Abortion rules not equal for disabled

Further to my previous letter on abortion. One of the most pernicious

aspects of current abortion legislation is the implicit inequality between able-bodied and disabled people.

In effect the law states that the rights of an unborn child are broadly protected after 24 weeks’ pregnancy, whereas a disabled child can be aborted up to the week of birth.

That sets a precedent in that, as such is taken to be a legal attitude, then anybody is entitled to have prejudices against disabled people.

There are many, many examples of people disabled since birth who are more than happy to say that they would rather be alive than unborn.

What our government has set up is equivalent to the Nazi attitude to the disabled except the deaths can be hidden behind a woman’s right to abort a foetus because of a disability.

The vans that used to arrive at German sanatoriums to herd disabled people into the back and connect the carbon monoxide output of the van engine to kill them are now invisible, but the attitude to the disabled remains the same.

Surely one rule should apply to all, whether it is 13 weeks or 24 weeks.

It is extremely unsatisfactory. Nicholas Hales

Bath