Posted on 05/06/2012 10:53:56 AM PDT by wagglebee
Should termination of Down syndrome foetuses be regarded as a fundamental human right? This is an issue which the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) is currently pondering. In the case of Krūzmane vs. Latvia, the mother of a girl with Down syndrome alleges that she was denied a screening test for the condition when she was pregnant in 2001. She claims that this test is a necessary element of “prenatal care” and that access is guaranteed by the fundamental right to respect for private and family life.
As often happens, the facts of the case are not completely straightforward. Ms Krūzmane, who was 40 at the time, consulted a doctor during her pregnancy. The doctor told her to consult a specialist for a test but failed to follow up on this advice. For this negligence the doctor was fined. However, a subsequent police investigation found that Ms Krūzmane had failed to keep her appointment with the specialist and had failed to inform her doctor that her eldest child also suffered from a congenital genetic disorder. After exhausting her legal options in Latvia, Ms Krūzmane has turned to the European Court of Human Rights.
Critics say that the Court is being asked to decide whether eugenics is a fundamental right. The court’s decision could impose a fundamental right to abortion because of a disability detected through screening on 47 member states.
Advocates for rights for children with Down syndrome have set up a website to protest against this move, Stop Eugenics Now. They argue:
“Recognising as a human right the elimination of children with Down syndrome before their birth amounts to stigmatising a human group selected on the basis of their genome. A favourable ruling would deny purely and simply the humanity of the persons with disabilities and setup in law the mechanism for their elimination.”
And this is something that the culture of death has ALWAYS favored.
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“Paging Dr Mengele,, call on line 2”
You know what’s truly scary than a down-syndrome baby? A child could grow up as a liberal. Now that’s scary. I could even be persuaded to support aborting future-liberals.
A “fundamental human right” to be destroyed?
This is literally insane.
Disgusting comment.
Well, she’s not going to get the test or the abortion unless she shows up, is she?
This woman must be the Latvian “Julia”.
Why did we bother getting involved in WWII?
Your comment is truly offensive.
How is killing people who aren’t deemed good enough a human right?
It makes the “scientific studies” that purport to show conservatives are stupid or crazy all the more dangerous. If we aren’t healthy, perfect people, this type of right to kill the imperfect extends to political enemies.
I was horrified to find out that the UK is letting people abort children for defects as minor a single clubbed foot, when it took 16 months of casting to correct my own daughter’s severe, double case (both feet). Now she’s fine and no one can tell as she prances about in her ballerina outfit.
The definition of “good enough” is growing ever tighter - and no one in the world truly meets it.
I’ve always been opposed to euthanasia. I think our young people should stay in this country...
There is pressure placed on pregnant women to have the tests now.
Pardon me for thinking like a liberal. Since liberalism is a defect and the solution to defects = abortion, I was just proposing the obvious solution.
Yes. Neuter all Liberals — now.
“Thinking like a liberal” -— as you put it -— is not something I want to tolerate.
Human right for whom? Not the baby who has Down's Syndrome, surely.
I know someone who had that test, and it came back positive for Down's. She had the baby and he's perfectly normal.
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