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UK Government Refusing to Release Eugenic Abortion Stats

By Hilary White

LONDON, December 11, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Information Commissioner, a U.K. government body that promotes access to official information and protects personal information, has accused the Health Ministry of refusing to obey an order to release the numbers of eugenic “terminations” in the UK.

“Ground E” of the UK’s 1967 Abortion Act allows an abortion on request up to full gestation of children suspected of having a “severe” disability. The Health Ministry has refused to release the information, however, claiming that to do so would endanger the privacy of mothers and abortionists.

In the past the numbers on eugenic abortions from the Health Ministry revealed that children were being killed in the womb for “severe” disabilities that were in fact as mild as club foot or cleft palate, a revelation that caused a public backlash against such eugenic abortions.

Alison Davis, however, the head of No Less Human, a branch of the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children (SPUC) concerned with disability rights, said that the public reaction against such abortions could be misleading. She observed that while abortions in the cases of “minor disabilities” are indeed horrific, it would be a mistake to term these the “most” horrific.

“While the outcry over late abortions for 'minor' disabilities seems reasonable, and the Department of Health's refusal to provide such data seems unreasonable, the argument leads the public to think that abortions for minor disabilities are ‘the worst.’ Certainly much worse than abortions for what are termed ‘serious disabilities’ such as Down's syndrome and spina bifida,” she said.

But Davis said these are false distinctions. “All abortions are unjust, unfair and out of keeping with every baby's worth, whatever his or her age or health. It is as wrong to abort a 'seriously disabled' baby as one with a 'minor' disability. Abortion for disability is just as wrong as for social reasons,” she said.

The Daily Telegraph quoted Professor Stuart Campbell, the obstetrician whose 3D-scan images of babies "walking in the womb" at 12 weeks led to calls in the UK’s Parliament for a lowering of the 24-week limit for “social abortion.” He told the Telegraph, “It is a disgraceful situation for this data to be suppressed. This is not about whether one agrees with abortion. These statistics used to be published, now they are being withheld.

“Transparency is the essence of medicine. If we don't have that, all sorts of wrongdoing can go on. I am not saying that using abortion is doing wrong, but we need to see the data in order to understand what is happening.”

The last year for which data were fully available, 2002, showed that five children were aborted because they had deformed feet, and a sixth because of a cleft lip and palate.

Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

UK Police to Open Criminal Investigation into Cleft Palate AbortionUK Police to Open Criminal Investigation into Cleft Palate Abortion
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2004/may/04051005.html

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