The new eugenics

Abortion is on the rise in Europe, and babies with disabilities are being targeted. A newly released study by the United Kingdom’s Department of Health and Social Care reveals alarming trends.

The year 2023 marked the highest number of abortions in England and Wales since the 1967 adoption of the Abortion Act. A total of 278,740 abortions took place in England and Wales, an 11% increase in abortions from 2022 with nearly 27,000 more abortions in 2023 than in the previous year. This stark increase reflects a disregard for the sanctity of life in British culture, guised as bodily autonomy and attributed to economic pressures. A closer examination of the data, however, reveals an equally concerning societal trend: a growing disdain for people with disabilities.

In England and Wales, 3,205 babies were aborted in 2023 on grounds of disability. While U.K. law limits abortion to 24 weeks’ gestation, abortions carried out on the basis of a substantial risk of serious fetal abnormality have no gestational limit and may, in practice, take place up until birth.

In 2023, 305 residents made use of this provision to abort their child at 24 weeks or later, ten of which involved a diagnosis of Down syndrome. Notably, of the 235 women who travelled from Ireland for an abortion—abortion restrictions are significantly more stringent in Ireland—130 obtained abortions on grounds of disability, 50 of which involved a diagnosis of Down syndrome. The fact that 55% of the women who travelled from Ireland did so to abort their baby with a disability demonstrates a clear devaluation of people with disabilities.

The wording of the law and its implementation reflect a societal disdain for people with disabilities. The law permits abortions on grounds of disability if “there is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped.” But the term “seriously handicapped” is inherently subjective.

Case in point: Sixty babies diagnosed with Down syndrome were aborted under this provision in a single year. In total, 735 babies with Down syndrome were aborted in England and Wales in 2023. Yet many people with Down syndrome are not seriously handicapped; instead, they have mild to moderate cognitive impairment and are often able to work or even attend college. Thus, a subjective law is being used to abort babies who may not even meet the standards set out by the law itself.

England and Wales are not the only countries in Europe with high rates of abortion of babies with Down syndrome and other disabilities. Tragically, they have become the norm. Abortions of babies with Down syndrome rose by 82% from 2021 to 2024 in Scotland, reflecting an overall increase in abortions of babies with disabilities there. More than 95% of pregnancies with a Down syndrome diagnosis in Denmark end in abortion, and France’s abortion rate for babies with Down syndrome hovers around 80%.

Disturbingly, Iceland reports an almost 100% termination rate of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome in the womb.

Most countries in Europe now provide full coverage for abortions of babies diagnosed with Down syndrome. These countries are seeking to eliminate disability not through developing cures or treatments, but by eliminating people with disabilities themselves before they are even born. We are now faced with societies that devalue people with disabilities and governments that pay for their elimination, often up until birth. This is just eugenics in a disguised form.

The elimination of people with disabilities is not a triumph to be celebrated, but a tragedy to be lamented. More European countries should follow the example of Poland, which completely banned abortions on the basis of disability in 2022, resulting in a 90% drop in the number of abortions in just one year. Yet most countries in Europe seem to be running in the opposite direction.

Europe’s example should serve as a wake-up call for Americans. At a time when abortion laws are actively being shaped, we must fight to preserve the lives of babies with disabilities. Laws have the power to protect the vulnerable or to systematically eliminate them.

The only hope is God’s divine intervention on behalf of people with disabilities. Let us pray it may be so.