Regent University launched an institute that will study how abortion and euthanasia are targeting the disabled community.
The new organization will examine how the practices have created a multitude of human rights abuses ranging from sex-selection abortions to discrimination.
Billing itself as a “multicultural response to medical and cultural trends impacting people with disabilities, the Institute for the Study of Disability and Bioethics will examine these sensitive topics.
Mark P. Mostert, who will oversee the new center, calls the targeting of the disabled a global “silent war.” “Medical and other scientific advances have improved the lives of people with disabilities in many ways. Rapid advances in genetic and other research mean that we now know more about what causes many disabilities than ever before,” Mostert says on the group’s web site.
“However, progress has a more difficult side. Science can now detect genetic anomalies in the womb, and culturally there is greater acceptance than ever before for abortion or euthanasia for those who, in others’ judgment, will not, or cannot live a high-quality life,” Mostert adds.
Those forms of discrimination manifest themselves across the world and the Institute says approximately 100 million girls are missing from the world due to sex-selective abortions.
Studies show screening tests for Down Syndrome are inaccurate up to 40% of the time, yet abortion rates are as high as 95% for mothers carrying children diagnosed with Down’s, it adds. [4Oct07, LifeNews.com, Virginia Beach, VA]