By Sarah-Kate Templeton, health editor of the (London) Sunday Times:

MORE than 50 babies with club feet were aborted in just one area of England in a three-year period, according to new statistics. Thirty-seven babies with cleft lips or palates and 26 with extra or webbed fingers or toes were also aborted.

The data have raised concerns about abortions being carried out for minor disabilities that could be cured by surgery.
Abortions are allowed up to birth in Britain in cases of serious handicap, but the law does not define what conditions should be considered grave enough to allow a termination late in the pregnancy.

… The stage at which the abortions were carried out was not recorded, but the abnormalities would have been diagnosed at about 20 weeks’ gestation. Welsh data show babies were aborted for cleft lips and palates at 27, 29 and 34 weeks between 1998 and 2005.

From AP/CNN, Gainesville Sun:

Amara Estrada, right, hugs the wife of her attorney after the judgment was announced.
Photo from the St. Petersburg Times

A jury has awarded a Florida couple more than $20 million in what is being called a “wrongful birth” case. The parents had alleged that a geneticist was negligent in failing to prenatally diagnose their child’s genetic syndrome. They testified that they would have terminated the pregnancy had they known.

” … because the doctor works for the University of South Florida, the family will have to persuade the Florida Legislature to award most of the money. State law caps negligence claims against government agencies at $200,000.”Daniel and Amara Estrada claimed in the lawsuit that if their first child’s condition – a genetic disorder called Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome – had been correctly diagnosed, a test would have indicated whether their second child would also be afflicted …

“But, they say, Dr. Boris Kousseff, who treated their first son, Aiden, after his 2002 birth determined that the child’s birth defects were not specific and did not diagnose Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome.”

Related links:

– From the St. Petersburg Times, this story:

“From the moment their son was born, Amara and Daniel Estrada knew he would suffer. Baby Aiden had webbed toes, a cleft palate, low-set ears, a small head and genitals so tiny doctors had a tough time determining his gender…”

– Link to the Smith-Lemli-Opitz Foundation website.

A friend sends this article from the Sunday Times in London. Here’s the text:

More than 20 babies have been aborted in advanced pregnancy because scans showed that they had club feet, a deformity readily corrected by surgery or physiotherapy.

The article goes on to say that abortions were also carried out for webbed fingers or extra digits, which can be corrected by simple surgery. All the terminations took place after the 20th week of pregnancy, although the specific week of pregnancy for each was not disclosed. The data, from the Office for National Statistics, added to controversy that had been ignited when a British woman had an abortion at 28 weeks for cleft palate, another surgically correctible condition. It’s worth noting: babies delivered at 27 weeks have a survival rate of more than 90 percent.

More text from the article:

Some parents, doctors and charities are increasingly worried by what they see as a tendency to widen the definition of “serious handicap”. The handicap provision, which does not exist in most other countries, permits abortions to be carried out until birth. It was intended to save women from the trauma of giving birth to babies likely to die in infancy.

Among people who have had club foot: Kristi Yamaguchi, the American figure skater who won an Olympic gold medal in 1992.