Major archbishop: Church offers hope amid ‘very dangerous escalation’ in Ukraine crisis

Pope Francis prays the Angelus from the window of the Apostolic Palace, July 3, 2022. / Vatican Media/CNA

Rome, Italy, Jul 11, 2022 / 15:31 pm (CNA).
After visiting a community of Jesuits in Rome this weekend, Pope Francis joked about his upcom… […]

London, England, Feb 25, 2020 / 02:20 pm (CNA).- A 24-year-old British woman with Down syndrome has launched a lawsuit against the UK government, seeking to change British laws that allow for babies with Down syndrome to be aborted up until birth.

“At the moment in the UK, babies can be aborted right up to birth if they are considered to be “seriously handicapped.” They include me in that definition of being seriously handicapped – just because I have an extra chromosome,” Heidi Crowter told journalists this week.

“What it says to me is that my life just isn’t as valuable as others, and I don’t think that’s right. I think it’s downright discrimination.”

Crowter, along with Cheryl Bilsborrow, the mother of a two-year-old with Down syndrome, have sent a letter to the British secretary of state and are hoping to raise the £20,000 necessary to litigate the case.

Bilsborrow said she was strongly encouraged to have an abortion after doctors performed the screening test on her unborn child.

“The nurse reminded me I could have a termination right up to 40 weeks if the baby had Down’s,” Bilsborrow told the Catholic Herald.

“I just said to her: ‘I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that,’ but it did make me feel very anxious.”

Abortions are legal in the UK for any reason up until 24 weeks, and most of the country’s 200,000 or so annual abortions take place before 13 weeks.

Abortions after 24 weeks are legal only if a woman’s life is in danger, there is a fetal abnormality classified as “severe”, or the woman is at risk of grave physical and mental injury, the BBC reports.

If the baby has a disability, including Down’s syndrome, cleft lip and club foot, abortion is legal up to birth. About nine in ten women have abortions after being given a diagnosis of Down syndrome, the Daily Mail reports.

The “Don’t Screen Us Out” campaign in the United Kingdom has, for the past four years, been drawing awareness to and seeking to change the UK’s abortion laws, seeking to amend Abortion Act of 1967 so that abortions for non-fatal disabilities are outlawed in the third trimester, which starts around 28 weeks of pregnancy.

Lynn Murray, a spokesperson for the group, told CNA in an interview that the campaign began in response to the government’s proposal of a new screening test for Down syndrome that, according to the government, would find an additional 102 cases of Down syndrome a year.

Given the high rate of termination for babies in the UK found to have Down syndrome, the campaign formed in order to try to get the government to assess the impact that the non-invasive prenatal testing technique, called ‘cell-free DNA’ or cfDNA, would have on the Down syndrome community. The campaign attracted attention among Britons with similar concerns, she said.

The group is backing Crowter and Bilsborrow in their lawsuit against the government.

“Launching this case gets people talking about it,” she said, adding that most people don’t even realize abortion is available up until birth in the UK.

“We are keen for people with Down syndrome to advocate for themselves. And this is what Heidi has decided to do…she feels that abortion after 24 weeks suggests that the lives of people like her don’t have the same value as everyone else.”

The UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has consistently criticised countries which provide for abortion on the basis of disability, the group says. In some countries, such as Denmark and Iceland, the abortion rate for babies found to have Down syndrom is close to 100%.

In the United States, there have been numerous attempts at the state level to ban abortions based on a diagnosis of Down syndrome.

Missouri lawmakers passed a law during 2019 that, in addition to banning all abortions after eight weeks, prohibits “selective” abortions following a medical diagnosis or disability such as Down syndrome, or on the basis of the race or sex of the baby. The law is currently blocked in the courts amid a legal challenge.

Ohio lawmakers attempted in 2017 to pass a ban on Down syndrome abortions, but a federal judge in 2019 blocked the legislation from taking effect.

Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, North Dakota, and Utah have all considered or passed similar bans.

At the federal level, the Down Syndrome Discrimination by Abortion Prohibition Act has been introduced in Congress, but has not yet been debated. The proposed law would ban doctors from “knowingly perform[ing] an abortion being sought because the baby has or may have Down syndrome.”
 

[…]

Dublin, Ireland, Nov 8, 2018 / 02:05 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Some 640 general practitioners in the Republic of Ireland have signed a petition saying their concerns have not been listened to regarding the government’s plan to have abortion services led by general practitioners.

“Instead of reaching out to the hundreds of GPs, Minister Harris has adopted an utterly dismissive tone from the get-go,” said Dr. Aisling Bastible, according to The Irish News.

The Health (Regulation of Termination of Pregnancy) Bill 2018 proposed by health minister Simon Harris will have a general-practitioner led abortion service. It would require pro-life healthcare professionals to provide abortion referrals, though not to perform them.

“No matter what your stance on abortion, you would surely expect the minister to consult with GPs on the ground before legislating,” said Dr. Andrew O’Regan.

“General practice is at maximum capacity, we have a big problem trying to recruit GPs and now the government are saying, ‘We want you to do this as well’, it’s just not on.”

O’Regan commented on the importance of conscientious objection, saying, “There’s plenty of doctors willing to do this, we don’t want to block those doctors but don’t force us to be part of it.”

The Irish bishops have lamented that the bill would require pro-life healthcare professionals to provide abortion referrals, calling the provision “an affront to conscience.”

They noted that the bill envisages that in the first twelve weeks, abortion will generally be chemically induced.

“This presumes that pharmacists, whether in hospitals or in private practice, will routinely stock and dispense drugs whose specific purpose is to end human life. No provision is made for pharmacists to opt out on the grounds of conscientious objection.”

“We ask the Government, and wider society, to respect the right of all healthcare professionals and pharmacists to exercise conscientious objection not only by refusing to participate actively in abortion but also by declining to refer their patients to others for abortion,” the bishops said.

They said, “Healthcare professionals, pharmacists and ancillary healthcare workers, should not face legal, professional or financial penalties or any form of discrimination for their commitment to respect life.”

The bishops noted that in New Zealand, healthcare professionals “opt in” to the provision of abortion, rather than opting out; nor are those who object to the procedure obliged to provide referrals for it.

Irish Health Minister Simon Harris criticized the opt-in stance, which is supported by the National Association of General Practitioners. In June, the group of 2,000 practitioners unanimously voted in favor of the “opt-in” method.

Ireland faces a potential shortage of doctors willing to participate in abortions; a March survey of Irish healthcare professionals found that that roughly seven out of 10 general practitioners in Ireland are unwilling to perform abortions.

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar clarified to the Dáil in June that individual medical professionals will be able to opt out of performing abortions, but entire hospitals will not be able to do so. Many publicly-funded hospitals have historic ties to the Catholic Church and operate under Catholic ethics.

[…]