{"id":194175,"date":"2019-01-16T10:19:18","date_gmt":"2019-01-16T16:19:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=194175"},"modified":"2019-01-15T20:04:01","modified_gmt":"2019-01-16T02:04:01","slug":"down-syndrome-eugenic-abortion-disability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/down-syndrome-eugenic-abortion-disability\/","title":{"rendered":"Bizarre: Dad of son with Down syndrome says eugenic abortion helps disability rights"},"content":{"rendered":"
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There is increasing pushback against eugenic abortions, particularly ones committed for reasons of disability. As preborn babies with disabilities are increasingly targeted for death, the disability community is also speaking up more and more, asserting their right to life. Yet there are also a few people who have come forward with the opposite message: that it’s perfectly acceptable to abort children with disabilities — even ones like their own children<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Writing for The Nation<\/a>, David Perry explained that he has a son with Down syndrome — and then wrote an op-ed on why he supports women’s “right” to abort preborn children with disabilities like his son’s. Perry begins by bemoaning the fact that so many states have banned Down syndrome abortions<\/a> before arguing why babies like his son should be aborted… <\/em>and yet\u00a0also bizarrely acknowledges their intrinsic value as human beings.<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0Powerful documentary shows doctors\u2019 push to abort babies with Down syndrome<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

“I\u2019ve spent many years now asserting the need to reorder how we ascribe value to diverse human lives. My son might not participate in the capitalist economy, live independently, or speak (he might also do all of these things!), but his value as a human is intrinsic,” Perry wrote. “I\u2019d like others to see it that way too. Selective abortion, as I\u2019ve written for The Nation, reveals our attitudes about disability and other forms of difference.” Then he suddenly pivots, writing, “Still, it\u2019s time to affirmatively support the right to eugenic abortion, even as we fight the need for it. The struggle for disability rights begins with the affirmation that no one gets to tell anyone else what to do with their body. That includes abortion.”<\/p>\n

What’s missing from Perry’s assertion is the inconvenient fact that abortion destroys another<\/em> human being’s body — one that cannot yet speak for him or herself — one whose fate is fully out of his or her control:<\/p>\n