ABORTION USED AS MEANS OF GENETIC CLEANSING
Along with their American neighbours, Canadians have expressed outrage at the ethnic cleansing our media has described as sweeping Yugoslavia for the past five years or so. The term genocide is even being used to describe what has occurred in Kosovo - allegedly masterminded by Slobodan Milosevic.
Genocide is the deliberate and systematic attempt to eliminate a particular group of people. Deaths in Yugoslavia`s civil war in Kosovo totaled between 2,000 and 3,000 on both sides before NATO proceeded for 78 days to bomb the country`s cities and workplaces back to the stone age.
How ironic it is to see our soldiers willing, and rightfully so, to risk their lives to help protect persecuted citizens of another country while the heads of states putting them at very great risk are themselves actively participating in a massive genocide of their own unborn children.
As appalling as it is to hear about the victims of ethic stife in Yugoslavia, we find in our own countries a similar but infinitely more devastating form of cultural cleansing. It is one before which the murderous actions reported in Kosovo pale in comparison. The medical profession euphemistically refers to it as genetic, or selective abortions - really only another name for eugenics. It reeks of pure Naziism, for those who support and promote it are trying to make a perfect world by getting rid of babies who are not perfect.
It is horrifying that anyone would kill a life because of an imperfection. What is still more shocking is that right now hospitals in Canada and the United States are doing just that and are killing disabled unborn children. And these are not little lima beans with feet. These so-called genetic terminations are babies. If you were holding their head in the palm of your hand, their little feet would reach your elbow.
With little opposition, save from the ranks of pro-lifers, there is strong sentiment that those who fail to establish their "value" to us - unborn babies with handicaps, children born with severe disabilities, and the medically vulnerable elderly - should be given their rightful comeuppance: death.
When physicians encourage the abortion of "fetuses" with diseases or disabilities, as many now do, they are fostering intolerance of the less-than-perfect people who are already born. This was startlingly born out in the Canada-wide support received by Robert Latimer, in the form of tens of thousands of dollars for his legal fees, after he gassed his severely disable daughter.
The destruction of these children with handicaps stand as a testimony to the moral bankruptcy of the media, who ignore the children`s existence, and as a testimony to the moral bankruptcy of the abortion trade. Not surprisingly we pro-lifers are accused of violence because we dare put the words "baby" and "killing" in the same sentence.
Medical centres now have improved ultrasound equipment, access to amniocentesis and prenatal genetic screening. They can now conduct a sophisticated analysis of the fetus' genetic material, which can readily detect the slightest errors in a developing baby's biological makeup. However, most of these diagnostic investigations are often little more than search-and-destroy missions to eliminate the imperfect, nothing more in fact than a high-tech means of "genetic cleansing - the notion that we can somehow justify the selective killing of less-than-perfect babies. We are now using technology to sweep deformity under the rug, and in the process creating an attitude that fuels society`s prejudice against imperfect children. Common sense should tell anyone with basic reasoning abilities that birth defects are not being eliminated through ultrasound analyses and amniocentesis and chorionic villus samplings - little people are!
Prenatal screening has deluded society in believing that we can and should control our genetic destiny. We believe it well within our rights to have genetically perfect children and to reject any baby that isn`t. Proof of this 'genetic cleansing of the race' is found in reports from medical journals which state that 92% of infants diagnosed with Down's syndrome in utero are aborted, while 80% of infants are aborted when any kind of genetic imperfection is found. Rather scary stats wouldn`t you say - considering each one of us carries at least five genetic defects of some kind. Further, our fast developing knowledge of the human genetic code will only expand the variety of choices that are currently available to destroy the unborn.
To a large degree, modern obstetrics has become an impersonal technospecialty dedicated to the idea of "the perfect baby." Much of a prenatal diagnosis is designed to detect fetal abnormalities early so that the choice of abortion is available. Subscribing to this utilitarian philosophy, even reputed bioethists such as Eric Kluge, bioethics professor at the University of Victoria and a member of the British Columbia advisory committee on ethical issues, proclaim that it is "morally irresponsible" to have children who may have a genetic disease.
The argument in the warped mind of these individuals and the pro-choice elite is that aborting the physically and mentally handicapped is a humane and aesthetic action taken by a civilized society to create a better world for all. This idea receives the almost unanimous support of the mainstream media which constantly tell us that abortion of the physically and mentally handicapped should be considered a blessing because quality of life cannot be guaranteed. How many among us, born with severe disabilities before abortion law was nullified in 1969 (Canada) and 1973 (U.S.), would have been aborted under this reasoning?
The use of sex-selection technologies, which most often lead to the aborting of unwanted female fetuses by couples who prefer sons, has frequently been condemned by so-called pro-choice feminist groups as discriminatory and degrading to women. If aborting female fetuses discriminates against women, it should follow that aborting defective babies discriminates against the disabled, just as aborting for economic reasons discriminates against the poor. Whether they recognize it or not, proponents of genetic terminations have adopted the same family-based eugenic theories that kindled Hitler`s demonic obsession with German race purity.
It is our responsibility to be good parents, not the baby`s to be perfect. As Knights dedicated to promoting the sanctity of life, it is our duty to proclaim this and speak out on behalf of all those who are judged worthy of death because they can not measure up to an arbitrary rule of human worth.
Thaddée Renault