Is antenatal screening and selective termination a form of eugenics?
Is testing or terminating pregnancy disloyal to my disabled friends and family members?
Does testing or termination imply that I do not value disabled people?
Is termination of pregnancy ending a life?
If I support access to abortion, why am I uncomfortable about selective termination?

Is antenatal screening and selective termination a form of eugenics?
"Eugenics" is the name for a policy in the early twentieth century, which aimed to improve the quality of the population by preventing "unfit" people from reproducing and encouraging "fit" people to reproduce. After 1945, the idea of eugenics was rejected.

Some people argue that modern genetics and obstetrics is a form of eugenics, designed to weed out infit or inferior people. But most people believe that there are important differences between eugenics and modern pregnancy screening. Unlike eugenics, screening does not involve coercion or restriction of human rights. It should be a free choice of every potential parent to find information about their pregnancy, and to decide about continuing or terminating pregnancy. Unlike eugenics, there is no state policy to prevent the births of certain people. The aim is to allow individuals to decide what is best for themselves, and their families.

However, the existance of tests in pregnancy may imply that it is better to prevent disability. Some healthcare professionals and members of the public may hold eugenic views, and try to influence people to have tests and to terminate affected pregnancies, despite the ideal of "non-directive counselling". Balanced information is not always available to people considering tests or termination - which was the motivation to create this website. Moreover, the lack of support, advice and information may mean that testing in pregnancy is like a conveyor belt: people may not realise what is happening until it gets to the stage when disability is detected and they are forced to make a difficult decision.
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Some of my friends and/or family members are disabled people. If I chose to have a test or termination, would it be disloyal or discriminatory?
Some disabled people do find screening and pregnancy termination threatening and distressing. They feel that the availability of tests sends the message that disabled people are inferior or unwelcome.

However, not wanting to have a disabled child does not mean that you do not value the lives of those who are disabled. Some parents already have a disabled child, who they love and cherish, but do not want another child to experience the same problems. Others feel that they do not have the emotional or practical resources to cope with the extra strain which having a disabled child sometimes brings.
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When does life start? If life begins at conception, then termination of pregnancy is ending a life and is therefore unacceptable to me?
Opinions differ about abortion. "Pro-life" or anti-abortion groups believe that life begins at conception, and that the embryo should have rights and respect from early in pregnancy. For them, abortion is equivalent to killing a human being.

Others believe that the developing embryo and fetus has increasing moral status as pregnancy continues, and that abortion is permissable earlier in pregnancy, but not later on. A common analogy is the distinction between an acorn and an oak: an acorn has the potential to become an oak, if everything goes well. However, we feel very differently about the destruction of an acorn and the destruction of an oak.

Some point out the medical fact that many pregnancies end naturally, in the first few days or first few weeks. Some of these will be experienced and mourned as miscarriages. But sometimes a woman may not even know that she has been pregnant, experiencing only a late or heavy menstrual period.

The "gradualist" position is also reflected in current UK abortion law. Termination of pregnancy is permitted up to the 24th week of pregnancy, which is the stage when the fetus may be able to survive outside the mother's womb. After the 24th week, pregnancies can only be terminated in cases of "severe abnormality": this term which is not defined in legislation, and some people who support access to abortion feel that late abortion should not be permitted.

Some advocates of abortion rights argue that women's right to control their bodies extends throughout pregnancy, and that women should have access to abortion on demand for any reason, at any stage.
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I am not opposed to abortion. But I am uncomfortable about ending a wanted pregnancy because of test results. Am I being inconsistent?
Some people believe that it is permissable to chose an abortion, early in pregnancy, because you do not want to have a baby. But they argue that it is wrong to decide, after testing, that you do not want this particular baby. This may be because they think an early abortion is more acceptable than an abortion after testing, which may take place at 18 or 20 weeks, or because they feel that selective termination discriminates against disabled people.

You may support the principle of a woman's right to choose, but feel uncomfortable about termination on the basis of disability. This may because you feel that selective termination sends a negative message about disability, or discriminates against disabled foetuses, or because you believe that parents should "take what comes", and welcome all babies unconditionally, or for other reasons.
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