GAIL RIECKEN, a Democratic state representative in Indiana, is the grandmother of a five-year-old girl with Down’s syndrome, a genetic disorder causing intellectual disability and delay in physical development. Ms Riecken’s daughter learned about her child’s condition when she was pregnant; she decided to carry her to term. Today she is ecstatic about her choice which, Ms Riecken points out, will affect the rest of her life.
Soon women in Indiana will not be able to make such a decision for themselves. On March 24th Governor Mike Pence, a Republican who made his name as pro-life activist in Congress, signed a bill into law that prohibits abortions on the grounds of a diagnosis of Down’s syndrome or any other disability—as well as on grounds of race, skin colour, national origin, ancestry or the sex of the fetus. It mandates that an aborted fetus must be disposed of by burial or cremation. And it requires doctors to inform women about perinatal hospice care, a service for babies not expected to survive outside the womb. “It’s a mean bill,” fumes Ms Riecken. “All it does is punish the woman.” The bill was criticised by the American...Continue reading
Source: United States http://ift.tt/1pNB7sg
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