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95% of Spanish Down's Syndrome Children Aborted After Prenatal Testing

80-90% of Canadian Down's children also aborted

By Hilary White
 
MADRID, July 31, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A report from Spain shows that abortion is being used for eugenic purposes to eliminate the "unfit," specifically children with Down's syndrome.
 
Recent statistics show that almost 95% of Spanish babies diagnosed with Down's syndrome are aborted.
 
Spain's National Association for the Defense of the Right to Conscientious Objection has joined with pro-life voices around the world who have warned that prenatal diagnosis, combined with legal abortion, has added up to a eugenic pogram against the developmentally disabled.
 
Jose Antonio Diez, General coordinator of the Association, told Catholic News Agency that prenatal diagnosis "eliminate children with more or less serious defects."
 
The director of Fundacion Vida in Spain, Manuel Cruz, said that children with Down's are "in danger of extinction" in Spain. He said earlier this year that the number of children with Down's syndrome being allowed to survive to birth "have been reduced by half due to prenatal diagnosis and selective abortions."
 
"In merely fifteen years we have gone from 1 in 600 babies with Down's Syndrome to 1 in 1000."
 
The eugenic program against people with Down's syndrome is accepted and well established in the medical community in most western countries, while researchers work to develop more effective means of detecting the genetic disorder in utero.
 
Last month, the Times reported that researchers in Hong Kong had developed a highly accurate test that can detect the presence of the genetic abnormality that causes Down's syndrome in the blood of pregnant women. Some have proposed that such a test could expand into routine screening for all pregnant women.
 
In Canada, where there are no legal restrictions on abortion, it was revealed this year that 80-90 percent of mothers whose children are diagnosed with Down Syndrome children decide to abort. Krista Flint, the executive director of the Canada Down Syndrome Society (CDSS) said there is a strong eugenic mindset in Canada. "There's certainly a social construct around the existence of disability that says people with disabilities are less valuable than those without disabilities."
 
Read related LifeSiteNews.com coverage:

All Pregnant Women Should "Screen" for Down's Syndrome - American and Canadian Ob Gyn Colleges
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/jan/07011101.html
 
Down's Syndrome Test Encouraged for All Pregnant Women in England
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2001/may/01050103.html
 
Prenatal Screening not so Accurate as Once Thought - "Normal" Children Killed as "Defective"?
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2006/nov/06112403.html

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