A young man with Down syndrome has hand-delivered a letter to a hospital in Ireland after learning that it aborted 95% of the babies who have the condition.
Tragically, abortion takes the lives of thousands of unborn babies with Down syndrome each year. Estimates show 75% of babies with Down syndrome are aborted in the United States. In Europe, the abortion rate is even higher– 90 percent in the U.K., 98 percent in Denmark, and for all practical purposes 100 percent in Iceland.
Now, new figures from Ireland indicate 95% of babies diagnosed in the womb with Down syndrome are targeted in abortions.
Prof Fergal Malone of Rotunda hospital says virtually every baby diagnosed with Down syndrome is aborted.
Conor O’Dowd, a young man with Down syndrome, has delivered a letter to the Rotunda maternity hospital urging them to ‘save babies’ after the horrific figure made international news.
His father, Michael O’Dowd, a disability rights campaigner, said that the claim that 95% of parents at the Irish maternity hospital were aborting where the baby had Down Syndrome was like a “gut punch – and urged the Rotunda to review how it was handling the issue.
Conor gave a heartfelt speech at the hospital, directly addressing Prof Malone. “I love my life”, the young chef and photographer said, “I don’t understand why people are trying to take away people with Down syndrome.”
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“Please save babies with Down Syndrome,” he said, saying that what was happening was “very wrong and very unfair.”
The professor associated with the hospital in Ireland put forward the figures and claims that the hospital doesn’t pressure parents to have abortions, but reality is quite the opposite. LifeNews has profiled hundres of parents over the years who say they faced enormous pressure to have an abortion — with doctors assuming the baby will be killed and even going as far as scheduling the abortion.
About 95 per cent of parents whose babies are diagnosed with Down syndrome at the Rotunda Hospital in Dublin choose to have an abortion, according to the master of the hospital.
Prof Fergal Malone says the Rotunda strives to be non-directive in its counselling to affected parents. “The 95 per cent who choose to travel do reach that decision themselves. We very much do not advocate for termination,” he said. “The reality is that the vast majority choose to terminate. I don’t have a view on whether that is the right thing. We don’t advocate for it, that is just the lived experience.”
Although the risk of Down syndrome can be identified as early as nine weeks into pregnancy, confirmation of the diagnosis usually takes about 12 weeks, which is the cut-off for most terminations under Irish legislation introduced in 2019.
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And these tests can often be wrong.
Early prenatal tests for rare disorders often lead to thoughts about abortion for expecting parents. Sometimes, doctors and genetic counselors pressure parents to abort their unborn babies after a positive test, and both healthy and unhealthy unborn babies are killed in abortions as a result.
But, a new analysis by the New York Times has found that some of the most common prenatal screening tests are not as reliable as parents often are led to believe and many healthy unborn babies may be being aborted as a result of false positives.
Examining five non-invasive prenatal tests, which involve drawing blood in the first trimester, the Times found an average false positive rate of 85 percent. Despite the lack of certainty, the tests are marketed as “reliable” and “accurate,” the report found.
The expanded use of prenatal testing has led to more unborn babies with disabilities being targeted for abortions. Recent reports in The Atlantic and CBS News found that nearly 100 percent of unborn babies who test positive for Down syndrome are aborted in Iceland, 95 percent in Denmark, 77 percent in France and 67 percent in the United States.
The deadly discrimination is getting worse with the expanded use of prenatal testing. The Telegraph reports a recent article in the European Journal of Human Genetics found that the number of babies with Down syndrome born in the United Kingdom dropped 54 percent since the non-invasive prenatal screening tests became available about a decade ago.
What’s more, parents frequently report feeling pressured to abort unborn babies with disabilities. One mom recently told the BBC that she was pressured to abort her unborn daughter 15 times, including right up to the moment of her baby’s birth. Another mother from Brooklyn, New York said doctors tried to convince her to abort her unborn son for weeks before they took no for an answer. Many say they did not receive adequate counseling about the disorder or the support available to families of children with disabilities.
The Pro-Life Campaign in Ireland has condemned the incredibly high number of abortions on babies with Down Syndrome:
Official statistics released earlier this week by the British Department of Health and Social Care show that there has been a 93% decrease in the number of women from Ireland travelling to England for abortions since 2018.
Sadly, however, the number of abortions now happening in Ireland is significantly higher than the numbers of women who travelled to England in the past for abortions year on year. The official figures from Ireland show that there was a 70% increase in abortions in the first two years of the new law taking effect. The figures for the third year (2021) will be released soon.
The number of Irish women who sought abortions in England declined from 2,879 in 2018 to 206 in 2021. The figures released earlier this week also reveal that out of the 206 abortions that happened in 2021, 59 of the babies aborted had Down syndrome.
Abortion campaigners continually misrepresent the figures and grounds under which late term abortions are sought, in order to push for wider access to abortion. It’s all the more reason why we have to work harder to get the truth out to the public, using every means at our disposal. In recent days, the Pro Life Campaign statement on the latest figures was quoted in a number of national and local media outlets and it was also good to see members of the All Party Life and Dignity Group raising the matter in the Houses of the Oireachtas.
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