Doubt over 'disability abortions'

An Anglican priest is igniting heated debate here over abortion and what she derides as society's quest for physical perfection.

The Rev. Joanna Jepson is challenging the legality of a termination in 2001. The fetus, which was older than the legal abortion limit of 24 weeks, had a cleft palate.

The case, say some, goes to the heart of the delicate subject of eugenics, and whether modern society and the body-beautiful generation are too cavalier and interventionist in determining the future of unborn children.

The challenge is throwing the spotlight on Britain's vague abortion laws, which forbid terminations of fetuses older than 24 weeks, unless there is "substantial risk" of "severe handicap." As experts point out, this terminology is deliberately indefinite to allow doctors and parents the leeway to choose what degree of disability each individual family could cope with. But with technology making detection of abnormalities in the womb easier and earlier, some worry that pregnancies could be terminated for mild deformities.

"If a baby with a cleft palate can be aborted and that can be classed as a severe handicap, we do need to think about that seriously," Ms. Jepson says. She has launched legal action against the police for not prosecuting the doctors. The High Court gave her clearance earlier this month to pursue her case in the new year.

While praised by antiabortion groups, Jepson's challenge is raising alarm from abortion rights advocates, doctors, and others who say that so-called "disability abortions" are a matter of individual decision between parent and doctor. "It seems to me appalling that a third party can leap into the breach and bring a legal case," says Ann Furedi, chief executive of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service.

But Jepson says the entire system needs to be reviewed to stop the abortion of fetuses for what she sees as trivial reasons. The curate, who herself had a cleft palate that was later rectified by surgery in her teenage years, argues that the condition is only a mild disability, and hardly grounds for a termination. She says that she has led a perfectly happy and normal life and regrets that "the conduct of the doctors involved [in the current case] denied the baby these opportunities.

"This case raises the increasingly worrying concern of eugenics in our society," the curate says, adding that her case will force people to consider "the rights of the unborn who have other disabilities."

Doctors and abortion rights activists are aghast at the logic. Medical experts counter that a cleft palate can be a marker for a far more serious complaint that would either result in stillbirth or infant death. In the case in question, it is not clear how seriously affected the unborn child was.

Kypros Nicolaides, director of London's Foetal Medical Center, which conducts research and diagnoses into abnormalities, says it would be an impossible task to list every genetic and medical condition and define which is "abortable."

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