Over the past five years, 15,000 British foetuses have been aborted at the end of pregnancy. The Secretary of State for Health and Social Affairs has just released statistics on late abortions in the United Kingdom. “Late” abortions are performed after the 20th week of pregnancy. Abortion is allowed up to birth in the case of disability, Down syndrome or other foetal malformation.
This number has been increasing over the past five years: 2,753 in 2013, 3,564 in 2017, i.e. an increase of 30% in five years, for a total of 14,996 abortions. Of the babies aborted in 2017, 3,314 abortions were due to the “risk that the child would be born severely disabled”. For Down syndrome alone, the number of abortions has increased by 50% in ten years[1], “despite more positive awareness of people living with this condition”. And medical staff report very strong pressure on parents to undergo prenatal testing and to abort if a foetal anomaly is detected.
Yet “studies show that parents almost never regret carrying a dying baby to term”[2]. Moreover, despite late abortions, more and more children are being born alive[3]. While no statistics are available on this subject, the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists has compiled several pages on how to manage this issue.
At twenty weeks, the foetal brain is already functioning and the heart is beating. The foetus has hair and nails, and the mother can feel kicks and hiccups. The foetus is even able to react to painful stimuli. At this age, no one can say that the foetus is just a cluster of cells. The increase in abortions at this late stage reflects a “normalisation of abortion”, which is a “worrying sign” of how death becomes a “medical solution”.
See also:
“Medical termination of pregnancy”: heading towards assumed eugenics
[1] Down syndrome: novel eugenics from America?
[2] Neonatal palliative care: meeting your dying child
[3] Heily, born alive after a medical abortion, is doing well. Her parents are happy.
Their child survives an abortion, the family files a complaint for medical error
SPUC (24/01/2019) –15,000 babies killed in late term abortions in 5 years