Wednesday, May 31, 2006

Couples Aborting to have Perfect Babies

There are articles that you read that make you want to go to the nearest wall and bang your head against. Some things are so mind numbingly obvious that you just know the outcome. Of course people are going to try to create the perfect baby, why have a baby that has a defect when you can get rid of it (without any regard to human life because it really isn't human anyway) and start again? And the media is just waking up to that reality. What? Women or aborting babies because they have a club foot? How can people kill infants over minor, treatable imperfections? Why are they surprised? This is what they have wrought:

The ethical storm over abortions has been renewed as it emerged that terminations are being carried out for minor, treatable birth defects.

Late terminations have been performed in recent years because the babies had club feet, official figures show.

Babies are being aborted with only minor defects.
Other babies were destroyed because they had webbed fingers or extra digits.

Such defects can often be corrected with a simple operation or physiotherapy.

The revelation sparked fears that abortion is increasingly being used to satisfy couples' desire for the 'perfect' baby.

A leading doctor said people were right to be 'totally shocked' that abortions were being carried out for such conditions.
They want to blame lack of information for this problem but wouldn't the obstetrician know that there were treatments for these conditions and wouldn't they want to inform their patients of the options available for treatment? The parents have the information, they have chosen to abort because they don't want a baby with a club foot or webbing on their fingers. They don't want the hassle or they don't want their child to live life with a stigma or whatever other rational they have come up with to justify killing their baby.

And what is amazing is that nothing will be done about it. There are parents in England (and I have no doubt America as well) who would kill their baby because it had a defect and there is nothing that is being done about it. Here is the reason that this practice will continue:
In 2004 it emerged a baby was aborted at 28 weeks after scans showed it had a cleft palate. Curate Joanna Jepson tried to ensure criminal charges were brought against the two doctors involved but the authorities last year decided against prosecution.
If no one is punished for doing this, then the practice will continue. Easy access to the procedure, no social stigma, the desire for the best that life has to offer and the decision when a baby is allowed to be born left solely to the mother enables this practice to continue.

And here in America we have the same problem:
If an assailant had shot Tammy Skinner in the stomach on the day she was to give birth, killing her baby, he could have been prosecuted.

Because she shot herself earlier this year, however, General District Court Judge James A. Moore decided Monday that she can’t be tried for producing a miscarriage or abortion, and he dismissed the felony charge.

Skinner’s attorney argued at a preliminary hearing that the charge is meant to be used against a third party and that the same offense with similar wording has been tested in courts in both Florida and Georgia and failed. It simply does not govern an expectant mother doing something to herself, Kevin E. Martingayle said.

“We can feel all of the moral outrage in the world for what this woman did,” he said in court, “ but the facts in this particular situation are that this statute does not apply.”
A woman can kill her baby on it's due date and there is no law on the books to punish her for it. We allow a murderer to go free with only a slap on the wrist on weapons charges. No wonder we view life so cheaply.

The very fact that abortion is legal promotes the idea that society accepts the killing of life for whatever reason:
'The law was not designed for this,' she said. 'Actions like these are fostering a disposable attitude to human life and I'm extremely concerned it is going on.
Of course it does! But it's not just actions like these, it's all the abortions that foster an attitude that life is disposable. It's years and years of indoctrinating the public that it's the woman's right to choose since it is her body. She is the ultimate decision maker. She is the one who gets to decide when someone lives or dies and for whatever reason she wants.

And the response to the charge of aborting for the perfect baby is telling:
But Jane Fisher of the charity Antenatal Results and Choices defended the right of parents to terminate pregnancies when defects are found. 'This is not part of a move towards designer babies,' she said.

'These are difficult and painful issues.'
It isn't the doctors that are at fault, it's the parents and these deaths will continue because there is no reason for them to stop. Attitudes have formed that life is disposible if it's inconvenient and it's only the mom who has the ultimate decision over life and death. There will be enormous consequences of this attitude in the future because life has been cheapened.

Society's view of life has been adversely impacted by abortion and we will have to live with the consequences of that change. We can't be surprised by these stories because it is obvious that life has become very cheap. Lifestyle, job, college, convenance, holding on to her boyfriend, the perfect baby, a boy instead of a girl, are what life is worth today.

(Links via The Drudge Report and Purple Flowers)