I’ve been told that abortion laws in the UK are actually more strict than they are here in the US. With news like this, I really wonder if that claim is true. Via Kevin McCullough, I saw this link to a disturbing Washington Times piece about the practice of cosmetic abortions, which are gaining in popularity overseas:

In England, it now seems, a baby can be aborted for not being pretty enough. Maybe this was inevitable as genetic screening and techniques such as ultrasound advanced.

The London Daily Telegraph Web site reports that the Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (HFEA) has licensed a fertility clinic to screen embryos for a genetic defect that causes a severe squint.

A squint? The aborting of babies with undesired characteristics is hardly new. In China, where people have a strong preference for boys, so many female babies have been aborted that a serious imbalance between the sexes exists. Babies with fatal conditions have been aborted. We now seem to have invented cosmetic abortion.

The man to whom the license was granted, professor Gedis Grudzinskas, was asked whether he would screen babies for hair color. He replied that hair color “can be a cause of bullying, which can lead to suicide. With the agreement of the HFEA, I would do it.”

As medical genetics advances, it will become possible to predict more and more characteristics of an unborn child — hair color, height, likelihood of obesity, perhaps intelligence. Presumably, it will then be possible to try again and again until you get your ideal baby.

This is strange territory. The list of techniques lengthens: artificial insemination, sperm banks, in vitro fertilization, DNA screening for abortion and cloning just around the corner. Selective abortion might be called passive genetic engineering. Though it is further in the future, design from scratch by genetic manipulation looks possible in principle.

The idea of matching a child, or a soon-to-be child, against a checklist to decide whether to keep it struck me as repellant, but I wasn’t sure why.

I asked several friends what they thought. Their reaction was pretty much mine. One woman made a face and just said, “Creepy.” Yes, but why?

These people weren’t against abortion in general. If abortion is all right because you don’t want a baby at all, why is it unsettling to have an abortion because you don’t want a particular baby?

Indeed - why? I can’t tell you the number of women I’ve argued with over the issue of abortion who think it would be wrong for a woman to consider getting an abortion for cosmetic reasons - yet when pressed, still think when all is said and done that the woman should maintain the right to have one, because ‘banning’ abortions for cosmetic reasons, they say, would open the door for banning abortions for other reasons. And they’re right: it would be. But what they can’t give a straight answer to is “why would you consider it wrong for a woman to abort a baby for cosmetic reasons yet not think it’s wrong for a woman to have one because for convenience sake?” These people, in my opinion, are devoid of any moral conscience whatsoever. They admit that abortion is wrong for cosmetic reasons, yet can’t or refuse to entertain the idea that a cosmetic abortion is no different than a convenience abortion - both would be done in order to convenience the mother, which in essence makes both types of abortion wrong. Coming to terms with that would mean that pro-abortionists would have to admit that they’ve been wrong all along on the issue of abortion, and by God, they can’t ever admit that they are wrong on their pet issue!

Point out that cosmetic abortions are a form of the type of eugenics that Hitler encouraged, mandated, and carried out during his reign of terror in order to eliminate the undesirables from society, and the pro-abortion left really starts wigging out.

I’m not “pro-abortion!!” they attempt to clarify indignantly. “Rather, I’m pro-choice.” Uh huh.

These are the types of 21st century ‘moral decisions’ brought to you courtesy of a decline in the respect for life and the ruling in Roe v. Wade. Here are others that I have blogged about before:

• Church of England backs doctors letting severely disabled babies die after birth
• UK: Doctors urge ‘active euthanasia’ for disabled babies
• “Many” US couples seek embryo screening to select the sex of their child
• Slippery slope watch: Eliminating a medical condition - by eliminating its sufferers
• Study: Abortions at home are safe
• 50 babies a year are alive after abortion
• Stem cells from aborted fetuses used in makeovers