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Posted on 12/18/2001 4:27:43 AM PST by tberry

Monday, Dec. 17, 2001

French Debate Killing Disabled People

Pro-abortion forces scoff at pro-life Americans who warn of the devaluation of human life, but what's happening in France is enough to frighten anyone.

Willemijn Forest, who lives in Marseilles, told the Christian Science Monitor how the first thing doctors asked after she bore a son with Down syndrome was whether she wanted to keep him.

"After the delivery, they took him away immediately, assuming I did not want to see him anymore. I said, 'Of course I want to keep him.' I was so appalled by their attitude."

France's highest court recently ruled that children with Down syndrome have a legal "right" never to have been born and may sue doctors who allowed them to be born - i.e., who didn't kill them. "For parents such as Mrs. Forest, the ruling demonstrates a view — which she says is widespread in French society — that a disabled life is not worth living," says the Monitor.

Execute the Innocent and Defenseless

France and other European countries are anti-choice on U.S. executions of ruthless murderers, but strangely enough they have little problem with executing the innocent.

The French court ruled Nov. 28 that a doctor failed to warn a mother that prenatal scans of her baby, Lionel, had symptoms of Down syndrome. Had she known she would have had him killed before birth, so now the doctor is 100 percent liable for the cost of raising the child.

Parents of mentally disabled children who gathered outside the courthouse to hear the verdict expressed outrage at the judges' ruling.

"Certain judges still believe that it is better to be dead than to be handicapped," said Dr. Xavier Mirabel, spokesman for Collective Against Handiphobia, a group that fights for rights for handicapped people in that allegedly Catholic country.

"Although most in France agree that the parents should receive financial aid for Lionel's specialized care, many are offended by the nature of the mother's grievance: That her son had been allowed to be born," says the Monitor's article, reprinted in today's Washington Times.

It always starts with the unborn, then the physically imperfect, then the newborn, then the elderly, then ...

Oh brave new world, that has such people in it.

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