State supported eugenics in France?

It has been estimated that 96% of fetuses with Down Syndrome in France are aborted.  Most of the cases are detected in older women whose physicians offer prenatal testing.  As in the United States, offering prenatal testing for Downs in France is not a government mandated practice for obstetricians.  The American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists simply recommends that doctors offer it.  Lawmakers in France are considering making it mandatory for physicians to offer prenatal testing for Down Syndrome.

Why is this significant?  Because mandating that doctors offer prenatal testing completely changes the game.  It is not that the prenatal testing is inherently evil.  In most cases it is simply a way to get more information about the life growing inside the womb.  It is what is done with that information that is problematic.  Abortion on demand complicates the entire prenatal testing arena.  Without legalized abortion, the use of prenatal testing would be naturally limited to conditions that could benefit from some kind of prenatal intervention.  Abortion takes information that may or may not be clinically useful and makes it deadly. 

Many Catholic hospitals and pro-life doctors all over the world have limited access to non-clinically useful prenatal testing (like testing for the sex of the fetus) to try and protect life in the womb in a world where abortion on demand is a reality.  Mandating that all doctors offer prenatal testing takes away that discretionary ability.

And with a 96% abortion rate for fetuses with Down Syndrome, a mandate for offering prenatal testing, even to young woman who are at a lower risk of having a child with Downs, amounts to a de facto state sponsored eugenics program.  At this point there is no treatment for Down Syndrome in the womb.  If there was, a mandate to offer testing would be an entirely different story.  But since there is not, coupled with the outrageously high abortion rate of Down Syndrome fetuses, this proposal smacks of a government sanctioned seek-and-destroy mission against those with an extra chromosome 21.

The Jerome Lejeune Foundation is a leader is funding research that is aimed at understanding the function of chromosome 21 and normalizing intelligence in those with Down Syndrome.  They are leading the charge in preventing France from implementing this mandate.  From their website:

Because the legislators in both Houses of the French Parliament are currently debating the contents of the forthcoming bioethics law and are preparing to legalize systematic screening for Trisomy 21.

Because 96% of the babies diagnosed before birth as having Trisomy 21 are eliminated, some of them as late as the ninth month of pregnancy. Instead of expanding this search-and-destroy mission aimed at infants with Trisomy 21, we should instead take advantage of the future bioethics law to put a stop to the current trends!

Because obliging the doctor to propose prenatal diagnosis to all expectant mothers would lead us from a de facto situation of eugenics to a legal system of eugenics that completely contradicts the Civil Code (art. 16-4).

Because infants with Trisomy 21, like all of us, want to live, to love and to be loved.

Because the degree to which a society is civilized is measured by its ability to protect its weakest members.

Because all of us are vulnerable and called to show solidarity with those who are a little more so.

Because, with technological advances, it will very soon be possible to detect many other disorders or predispositions to diseases. The logic of search-and-destroy will be extended to an ever-increasing number of babies.

Because by choosing to eliminate the sick instead of trying to cure their illnesses, science and medicine abandon their purpose and deny themselves.

The purpose of this petition is to denounce the eugenicist ideology informing the bioethics law, which is clearly expressed by its intention to screen systematically for Trisomy 21, and to challenge our legislators concerning the blatant contradiction between the Civil Code and current eugenics practices.

If your share our concern and our willingness to fight for greater respect for the lives of the most vulnerable, then sign this petition, which we will forward to the members of Parliament and to the French government.

Life is the most important political issue for Man: the members of Parliament, like the future candidates for the Presidency of the French Republic, cannot ignore this. They must recognize the determination of the French electorate on this subject [and also realize that people of good will in other countries will be watching carefully how they deal with this latest threat to fundamental human rights].

They ask that you sign the above petition to protect the lives of those with Down Syndrome here. The page is in French.  Just click on the big red "Signer" button on the top right and then enter your information.