Modern Day Eugenics

 I was quite horrified to read that an unborn baby in the U.K. (don’t know what the laws are else where) can be terminated up to the moment of full term if he/she has been identified as having Downs Syndrome. 

There are about 750 babies born in the U.K. every year with Downs, it’s a terrible affliction and must weight very heavily on the parents and the families but surely this eugenics approach is wrong! It’s worst than wrong in my mind, since when must every baby be perfect? Surely as a human race with compassion and empathy we love and take care of our own no matter what and there is assistance out there for when the burden becomes too great. 

Where could this lead in the future? screening out short kids or babies of a certain gender, an extra finger on one hand? Maybe I’m sounding a bit extreme there but it’s all about definitions of what people will consider as a “handicap” to them…the kid born with Downs never knew of an other life and will lead the one he has to the best of his/her ability …who’s right is it to take that opportunity away from them?

Differences are what makes us human, we don’t live in a Huxley’s fictional “Brave New World” where babies are engineered through artificial wombs and childhood indoctrination programmes into predetermined classes based on intelligence and physical potential. 

My son Sam was born at 28 weeks with only 25 weeks growth as he was extremely premature, he was 1lbs 9oz at birth then dropped to 1lbs 7oz. I never knew if he would have “problems” due to this before he was born (luckily and blessed he turned out fine) but at the time before he was delivered I would have been aghast if a doctor, who took a Hippocratic oath to hold all life sacred, would have suggested to me to terminate him …and let’s be clear about how this would happen (does happen in the case of some Downs unborn babies) it’s not flicking an “off switch” or giving the mother a pill, it’s an injection of potassium into the babies heart to kill him! Truly horrific!!! 

The very concept of eugenics is horrific, excluding people judged to be inferior for whatever reason so then promoting those judged to be superior in the right to life has no place in a civilised society, and the current laws with the termination of Downs babies is barbaric!