LifeAbility
Introduction
LifeAbility, is a Youth Defence Campaign, which works to protect pre-born children, in particular those who may have a disability, from abortion
Pre-born children with disabilities are entitled to the same legal protection as everyone else. They should have all the rights to which every person, born and unborn, is entitled under the Constitution of Ireland.
Issue
The latest statistics indicate that at least 400,000 Irish people now live with some form of disability. That means that disability affects at least one in ten Irish people, and that’s not counting the family members, nurses, doctors, neighbours, therapists, counsellors, coaches and all the other people who are also directly in contact with disability every day.
People with disabilities have made huge strides in Ireland in the last generation and are making valuable contributions to our society today. But in spite of these great achievements, some vociferous promoters of abortion are seeking to use disability before birth as a “reason” to make abortion widely-available in Ireland.
This kind of lethal discrimination is antithetical to Irish culture, where we have always sought to give extra assistance to people with disabilities and infirmities. All our recent legislation to better integrate into society those with special needs shows the Irish commitment to supporting people with different levels of ability.
By focusing on the fundamental right of every human being – the right to life – this report puts all other individual rights into perspective. It shows how abortion in the case of disability is in opposition to our progressive society, as it makes a mockery of all the recent socio-legal-political gains made by people with disabilities. For how can we as a society say, with any sincerity, that we respect the lives and contributions of our disabled citizens, if we are prepared to kill them before they are born?
Abortion on the ground of disability is not the liberal or caring position that it is portrayed to be; rather, it is an emotive, “hard case” which is being used by a small contingent of activists to try to force abortion upon an unwilling Irish public. Despite all of their protestations to the contrary and despite the constant admonitions by the media not to be “emotive”, abortion campaigners do not shrink from exploiting the women and babies involved in personal traumas in order to further their agenda of introducing abortion on-demand into Ireland.
In repeated surveys and at the polls, the Irish public have, time and again, rejected abortion. And now, a commitment has been made by the current Government not to legislate for abortion – on any grounds, including disability. But this complete lack of public and governmental support has not stopped Irish abortion promoters, along with some in the Health Services Executive (HSE), the legal profession and the media in their efforts to change our abortion laws through test cases in the Courts, as the recent ‘D’ Case highlighted.
The aim of this website and materials is to prove that abortion is never justifiable on the grounds of disability. We will examine the legal and philosophical arguments against abortion on such grounds and also investigate the eugenic ideology which is behind this push to eliminate the disabled. In this way, we intend to give people the information they need to cogently argue the case for life.
And, not wanting to leave the issue without making helpful proposals, this report also offers positive solutions to the challenges posed by disability. Rather than seek justification for killing the innocent and vulnerable, we ought to concentrate our efforts in helping families living with a disability to better cope with day-to-day life. In this way, our society can offer hope rather than desperate quick-fix solutions, which only ever make things worse for the individual and for society. Abortion does not prevent disability – it only kills a disabled child.
