Near-total majority of Belgian doctors back infanticide as acceptable in certain circumstances

August 21, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – On August 2, a new study titled “Healthcare professionals’ attitudes towards termination of pregnancy at viable stage” was released, analyzing the willingness of physicians to commit late-term abortions or even infanticide. The study, funded by the Research Foundation Flanders and Ghent University, found that 89.1% of medical professionals and 93.6% of physicians indicated that infanticide is acceptable in certain circumstances. 

The findings are based on the results of an anonymous survey sent to 117 Belgian medical professionals who worked in Neonatal Intensive Care in Flanders, Belgium. There were 92 responses on a range of questions, but the most disturbing finding is that a near-total majority of physicians backed killing newborn infants with disabilities by lethal injection. From the study:

Of all healthcare professionals, 89.1% (93.6% of physicians) agree that in the event of a serious (non-lethal) neonatal condition, administering drugs with the explicit intention to end neonatal life is acceptable. About the same proportion (87.9%) agrees that Belgian law should be changed to make this possible.

These numbers are genuinely staggering. Nearly all physicians—at least in the Flanders area of Belgium—support not just late-term abortion, which is controversial even amongst those who consider themselves “pro-choice,” but actual infanticide. Further to that, they believe infanticide should be an option when the baby’s condition is “non-lethal”—in short, utilized as eugenics in cases where they believe the baby’s life is worthless. Doctors and medical professionals would like Belgium to decriminalize killing newborn babies who are disabled or have other conditions. According to the study’s conclusion: 

Healthcare professionals practicing late TOP in Flanders, Belgium have a high degree of tolerance towards late TOP [termination of pregnancy], irrespective of sociodemographic factors, and are demanding legislative change regarding active life‐ending in the fetal and neonatal periods. Further research should explore the correlation of attitudes to late TOP with actual medical decisions taken in daily clinical practice.

Additionally, a full 100% of doctors supported late-term abortion in the case of “lethal fetal conditions” and 95.6% supported late-term abortion when the condition of the baby was “serious.” If the baby is entirely healthy, the numbers drop significantly: 19.8% of respondents supported late-term abortion for “maternal psychological problems” and only 13.2% supported late-term abortion in the case of “maternal socio-economic problems.” 

Additionally, the study found that “[b]ehavioral intentions indicate that even in situations with an unclear diagnosis and unpredictable prognosis, 85.6% of professionals would still consider late TOP.” Despite the rhetoric of abortion activists who claim that late-term abortion virtually never happens and that when it does, the child is nearly always has a fatal condition, a super-majority of medical professionals support both late-term abortion and infanticide for conditions in which the child does not have a fatal condition.

Unfortunately, a society that accepts abortion must inevitably support some forms of infanticide, as well. 

After all, there is no material difference between killing a child in the womb and killing a child shortly after he or she has exited the womb—especially not to the child. In fact, infanticide is often much less messy when compared to going in blind with tools to dismember a child in the womb – one can simply give them an injection in the heart once they have exited the womb, and death will be nearly immediate. And if there’s nothing morally wrong with killing a baby on one side of the birth canal, what is so wrong about killing that same baby on the other side? That is a question that abortion supporters have long struggled to answer—and now, it seems, many physicians are simply following their ideology to its logical conclusions.