Should only healthy babies be born?

Medical science has advanced to such a stage that we are within a few years of being able to detect more and more diseases and disabilities in the womb.

Already some women found to have babies with abnormalities are under pressure to terminate.

Is it right that we should strive to create a world increasingly free of disability and disease in this way?

Currently, tests for Down's Syndrome are offered to women believed to have a high risk of the genetic condition, and by 2004, the government has pledged that every pregnant woman will have the opportunity to have the test.

The vast majority of women choose to terminate a foetus when they know for sure their baby has Down's Syndrome.

You're talking about eradicating a whole section of the population - it's state sanctified eugenics

But the Five Live Report has found at least some women are being pressurised to terminate.

And critics of the screening process say there is a presumption among some of the medical profession that women will terminate - a presumption that will extend to more and more abnormalities as scientific advance continues.

Professor Hilary Rose, a sociologist with the Open University, believes women often find themselves on a "conveyor belt" they can't get off, and are overwhelmed by a system that can assume they want to terminate if abnormalities are found.

"That doesn't seem to me to be a healthy way to run an antenatal service", she says.

Some women actually feel pressurised toward a decision to terminate even when the problem with their baby is correctable.

Lynn and David were delighted when they found out Lynn was expecting their first child. But their joy didn't last long.

"Within two or three minutes, the radiographer who was doing the scan said, 'Ah, there's a bit of a problem, there's something wrong with your baby's bowel'," said Lynn.

The baby had exomphalos - a condition where the abdominal organs grow outside the body.

The couple was offered three choices - to do nothing, to have another test to see if there were further problems, or to terminate.

As Lynn remembers: "It was like 'Termination' - big capital letters. 'It's not worth it, just get rid of it now dear. And then you can try a bit later on for another baby'."

David agrees they "felt at every single stage [the hospital staff] thought the best option would be termination."

But they refused to terminate and Lynn gave birth to a boy. William's condition was serious and he needed several operations.

"Sometimes I felt selfish", Lynn explains, "and thought why have I done this, to make your child suffer like that and maybe it would have been better to have spared him this."

She cries as she thinks back to the tense times when they carried him into the operating theatre.

"While you're going through that in the hospital, you think why the heck have we done this, we're making this little lad suffer," he said.

"But when you see him being cheeky and smiling at the nurses, we know we were spot on."

Some believe that as we offer the chance to terminate for more conditions, society is becoming increasingly intolerant towards babies who are born with abnormalities.

Bill Albert, from the Council of Disabled People, believes we need to "face up to what's going on and not say this is about choice, this is about elimination".

Eugenics is the attempt to create fine healthy children and that's everyone's ambition

He says what is happening has echoes of eugenics - the idea developed over a century ago that we could create the perfect human race by encouraging people with desirable genes to have more children.

"You're talking about eradicating a whole section of the population" says Mr Albert, "It's state sanctified eugenics".

Eugenics is a term that John Harris, a bioethicist at Manchester University is also prepared to use, but sees this as a laudable aim.

"Eugenics is the attempt to create fine healthy children and that's everyone's ambition."

He believes couples who choose to have babies even when there are problems are "misguided" and the more we can screen out disability, pain and suffering the better.

"We're not trying to do this through killing people or eliminating individuals, we're trying to do this by making choices about which people will exist in the future."

That's not a future sociologist Hilary Rose wants to be part of. She's worried we might end up terminating all foetuses that aren't perfect.

"We need badly to stand back and look at the whole picture", she says with some despair.

"After all, we don't have to take up everything science and technology offers us."

Mrs. CLINTON. You know, on the Senator's point, I am not arguing against any public education effort, any proselytizing, any means whatsoever to persuade people about what choice they should make. I don't, in fact, think that we have done enough to educate the public about reproductive health, about how to prevent unsafe and unwanted pregnancies, about how to improve contraception, and about what is really at stake in this debate over a women's right to make decisions about her own reproductive health. But for the Senator to imply that there are never instances of abnormalities and problems like the ones represented by the women in my office yesterday, which would be outlawed by your legislation, I believe is deceptive.

   We could solve this, as we have now for 20, 30 years, by saying this is a debate that does not belong in the United States Senate. It belongs in the hearts, minds, consciences of women and their loved ones, and in the medical offices of

   America, not the U.S. Senate.

   Mr. SANTORUM. I will challenge you to find anyplace in the record over the last 7 years where I said that was never the case. I have never said there are not difficult cases. What I have said repeatedly, because I wanted to be truthful with respect to the factual situations with which we are presented on the issue of late-term abortions and the instances in which partial-birth abortions are used--I refer the Senator to the State of Kansas where they have to report the reason for a partial-birth abortion; 182 were done last year, or the year before, and of those 182, none--zero--were done because of a problem with the child or a physical problem with the mother. They were classified as mental health.

   So I suggest to the Senator that those in the abortion industry themselves say this is the typical procedure on the typical baby. There may be--and there are--a small number of cases that are late-term where you find out the child within the womb has a fetal abnormality and may not live. I just suggest--and you used the term--where is the brainless head? Where are the lungs outside the body? I will just say I will be happy to put a child with a disability up there. But, frankly, I don't see the difference in my mind--and I am not too sure the public does--with respect to that being any less of a child.

