Antonia Tully, blogpost
Following on from my blog earlier this week by journalist Olivia Buxton, who is “risking a pregnancy at 48 after losing twins with Down’s syndrome”, there’s more to say about this tale of our times.
Olivia Buxton aborted her twins because she didn’t want to be the mother of children with Down’s syndrome. Journalist Dominic Lawson rushed into print in the Daily Mail to defend and rejoice in the lives of people with Down’s syndrome. Even more speedily, BPAS, Britain’s biggest abortion provider, promoted the story on social media and pointed to a sinister campaign: Break the Silence about Termination for Medical Reasons.
This campaign is all about justifying and normalising abortion for babies with disabilities. Actually, I too would like to break the silence about “termination for medical reasons”. I want to shout from the rooftops that there are no “medical reasons” for aborting a baby. Unborn babies should not be killed because they have a disability any more than those of us who have been born should be killed for having a disability or a disabling disease. A disability is not a reason to kill someone.
Unfortunately, this sinister campaign becomes even more worrying when you find out who is involved. Tommy’s is a high profile charity and one I would like to support. It seems so life-affirming; funding research into problems around pregnancy and supporting women with difficult pregnancies. But I won’t give any money to it now I know it’s part of a campaign condoning abortion for disabled babies.
Two other charities are part of this campaign. ARC (Antenatal Results & Choices) and Petals - The Baby Loss Counselling Charity. One of the aims of the campaign is to support women who abort a disabled baby. Of course, they are quite right when they say that women and couples who have aborted a disabled baby need support. We in the pro-life movement know that. We know about the research which shows that women who abort a baby with a disability are at risk of greater psychological harm than those aborting a baby for other reasons. What is so badly wrong here is that the very charities which want to help such women are steering them towards abortion in the first place.
ARC believes “that every parent should have access to non-directive information and support through antenatal testing and its consequences”.
ARC supports the current law on abortion: “A reduction in the upper time limit would add an extra level of stress to an already traumatic situation… We owe it to these parents not to make a distressing situation any worse and so ARC will always defend the abortion law as it stands”.
ARC also promotes BPAS on its website.
Petals offers a “place where the residue of toxic guilt feelings can be processed, and the internal conflict around choices made can be worked through”. How absolutely tragic that Petals cannot support parents to give life to their baby and save them from “toxic guilt feelings” and “conflict”.
Tommy’s tell parents who are told that their unborn baby has an anomaly: ‘The decision to end a pregnancy is a highly personal one. Whatever you choose for the health of your baby and/or your own health and safety is entirely up to you. In all cases, it is a tremendously difficult decision for parents to make and is often accompanied by significant sadness and grief.’
In a letter to a pro-lifer, dated 15 May 2019, Tommy’s states that it offers “general counselling”. In our culture of death, I fear that the “general counselling” will be severely skewed towards abortion.
Parents who receive unexpected news about their unborn baby need special care and attention. It is heart-wrenching that the very charities helping families with pregnancy and baby loss are on the side of ending the lives of unborn babies with disabilities. I’m so sorry I can’t donate to Tommy’s or Petals or ARC.