GESTIÓN EN SALUD PÚBLICA: ACLU challenges Ohio’s down syndrome abortion law

sábado, 17 de febrero de 2018

ACLU challenges Ohio’s down syndrome abortion law

ACLU challenges Ohio’s down syndrome abortion law

Bioedge

ACLU challenges Ohio’s down syndrome abortion law

by Xavier Symons | 17 Feb 2018 |

The ACLU has launched a legal challenge against Ohio’s new down syndrome abortion legislation, which prohibits doctors from aborting pregnancies purely on the basis of a Down syndrome diagnosis.

The ACLU suit was filed on Thursday in a Federal court in Cincinnati on behalf of Preterm in Cleveland, Planned Parenthood and other Ohio abortion providers. "The government cannot deny a woman's right to terminate her pregnancy pre-viability," ACLU legal director Freda Levenson said at a news conference in Columbus announcing the suit.

Republican Ohio Governor John Kasich signed the law in December, and it is scheduled to take effect on March 23. The ACLU has requested both a temporary restraining order and a permanent injunction against the law to keep it from taking effect.

Ohio Right to Life, the state’s oldest pro-life organisation, has dismissed the lawsuit as a political stunt. “[The ACLU’s] blatant and continuous attacks on the dignity and sanctity of human life make it clear that they do not care for the youngest of each new generation: the unborn”, said Mike Gonidakis, the group’s president.

Similar laws have already made their passage through the legislatures of Indiana and North Dakota.

The Indiana law, enacted in 2016, has been blocked by a federal judge, who said the state has no right to limit women's reasons for terminating pregnancies. The state has appealed.

North Dakota's law went into effect in 2013 and has not been challenged

Saturday, February 17, 2018

Last year the London Telegraph ran a travel article about Belgium, “10 reasons why Belgium is not as boring as you think”. A bit patronising, right?

Personally, I’d never call a country which has dared to legalise euthanasia boring. Anything but. This is a defiant poke in the eye to hundreds of years of Western civilisation. Whether you agree with Belgium’s regime of legalised euthanasia or not, it is a wildly exciting experiment in disrupting established social norms.

The latest news is that a whistleblower has accused the country’s euthanasia commission of breaking the law, muzzling dissent, and packing the commission with euthanasia practitioners. In other countries this would be called corruption. The whistleblower's letter to the Belgian Parliament is a searing indictment of a respected institution. You would think that the Belgian media would be baying for blood.

Nope. It was an American news agency, Associated Press, which broke the story. As far as I can see, it has been reported around the world, but not in Belgium. It’s a funny kind of journalism which ignores such a big story. Perhaps the media there believes that Belgium really is as boring as you think. Or perhaps they are in the pocket of the euthanasia lobby.