UK leader defends late abortions for disability
August 18th, 2008
David Cameron’s son has disabilities
From the [UK] Daily Mail:
UK opposition leader David Cameron has made a highly personal defense of laws allowing the late abortion of babies with disabilities, and said it would be “wrong” to prevent a mother from terminating a pregnancy for that reason.
British law allows abortion after a 24-week limit if tests show the baby is likely to have “severe” disabilities. An excerpt:
The issue is extremely sensitive for Mr Cameron because his six-year-old son Ivan was born with a severe form of cerebral palsy and epilepsy and needs 24-hour care.
(Photo of Cameron with son Ivan from the Daily Mail)
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on Monday, August 18th, 2008 at 12:10 am and is filed under NOT2BEMISSED, abortion, cerebral palsy, politics, prenatal diagnosis.
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August 23rd, 2008 at 3:52 am
As the father of a little boy with profound brain injuries who passed away four years ago, I find Mr Cameron’s views to be simply monstrous.
There are several important points where Mr Cameron’s argument is fallacious; they are as follows:
* This position presumes that people with disabilities are lesser human beings with fewer human rights than the rest of us. Mr Cameron’s view would mean effectively that these ‘lesser human beings’ could simply be ‘put down.’ What kind of ‘master race’ mentality is this?
* Although I agree that if it can be independently determined that a child is going to spend a life of pain and suffering, occasionally, this might be the correct solution. The question is, can we accurately determine this? Medical people have a nasty habit of making mistakes. That is how many childhood disability issues are caused. (Shall we terminate doctors who make these errors perhaps?). So, are they to be relied upon to make an accurate judgment of a child’s future? I think not.
* Quality of life is a subjective measure. What might seem to be an unacceptable quality of life to you or me, might have a completely different perspective from the point of view of the person whose life it is! Who is qualified to judge? - Certainly not I!
* Mr Cameron’s proposal that disabled children could be aborted as late as thirty-nine weeks is simply monstrous and is tantamount to cold blooded murder.
All life is sacred. All people, no matter what difficulties they face, are valuable human beings. We cannot utilise our own subjective judgments to determine which people are allowed to survive and which people are not.
August 18th, 2008 at 5:16 pm
oh, now we can play God. how convenient. God sends us a gift and we kill it. very nice! well done!