The Irish Parliament has defeated a bill to legalise abortions on babies deemed to be “incompatible with life”.
The abortion bill put forward by Deputy Mick Wallace “attempted to deny the humanity of unborn babies with disabilities and was a cruel and cynical exercise to push a much wider abortion agenda”, according to the Life Institute.
Deputy Mattie McGrath said that the rejection of the bill confirms that there is no legitimacy to the terms “fatal foetal abnormality” or “incompatible with life” because no doctor knows for sure how long a child can live beyond birth, however severe their disability.
Every Life Counts campaign group spokeswoman Tracy Harkin said: “We have endured two weeks of listening to our children being described as ‘fatal abnormalities’, and it is simply appalling to see an Irish TD argue that unborn babies with a severe disability should be denied their right to life simple because of that disability. “
Ms Harkin said the Wallace bill amounted to “naked discrimination” against the disabled, and would have pushed disability rights “back to the Dark Ages”.
She added: “My daughter Kathleen Rose is aged 9 and living with Trisomy 13, something campaigners wrongly call a ‘fatal, foetal abnormality’. She is the light of our home, not a life to be discarded.”