A couple in Australia decided to have an abortion at 28 weeks of pregnancy after they learned their unborn child would have a “deformed” left hand.
The woman told a Brisbane, Australia newspaper she was “really, really depressed” after getting the diagnosis that her baby would have a physical disability and she said she would feel guilty about bringing a child into the world with a minor physical “problem.”
“I grew up with many people who were disabled, and… there was discrimination,” the mother told the newspaper. “I didn’t want my child to be discriminated against. The problem is… obvious because it is the fingers, and I think the child would have a very hard life.”
Instead of condemning the abortion, much of the reporting at the newspaper laments that the couple couldn’t have killed their unborn baby sooner — as if destroying the “disabled” baby’s life earlier in pregnancy somehow morally atones for aborting an unborn child over a minor physical issue.
Writing at the National Catholic Register, pro-life writer Matt Archbold says he can relat to the plight of the baby victimized by abortion.
“My sister was born without a left hand, not even a deformed one. And she seems to be doing pretty well for herself. She’s a mother of two and an actress in New York. Is she discriminated against? Sure. To think she should’ve been killed is preposterous to me,” he said.
“This thought that the imperfect life is not worth living is preposterous. Who has the perfect life?” he added.
He continued:
My heart breaks over this case. The issue has created a legal stir and the woman has many defenders. The University of Melbourne’s Lachlan de Crespigny reportedly argued that the legality of abortion should have nothing to do with whether the baby can survive outside the womb. “Women have the same rights as the rest of the population in deciding what to do with their bodies, so do you see them as a pregnant woman, someone who doesn’t have that right to decide and must carry that foetus – that it is the role of the Catholic Church or parliament to decide for her?”
But then he added something telling. He said that when abortion became legal it was acknowledged that any restrictions due to fetal development would be arbitrary because at no point does the fetus definitively change in any relevant way. Exactly. Because the baby is human at conception as the baby is human at birth. Nothing can change that. And until we accept every life as human and sacred we’ll continue to see violence against those deemed imperfect.
