Posted on 05/28/2006 6:15:32 PM PDT by wagglebee
MORE than 20 babies have been aborted in advanced pregnancy because scans showed that they had club feet, a deformity readily corrected by surgery or physiotherapy.
According to figures from the Office for National Statistics covering the years from 1996 to 2004, a further four babies were aborted because they had webbed fingers or extra digits, which are also corrected by simple surgery. All the terminations took place late in pregnancy, after 20 weeks.
Last year, according to campaigners, a healthy baby was aborted in the sixth month at a hospital in southeast England after ultrasound images indicated part of its foot was missing.
News of the terminations has reignited the debate over how scanning and gene technology may enable the creation of “designer babies”. In 2002 it emerged that a baby had been aborted late — at 28 weeks — after scans found that it had a cleft palate, another readily corrected condition.
Some parents, doctors and charities are increasingly worried by what they see as a tendency to widen the definition of “serious handicap”. The handicap provision, which does not exist in most other countries, permits abortions to be carried out until birth. It was intended to save women from the trauma of giving birth to babies likely to die in infancy.
Club foot is one of the most common birth defects in Britain. About one in 1,000 babies is affected, meaning that 600 to 700 infants are born with the condition every year. It results in the feet pointing downwards and inwards, and in severe cases can cause foot deformity and a limp.
However, it is relatively easy to correct and in recent years techniques of splints, plaster casts and boots to set the foot into the correct position have replaced the need for surgery.Club foot is occasionally connected with serious but rare chromosomal defects, although specialists point out that these can also be screened out before birth with additional tests.
Despite the ease with which it can be treated, the perception that club foot is a serious birth defect has remained among some parents and doctors.
“It was strongly suggested that we consider abortion after they found our baby had a club foot,” said David Wildgrove, 41, a computer programmer from Sheffield, whose son Alexander was born in 1996. “I was appalled. We resisted, the problem was treated and he now runs around and plays football with everyone else.”
Pippa Spriggs from Cambridge, whose son Isaac will celebrate his second birthday in July, was also dismayed when a scan halfway through the pregnancy revealed that her baby had the defect.
“Abortion certainly was not openly advised, but it was made clear to me it was available,” she said. “In fact he has been treated and the condition has not slowed him down at all.”
Others take a different view and decide not to accept the risk of an imperfect baby. Sue Banton, who founded the group Steps for parents of children with foot disorders, was troubled that a home counties couple last year decided to terminate their baby, despite counselling to reassure them it would have a worthwhile life even with a section of foot missing.
“We gave them other families to talk to, but they just didn’t want to know. The baby was aborted just before the 25th week,” she said.
“It is terrible. I know lots of perfectly nice people with this condition, and you just can’t imagine them not being here.”
One doctor in the north of England who did not want to be named, said a recent case in his hospital had involved the discovery of a hand missing from a foetus scanned at 20 weeks. “The father did not want the pregnancy to proceed because of his perception that the child would not be able to do all the usual things like sport,” said the doctor.
I think it was up to age 18 months, but hey, all you had to do was not like the kid much in order to turn it in to one of his centers.
Btw, I worked with a physician who spent oodles to adopt a little boy with two club feet from South Korea.
"Now, according to The Sunday Times, doctors are performing late term abortions because of minor anomalies that could be surgically corrected, such as having club feet. Last year a baby was aborted at the 28th week because imaging showed it had a cleft palate! Apparently doctors are pushing this eugenic agenda. Those who pooh-pooh slippery slopes, take heed. Meanwhile, as noted earlier here, the UK now permits eugenic embryo selection based on a genetic propensity to adult onset cancer."
I feel like weeping over this news. The culture of death creeps steadily onward and the victims are the usual - the unborn, handicapped, and elderly. The evil one is alive and well.
I was born with a severe club foot 46 years ago - the doctor told my folks he didn't think I would have normal use of it ever.
I did - although as a kid I remember getting teased for having to wear "hard shoes" when everyone else was wearing sneakers!
I ended up taking 5th in state in Minnesota for cross-country skiing when I was a senior. Okay - it wasn't soccer ;)
BTW, I am not opposed to prenatal testing. It could give a family time to pray, seek help, etc. for a condition the child will have. I've done it each time, but I would never not let my baby live, even if something awful were discovered.
<< It’s amazing how humans have become “product” that can be discarded if not (absolutely perfect) .... >>
Can (Almost) imagine discarding the montrous bastards who dare call themselves "doctors" in these instances, though.
The socialist/secular humanist "mental health" industry here in the US has already deemed Conservatism as something on the order of a 'serious handicap."
It just remains for them to declare that they've "discovered" the means for determining this 'handicap' while in utero.
Sound farfetched? Not in this increasingly insane world we're living in, imo.
And people can't understand why God allows terrible things to happen in this world.
Would be more pleased if all the said babies were black or Jewish.
nothingnew was referring to the aborted children.
Of course the family had the running jokes "What did you do, throw him down the stairs?" But they all knew that it was good that he had the cast done so early, and everyone signed it, of course. When that first one was cut off, I asked the Doc to cut it in such a way that most of the signatures would be preserved. We still have it, 26 years later, and his foot is just fine!
Right, I forgot about my "mental defects". Those are enough to mandage forced medication if we keep going down this path.
James Taranto often writes that the Democrats' use of abortion as birth control is seriously diminishing their ranks as their own replacement voters disappear in the trash can.
That's probably why they are so keen to resupply their voting ranks with illegal immigrants (who btw are also prodigious reproducers).
I would sincerely hope that someone would email those families and doctors and fwd this story.
I'm sure he would probably be livid to hear of children being aborted due to a club foot.
Mia Hamm, Best Women's Soccer Player in the World, had a partial club foot.
Kristi Yamaguchi, 1992 Olympic Figure Skating Gold Medalist had club foot and wore casts and foot braces for her first two years.
Troy Aikman, Dallas Cowboys Quarterback and two-time Super Bowl champion, had a mild form of club foot.
Others...Dudley Moore, Damon Wayans
I swear it helps. If you can get a teenager to remember to take it every day! ;-)
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