the rights of prenatal developing human life, whether disabled or able bodied.  Smothering is a death sentence but so is abortion. It is more than time for joined-up ethics in this field.

How many times does the world need to be reminded that the first victims of Nazi extermination programmes were disabled children?’

The debate can be viewed on http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00v71qf  at 20:38 minutes into the programme.  Online comments can still be added.

The reports in effect reinforce the status quo of a 24 week upper limit and refuse to provide guidance as to what constitutes severe disability which is a legal ground for abortion up till birth. This is an extremely important consideration considering the uproar caused a few years ago by the reporting of an abortion after 24 weeks for cleft palate.

A spokesperson for the ProLife Alliance said:

“This is a nakedly political attempt by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists to defend the status quo against any potential attacks in Parliament. The Prime Minister has openly backed a reduction to 20 weeks and this is supported by an overwhelming majority of the British population. The RCOG are trying to stop abortion reform and will ignore the opposing side of the argument to suit their purposes. We would not be surprised if these reports get short shrift from international experts, such as Professor Sunny Anand, the world’s leading expert in the field who was not even consulted.”

Professor Sunny Anand, Professor of Pediatrics, Anesthesiology, Pharmacology, and Neurobiology at the University of Arkansas College of Medicine, has said in the past:

“Very likely most fetuses at 20 weeks after conception will be able to perceive abortion as painful, unpleasant, noxious stimulation.”

The US state of Nebraska passed a law in Aril this year banning abortions after 20 weeks on the grounds of fetal pain.

NOTE TO EDITORS

Fetal Awareness can be found here: http://www.rcog.org.uk/files/rcog-corp/RCOGFetalAwarenessWPR0610.pdf

Termination of Pregnancy for Fetal Abnormality can be found here: http://www.rcog.org.uk/files/rcog-corp/TerminationPregnancyReport18May2010.pdf

Expert opinion on fetal pain can be viewed here: http://www.doctorsonfetalpain.com/

The Nebraska Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act can be viewed here: http://nebraskalegislature.gov/FloorDocs/Current/PDF/Slip/LB1103.pdf

The Daily Mail and The Sunday Times both quoted the ProLife Alliance’s reaction to the reports.

I have the physical disability cerebral palsy and other conditions. But I’m so glad my lovely parents didn’t have me aborted at birth. I have engaged in adult ed and the church. I think apart from a few rare exceptions where someone is suffering unbearable pain, life on the whole is too precious to resign from. Please make potential parents of handicapped children more aware of this. Life is sacred.

Love

Garry

Deborah Dooley and her 20-year old daughter Flo, who has Cystic Fibrosis, have articulated their concerns about the procedure in an article published today. When Deborah opted out of ante-natal testing whilst pregnant for Flo, she recalls having to explain to the hospital consultant that “it wasn’t the test I was afraid of, but the implications of the result. If it was positive, I would immediately be offered a termination.”

Flo, who acknowledges that her mother may have opted for a termination had she undergone the procedure, adds “the idea that antenatal testing is simply one of the wonderful advances of modern medicine makes me really uncomfortable. And I find the attitude that there’s no need for anyone to have babies who are less than 100 per cent perfect physically and mentally very simplistic and strange.”  

Recent history has demonstrated that the premise of eradicating so-called ‘undesirable’ traits, in this case through preemptive abortions, is damaging to egalitarian principles of human rights and sets a dangerous precedent about the value of diversity in society. As Flo remarks finally “I don’t think that being labelled as not quite right, or disabled – or whatever – before you’re even born should mean that you have no right to life. In my opinion, the world needs… less-than-perfect people, those people can live full and happy lives – I believe I’m living proof of that.”

Read more about the Dooleys’ story: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-1234638/My-daughter-born-cystic-fibrosis-neighbour-said-I-killed-womb—YOU-think.html

Read more about the history of eugenics: http://www.spectator.co.uk/spectator/thisweek/5571423/how-eugenics-poisoned-the-welfare-state.thtml