Iceland Passes New Law Allowing Unlimited Abortions on Babies Up to 22 Weeks

International   |   Micaiah Bilger   |   May 14, 2019   |   5:58PM   |   Washington, DC

Iceland, the country where nearly every unborn baby with Down syndrome is aborted, just expanded its laws to allow even more abortions.

The new law, which takes effect Sept. 1, allows unborn babies to be aborted for any reason up to 22 weeks of pregnancy, the Iceland Monitor reports.

The legislation ends the requirement that underage girls have a parent’s permission before an abortion, and adopts euphemistic new language that disguises the true nature of the life-destroying practice, according to the Iceland Review.

The law passed the country’s parliament Monday in a 40-18 vote, with three abstentions, the reports state.

“The road has been long, but today, we’re obtaining one of the world’s most progressive laws with regard to women’s right to self-determination,” Health Minister Svandís Svavarsdóttir said, Frétttablaðið reports.

Prime Minister Katrín Jakobsdóttir said she would have gone even further and supported a no-limits abortion law, according to the reports.

“This bill is a step toward increasing the liberty of women in this country, and I whole-heartedly support it and would, myself, have supported having no time limit,” Jakobsdóttir said. “But I consider this bill a certain compromise of attitudes, and I will support it because I consider it an immense progressive step toward individual liberty.”

The law also tries to hide the fact that an abortion kills an unborn child by urging people to use different language. As Iceland Review reports:

Article 13 of the legislation also proposes a change in terminology used to discuss the topic, suggesting that þungunarrof (interruption of pregnancy) should henceforth be used instead of fóstureyðing (abortion, or literally “fetus extermination”), stating that the word fóstureyðing “has been considered a charged word.”

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Until now, Iceland required the approval of a committee for any abortion after 16 weeks.

The nation’s pro-abortion tendencies have sparked international outrage in the past. In 2017, CBS News reported the near 100-percent abortion rate for unborn babies diagnosed with Down syndrome in Iceland.

Just a few children with Down syndrome have been born in Iceland in the past decade. Two are born each year, on average, but the rest are killed in the womb, according to the report. For most of the children who were born, their mothers decided not to have prenatal screening tests.

This deadly discrimination against babies with disabilities is a problem in countries across the world, but the reports about Iceland drew international attention to the often ignored problem.

LifeNews Note: Image shows premature baby born at 22 weeks.