Ohio Right to Life President Mike Gonidakis was pleased to have Senate bill 164 move one step closer to outlawing the abortion of a child with Down Syndrome. “There is a reason that 99% of people with Down syndrome are happy with their lives,” Gonidakis added. “They live joyfully, in a way that is contagious to others. We are happy that the Ohio Senate recognizes their lives as worth living.”
Is the law really necessary? The ECLJ (European Centre of Law and Justice) recently received an audience with the United Nations to discuss the high abortion rates of children after they had been diagnosed with Down Syndrome. Their report at the Durban Conference (Report of the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance) “urges States to take measures to prevent genetic research or its applications (…) from being used for discriminatory or racist purposes.”
Elizabeth Nash, of the Guttmacher Institute, questions the motives of ProLife campaigners using a genetic defect as grounds to create momentum for further restrictive abortion laws. “You can see how abortion opponents use a genetic anomaly ban to try to create tension between disability rights advocates and reproductive health and rights advocates. I think that is part of what is underlying this.”
If the proposed law becomes active, doctors who perform an abortion for a mother carrying a child with Down Syndrome will lose their physicians license and face a fourth-degree felony, leaving the opposing argument to infer a subsequent increase in patient dishonesty.
According to the CDC, “Down syndrome remains the most common chromosomal condition diagnosed in the United States.” 1 out of every 700 people are born with Down Syndrome in the United States each year, totaling roughly 6,000 babies.
Larry and Jackie Keough, parents of two daughter with Down Syndrome, spoke in favor of the bill: “We ask each of you to support SB 164 that would stop the genocidal practice of aborting unborn children with Down syndrome,” Jackie Keough said. “By doing so, this can be a critical step to eliminate abortion based on individual genetic make up.”
Meg writes about everyday life within the love of Christ on her blog, http://sunnyand80.org. “Mom” is the most important calling on her life, next to encouraging others to seek Him first … authentically. A writer, dance mom, substitute teacher, youth worship leader/teacher and Bible Study leader, she can often be found having some kind of an adventure in the small little lake town where she resides with her husband of ten years, two daughters, and their Golden-doodle.
Photo courtesy: ©Thinkstock/Eleonora_os
Publication date: November 21, 2017
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