Back in February this year, the NZ Government instituted the so-called "Antenatal Screening for Down Syndrome and Other Conditions - Quality Improvements" programme.
It was presented simply as "an expanded, safer screening programme to detect Down syndrome during pregnancy" and recieved little press attention.
However, pro-life sources in NZ have obtained, under the NZ Official Information Act, documents that state the outcomes of the programme will be a reduction in the number of births of babies with Down syndrome, with some 90 per cent of unborn children diagnosed with the condition being aborted.
Further, and more shocking, the documents state:
"the [Down syndrome screening] programme will be cost beneficial for the population and the health system ... the economic costs of screening outweigh the high costs associated with the long-term care needs of an individual with Down syndrome."
The programme is funded by the state and targets all pregnant women in New Zealand in their first trimester.
Pro-lifers say that people with disabilities are the only group targeted for selective abortion under the program. Down syndrome and other conditions targeted are genetic conditions that have no cure.
"This is eugenics," says Ken Orr, spokesman for NZ Right to Life, "which proclaims that only the perfect have a right to be born. The screening programme is a search and destroy mission and is a further major step on a slippery slope ... we should be aware that this is part of a strategy of social conditioning."
"It seems obvious to me that the basis of first-trimester screening is to enable women to have an abortion within the 20-week timeframe if an abnormality is detected, since other reasons for prenatal diagnoses are left until the later stages of pregnancy."
http://www.la.org.au/news/011010/nz-government-engaged-eugenics
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