By Madison Ruppert:
A
meeting to be held in Strasbourg, France hosted by the Parliamentary
Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), this week will address the
alleged “eugenic current of European society” and the subject of
“Eugenics and human rights, issues of prenatal screening.”
Population control
has become a major issue in recent years due to major fears surrounding
a growing world population especially amongst some of the most
impoverished nations, as evidenced by a UK-funded program in India.
Currently, the highest court in Europe is considering a complaint
from a woman who claims that she was not given a prenatal screening
which would have revealed her daughter’s Down syndrome and thus allow
her to choose to abort her child.
This Thursday the roundtable discussion hosted by PACE will be held
with European associations of individuals with Down syndrome in response
to the case currently being considered by the European Court of Human
Rights.
There have been many heated statements on the subject, with some
saying that the real topic surrounds “how European society defines
humanity.”
Thus, the campaign “Stop Eugenics Now” has been created, along with a declaration entitled “Eugenics is not a human right.”
The case this campaign is speaking out against involves a woman from
Latvia who gave birth to her daughter in June of 2002, just to find out
she had Down syndrome.
The woman, Anita Kruzmane, is arguing that she should have received a
blood screening test as a part of her “prenatal care” regimen in order
to allow her to make a more informed decision in going forward with
having her child.
One of the groups participating in the case, the European Center for
Law and Justice (ECLJ) – which is associated with the American Center
for Law and Justice – is also helping organize Thursday’s meeting.
In addition, the ECLJ is acting as an interviewer in the court case and seems to be on the more critical end of the spectrum.
For instance, Gregor Puppinck, the director of the ECLJ, which based
out of Stasbourg, said that the meeting to be held on Thursday “is
intended to raise the awareness of institutions about the eugenic
current of European society.”
“This is the first time that so many organizations, dedicated to
persons with Down syndrome and disabilities, have mobilized at the
European level to denounce eugenics and discrimination,” he added.
As evidence of “the eugenic current of European society” Puppinck
pointed to 96% of unborn babies diagnosed with Down syndrome being
aborted, although he didn’t cite a source for this statistic, nor did CNS News.
Another critic, Italian legislator Luca Volonte, said that there are
plans to submit a resolution to the PACE which would restate that
nations are obligated toward protect people with disabilities.
“Under European and international law, States have an obligation to
protect the life and health of every person, in particular people with
disabilities,” said Puppinck.
In response to Kruzmane’s complaint, the ECLJ submitted a written
statement to the European Court of Human Rights asking, “Does the
Convention guarantee a right to eugenics for parents, and in particular
to the procedure of prenatal screening-elimination of sick or disabled
fetuses? If so, does the State have a positive obligation in this
regard?”
“People with disabilities, like other categories of people in other
times, today have an obligation to demonstrate their humanity in order
to enjoy the protection of human rights,” Puppinck said.
“Faced with this, we must work, not only to humanize our view of
disability, but also to ‘rehumanize’ human rights, because there is a
tendency to develop a very abstract and disembodied idea of man, an idea
which may finally prove inhuman, as demonstrated by the consecration of
a ‘right to eugenics,’” Puppinck concluded.
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