by Rachel MacNair<\/p>\n
This was originally written for a referendum to allow late-term abortions on our project website Peace and Life Referendums<\/a>. The measure never made the ballot, but we don’t let write-ups go to waste, so it became one<\/a> of several topic pages<\/a>.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n One of the most common reasons given for making late-term abortions available is that the unborn child is diagnosed with some form of disability. (Around the world, that \u201cdisability\u201d can\u00a0often mean being female<\/a>; this is much less common in the U.S., but not unheard of).<\/p>\n Studies show a troubling impact of disability-selective abortions. In the United States, after the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) passed in 1990, this anti-discrimination and pro-accommodation legislation should have had a positive effect on how people with disabilities were seen. For those well beyond infancy, it did. However,\u00a0one study<\/a>\u00a0noted a dramatic decrease in the birth rate for Down Syndrome babies after its passage. With no reason to believe they were conceived at different rates before and after passage of ADA, and prenatal screening abilities being the same, authors attributed the decrease to demeaning and negative portrayals in the media.<\/p>\n Another study<\/a>\u00a0showed how this worked, looking at newspapers from 1998-2006: disability was presented negatively. It was because of positive portrayals of prenatal testing. The reports were commonly positive about terminating the pregnancy when there was a disability diagnosis. Therefore, the ready availability of abortion and its positive portrayal sabotages the cause of disability rights.<\/p>\n Women with disabilities are already subjected to many forms of discrimination. Telling them they can\u2019t handle a life event such as pregnancy can involve having disdain for them. It\u2019s also discriminatory. Abortion availability can be used as an excuse to avoid providing pregnant women with disabilities the extra services they need and deserve. Stigma associated with having disabilities is increased when it\u2019s used as a reason to avoid reproducing.<\/p>\n A figure of 13,000 yearly abortions over 20 weeks in the U.S. is based on applying the CDC\u00a0report of late-terms being 1.3% of abortions<\/a>\u00a0to the Guttmacher Institute\u2019s report of around a million abortions. The Guttmacher Institute itself, however,\u00a0has reported 15,000<\/a>. Official figures have been as low as around 10,000.<\/p>\n These figures are comparable to gun-related homicides<\/a> in the entire United States. Few people think such homicides are \u201crare.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\nFetuses with Disabilities<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Pregnant Women with Disabilities<\/strong><\/h3>\n
Numbers<\/strong><\/h3>\n