France bans the faces of children with Down syndrome

(& other stories)

This column was first published at The European Conservative

Hundreds of thousands of babies are aborted each year in France—approximately 243,000 in 2022 alone. In fact, the abortion rate is increasing, year over year, with press reports belatedly warning of a ‘baby bust’ even as France hurtles towards the edge of a demographic cliff. But if the French government has their way, it will soon be impossible to tell the truth about what actually happens during an abortion—the physical destruction of a unique, living, whole human being developing in the womb.

That description isn’t ideological. Every embryology textbook at every major medical institution informs the reader that human life begins at fertilization. Indeed, even the way we debate about abortion implicitly reveals this fact. ‘I believe the cutoff for abortion should be at 15 weeks,’ says the ‘moderate’ pro-choice person. Indeed? Fifteen weeks from what, exactly? The question answers itself. Even most abortionists will admit, with chilling frankness, that their job involves ending lives.

I wonder if the American abortionist who told the BBC that he kills babies would be censored if he attempted to be similarly honest on French TV. ARCOM, the French media regulator, recently fined the conservative TV channel CNews a staggering €100,000 after presenter Aymeric Pourbaix observed in February that abortion is the leading cause of death worldwide according to the WHO’s estimate of 73 million deaths per annum.

The comments were made in the context of an infographic shown on the Catholic show En quête d’esprit, and as Hélène de Lauzun reported, they sparked “a wave of indignation in the mainstream press on the grounds that abortion cannot be considered a ‘cause of death’ because the foetus should not be considered a living being.” The channel, owned by Catholic businessman Vincent Bolloré, ended up backtracking and apologizing for showing the infographic. An investigation was launched nonetheless.

The Council of State recommended that CNews be more tightly regulated; the minister delegate for health even used the factual infographic as evidence that it was necessary to insert abortion in France’s constitution, which occurred in March. After a months-long witch-hunt, the channel was fined for failing in its “obligation of honesty and rigour in the presentation and processing of information” because “Abortion cannot be presented as a cause of death.”

This ludicrous censorship of an obvious fact is significant because it is not the first time the French government has cracked down on pro-life speech. In 2016, the Council of State affirmed a previous ban by the French Broadcasting Channel on a short video titled “Dear Future Mom”:

The video featured children with Down syndrome telling a mother who has just found out that her unborn child has Down syndrome not to be afraid; that her child will be able to hug her, to run towards her, love her, and “be happy—just like I am.” The ad was released in 2014 for World Down Syndrome Day and racked up millions of views on YouTube. But according to the Council of State, the video could “disturb the conscience of women who, in accordance with the law, have made personal life choices.”

What “personal life choices”? In France, like most other Western countries, around 80% of children diagnosed with Down syndrome in the womb are aborted, and the French government wanted to ensure that these women did not see the video, filled with happy people with Down syndrome, and regret their lethal choice. Thus, even a video that does not address abortion at all was banned by the government just in case the very sight of a little girl or little boy with Down syndrome should cause a twinge in the conscience of women who have been assured by the government that abortion is not killing.

If abortion is to be legal, the truth must be illegal—because our consciences can only bear this bloodshed if we deny it entirely. Even the beautiful faces of those who remind us of what we are doing must be erased, banned, pushed from public consciousness, because their very smiles inflict pain on the consciences of those who have consigned babies just like them to the medical waste containers and incinerators in abortion clinics. The children in that video do not say anything about abortion, but seeing them, we know—and thus even that horrifying realization must be snuffed out.

It reminded me of Orwell’s description of totalitarianism: “If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever.” That face, as it turns out, is the face of a child with Down syndrome. The government does not protect pre-born children, and so it must instead shelter from the truth the consciences of those who have killed their own children, thereby denying them the only real solution to this ongoing horror: repentance.

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On this week’s Bridgehead Briefing, I take a look at the UK’s assisted suicide debate and how the bill can still be stopped at third reading, and growing anti-Christian discrimination in Canada:

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