The Master of the Rotunda Hospital Fergal Malone has confirmed that up to 95% of unborn babies diagnosed with Down syndrome at the hospital are aborted in Britain.
It represents a significant increase from the reported 57% of unborn babies diagnosed with Down Syndrome in 2016 at the same hospital that were subsequently aborted.
Most regrettably, the arguments from the ‘No’ campaign in 2018 that abortion legislation would see a massive increase in the rate of abortions, including of babies with Down Syndrome, has come to pass.
In his interview last week with The Irish Times, Dr Malone casually threw in the remark that the introduction of abortion had not led to “the floodgates opening”. The statistics he himself quoted show this to be utterly false, in addition to the official figures published by the Department of Health which reveal that there has been more than a 70% increase in Irish abortions overall in the first three years of the new law taking effect.
Meanwhile, the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) has repeated its call for legal changes to broader the grounds for late term abortions in situations where the unborn baby has a life-limiting condition.
The new law permits late term abortions in situations where the baby will likely die before or within 28 days of birth. The changes to the law that the IHREC are seeking would remove these qualifications and in effect permit abortion up to birth in any situation where a disability is detected in the baby.
The Human Rights and Equality Commission is supposed to look out for the most vulnerable members of society and stand up for their rights. They have completely abandoned their stated mission when they cannot be relied upon to defend the rights of unborn babies from unjust attack and having their lives ended, simply because they have a disability. By its actions, the IHREC is allowing discrimination against people with a disability to foster as they are lending their support unwittingly or not to the idea of singling out certain categories of people and deeming them unworthy of protection under the law.
