Handicap Abortions

My mom, sister, and I were chatting with a Texas man a few days ago while we waited for the tire shop to fix the tire on my mom's car that had picked up a screw. My mom mentioned how nice people were in town (this man was the one who urged my mom not to wait to get the tire fixed, based on his previous bad result from waiting), and we all agreed that Californians are comparatively unfriendly, and the man even said Californians are selfish. Good thing I'm not really a Californian. I just live here.

But selfish as many Californians might be (not my friends, of course), they don't hold a candle to some of the people in Great Britain.

The Sunday Times reported today that babies with club feet and other easily corrected deformities are being aborted in Britain.

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.

According to figures from the Office for National Statistics covering the years from 1996 to 2004, a further four babies were aborted because they had webbed fingers or extra digits, which are also corrected by simple surgery. All the terminations took place late in pregnancy, after 20 weeks.

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.

No baby is going to die from a club foot or webbed fingers or a cleft palate. And they won't suffer an impaired life once the condition is corrected.

“It was strongly suggested that we consider abortion after they found our baby had a club foot,” said David Wildgrove, 41, a computer programmer from Sheffield, whose son Alexander was born in 1996. “I was appalled. We resisted, the problem was treated and he now runs around and plays football [soccer] with everyone else.”

Others take a different view and decide not to accept the risk of an imperfect baby. Sue Banton, who founded the group Steps for parents of children with foot disorders, was troubled that a home counties couple last year decided to terminate their baby, despite counselling to reassure them it would have a worthwhile life even with a section of foot missing.

“We gave them other families to talk to, but they just didn’t want to know. The baby was aborted just before the 25th week,” she said.

I read this stuff, and then I look at the pictures of the Uzbek girl who was adopted by the missionary our church helps support in Uzbekistan. The girl was born without the ends of some of her fingers and without one of her legs below the knee, because the umbilical cord wrapped around her wrong during development. Her parents performed the Uzbek equivalent of an abortion: they put her in an orphanage.

But now, with the love of her adoptive mother, and with her prosthesis, this girl has grown into a beautiful nearly teenager, who skis and is on the track team at her school--and wins sometimes. The thought of someone, especially her parents, declaring her life not worth living because a few pieces are missing is apalling.

The selfishness of society, both here and abroad, are growing. And in the abortion world, it looks as though Britain is leading the way.

Update:

I just thought of a question. How long will it be before the medical community, especially HMOs or insurance, decides to require abortion in cases like these, in order to save the money it takes to perform the surgery?

I know it won't be right away, but if abortion gets any more acceptable than it already is, I can see the day coming when they say, "We'll cover the abortion, but if you want the baby to have the surgery, you'll have to pay for it out of pocket."