A British judge has ordered that an abortion be performed on a 22-week pregnant mother, despite objections from the woman and the woman’s mother.
Justice Nathalie Lieven said the ruling was in the best interest of the woman after she was diagnosed with “moderately severe” learning difficulties.
“I am acutely conscious of the fact that for the State to order a woman to have a termination where it appears that she doesn’t want it is an immense intrusion,” the justice said in the ruling. “I have to operate in [her] best interest, not on society’s view of termination.”
A social worker and the woman’s mother both said the baby should not be aborted. The woman’s mother, a former midwife, even told the court that she planned on taking care of the child with the daughter’s help, Sky News reported.
The judge, however, suggested the mother lacks the mental capacity to fully appreciate what it means to have a baby.
“I think she would like to have a baby in the same way she would like to have a nice doll,” Justice Lieven said.
The judge also reportedly dismissed the idea that the child could be placed in foster care, suggesting the mother would suffer more distress if the baby was taken away alive, rather than killed in the womb.
“Pregnancy, although real to her, doesn’t have a baby outside her body she can touch,” the judge said.
On July 14, 1933, Nazi Germany enacted the Law for Prevention of Genetically Diseased Offspring, which resulted in the compulsory sterilisation of any citizens deemed intellectually disabled, mentally ill, or physically deformed.
During the Nuremberg trials, when the subject of compulsory sterilisation was brought up, many Nazis reportedly defended their actions by suggesting their inspiration came from the United States.
They were referring to the Planned Parenthood founder Margaret Sanger, who Dinesh D’Souza has argued, helped to supply the blueprints for some of the worst acts carried out by the Nazis.
According to D’Souza, Hitler got some of his most maniacal and destructive ideas from the American Left.
“I’m not saying that there were similar things going on, I’m saying Hitler literally lifted it from the blueprints, from the examples, supplied by the Democrats and the Left.
“A slogan that Margaret Sanger had, which was published in her magazine, Birth Control Review [was]: ‘More children from the fit, fewer children from the unfit.’ This is the chief aim of birth control,” D’Souza said.
While Judge Lieven said her decision was based on the best interests of the mother, it’s hard not to see a comparison. While the stated rationale may differ, the outcome remains the same and sets a frightening precedent on the slippery slope we’re already on.