ACLJ Addresses Systematic Eradication of Children With Down Syndrome

Several years ago, the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) reported on Iceland’s “cure” for Down syndrome: abortion. It is now clear that Denmark has been using the same gruesome method.

According to a recent report, in 2004, Denmark became one of the first countries in the world to offer prenatal Down syndrome screening to every pregnant woman, regardless of age or other risk factors. Nearly all expecting mothers choose to take the test; of those who get a Down syndrome diagnosis, more than 95% choose to abort.

In fact, “In 2019, only 18 [children with Down syndrome were born in the entire country. (About 6,000 children with Down syndrome are born in the U.S. each year.)”

There are many who argue that killing an innocent unborn child through the barbaric method of abortion is “compassionate”—for both the child and the parents.

The report references the dawn of prenatal screening for Down syndrome in the 1980s as the time when, “[s]uddenly, a new power was thrust into the hands of ordinary people—the power to decide what kind of life is worth bringing into the world.”

First of all, the only kind of life a man and woman bring into this world is human life. Therefore, they cannot decide “what kind of life” to bring into the world.

Second, abortion can only be defined as compassionate in any sense if they deny the reality that a tiny unborn human is ripped to shreds in its mother’s womb in a most inhumane and uncompassionate manner; if they deny the humanity of the unborn child.

And what effect has this systemic use of eugenic abortion had on the people of Denmark? According to the report, one expecting couple waited to announce their pregnancy to friends and family until after they received the results of the prenatal screening “because if it had Down syndrome, [they] would have had an abortion.”

Nevertheless, despite the negative screening, their daughter was born with Down syndrome. The couple stated that after having their daughter “[t]hey were afraid their friends and family would now think that they didn’t love their daughter—so heavy are the moral judgments that accompany wanting or not wanting to bring a child with a disability into the world.”

The mother and father of a child with Down syndrome were afraid that their family and friends would judge them for letting her live!

There are no words for how deeply wrong something is with a society in which 95% of mothers choose to kill their unborn child because of that child’s anticipated disability—out of fear that they will be judged by others. In fact, it is further proof of the coercive and manipulative nature of abortion.

And what about those parents who choose to have their unborn child killed to save themselves some grief—some judgment? Do they actually accomplish their goal?

One recent study on abortion in general suggests otherwise. As we shared in a recent report to the U.N. Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls, a U.S. study revealed that 58.3% of the women reported aborting to make others happy, 73.8% disagreed that their decision to abort was entirely free from even subtle pressure from others to abort, 28.4% aborted out of fear of losing their partner if they did not abort, 49.2% reported believing the fetus was a human being at the time of the abortion, 66% said they knew in their hearts that they were making a mistake when they underwent the abortion, 67.5% revealed that the abortion decision was one of the hardest decisions of their lives and 33.2% felt emotionally connected to the fetus before the abortion.

In that same study, the women were asked what positives stemmed from their decision to abort. Twenty-two percent of the women chose not to answer this question, while 31.6% responded by choosing the survey answer as “none.”

When asked about the most significant negatives that had impacted them from the decision to abort, women listed the following:

—Took a life/loss of a life or lives.

—Depression.

—Guilt/remorse.

—Self-hatred/anger at self/self-loathing/feelings of worthlessness/unworthy of love.

—Shame.

—Addiction, alcohol or drug abuse.

—Regret.

—Self-destructive behaviors including promiscuity, self-punishment and poor choices.

—Low self-esteem.

—Anxiety/fear.

—Suicidal/suicidal thoughts/wanting to die/self-harm/dangerous risks/suicidal attempts.

All of these factors are negative and even devastating effects abortion has on women. Other studies have shown that abortion negatively impacts men in similar ways.

Putting aside the moral and human rights issues associated with this type of eugenic abortion, let’s consider another issue; prenatal screening is not always accurate. The report itself cited one couple for whom the screening came back as negative, while their daughter was actually born with Down syndrome. But the reverse is often true.

As we stated in an amicus brief supporting an Indiana law banning abortion based on a diagnosis of Down syndrome, “As for the diagnosis itself, there are countless instances in which parents were told a child would be born with severe disabilities, when in fact the child turned out to be either perfectly healthy or had only minor conditions.”

Moreover, “presumably many, many children die in abortion because they were inaccurately labeled as suffering from various conditions that did not actually exist.”

There are many, many things wrong with what is occurring in Iceland and in Denmark. But it happens here in the United States, too—though not to the same degree. Just recently, the ACLJ filed an amicus brief at the Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in support of a Tennessee law that prohibits abortions based on the sex or race of the child, or because of a Down syndrome diagnosis.

On November 20, the Sixth Circuit Court lifted a temporary restraining order that had been in place to keep the law from being enforced. As a result, the law is effective while the rest of the case proceeds, meaning, currently in Tennessee, unborn babies are protected from being aborted because they might have Down syndrome. {eoa}