   It is still a child, is it not? Maybe it is a child that is not going to live long, but do we consider----

   Mrs. CLINTON. Will the Senator yield?

   Mr. SANTORUM. In a moment. Do we consider a child that may not live long, or may have an abnormality, to be less of a child? Is this less of a human because it is not perfect? Have we reached the point in our society where because perfection is so required of us, that those who are not perfect don't even deserve the opportunity to live for however long they are ticketed to live in this country?

   Are we saying we need these kinds of infanticides to weed out those who are not going to survive or those who are not perfect, and that somehow or another we have to have a method available that we only allow perfect children to be born? If that is the argument, I am willing to stand here and have that debate. If that is what you want us to show, I am willing to stand and show that.


I suggest this is the typical abortion that goes with partial-birth. That is exactly what the industry says is the case. If the Senator would like me to find a child that has a cleft palate, I can do that. That doctor from Ohio performs a lot of abortions. He says he did nine in one year because of that. If she would like me to show a case of spina bifida, I can do that. That may be a reason someone has to have a late-term abortion.

   I would be happy to show those, but those are the exception rather than the rule, and I think it is imperative----

   Mrs. CLINTON. Will the Senator yield?

   Mr. HARKIN. Will the Senator yield for a question?

   Mr. SANTORUM. I will be happy to. It is imperative upon us to present the standard, the predominant case in which partial-birth abortions are done, and that is what we are doing. I will be happy to yield for a question.

   Mrs. CLINTON. The Senator from Iowa got in first.

   Mr. HARKIN. Go ahead. The Senator is engaged in debate. I have a question.

   Mr. SANTORUM. Fine.

   Mrs. CLINTON. Does the Senator's legislation make exceptions for serious life-threatening abnormalities or babies who are in such serious physical condition that they will not live outside the womb?

   Mr. SANTORUM. No, if----

   Mrs. CLINTON. That is the point.

   Mr. SANTORUM. I understand the Senator's point. I guess my point in rebuttal is that if you want to create a separation in the law between those children who are perfect and those children who are not----

   Mrs. CLINTON. No----



Mr. SANTORUM. Please, let me finish. If a child is not perfect, then that child can be aborted under any circumstances. But if that child is perfect, we are going to protect that child more. I do not think the Americans with Disabilities Act would fit very well into that definition. The Americans with Disabilities Act--of which I know the Senator from Iowa has been a great advocate, and I respect him greatly for it--says we treat all of God's children the same. We look at all--perfect and imperfect--as creatures of God created in his image.

   What the Senator from New York is asking me to do is separate those who are somehow not the way our society sees people as they should be today and put them somewhat a peg below legal protection than the perfect child. I hope the Senator is not recommending that because I think that would set a horrible precedent that could be extrapolated, I know probably to the disgust of the Senator from Iowa, certainly to me.

   No, I do not have an exception in this legislation that says if you are perfect, this cannot happen to you; but if you are not perfect, yes, this can occur. The Senator is right, I do not.

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   Mrs. CLINTON. To respond, if I could, to the Senator from Pennsylvania, my great hope is that abortion becomes rarer and rarer. I would only add that during the 1990s, it did, and we were making great progress. These decisions, in my view, have no place in the law, so they should not be drawing distinctions in the law. This ought to be left to the family involved.

   The very fact the Senator from Pennsylvania does not have such a distinction under any circumstances, I think, demonstrates clearly the fallacy in this approach to have a government making such tremendously painful and personal and intimate decisions.

   Mr. SANTORUM. I certainly respect the difference of opinion the Senator and I have on the underlying issue of abortion. Again, I think people can disagree on that. I, frankly, do not agree there should be a difference between children who are ``normal,'' in society's eyes--I do not know what that means anymore, what a society sees as normal--and those who happen to have birth defects, severe or not. I do not believe we should draw distinctions.

   Mrs. CLINTON. If the Senator will yield for one final point, I want the RECORD to be very clear that I value every single life and every single person, but if the Senator can explain to me how the U.S. Government, through the criminal law process, will be making these decisions without infringing upon fundamental rights, without imposing onerous burdens on women and their families, I would be more than happy to listen. But based on my experience and my understanding of how this has worked in other countries, from Romania to China, you are about to set up----

The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Pennsylvania has the floor.

   Mr. SANTORUM. To liken a ban on a brutal procedure such as partial-birth abortion to the forced abortion policies of China is a fairly substantial stretch, and I do not accept that as an analogy. I do not think it holds up under any scrutiny.

   With respect to the other issue, let the record speak for itself.

   Mrs. CLINTON. Madam President, if I can ask the Senator for one final point.

   Mr. SANTORUM. On the Senator's time. I have been more than generous on my time.

   Mr. HARKIN. I ask the Senator to yield.

   Mr. SANTORUM. On the Senator's time.

   Mr. HARKIN. The Senator has been very good about yielding for questions. If the Senator needs more time, I will join him in getting unanimous consent to give the Senator more time, if he needs it, because he has been very good about getting into a discussion. Do not worry about time. We will give you whatever time you want.

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