Two-Thirds of Babies With Down Syndrome in Iceland are Killed in Abortions

Virtually everyone, and that most certainly included me, took away from CBS News’ devastating 2017 report that virtually all women in Iceland who received a positive test for Down syndrome aborted their babies. As Elaine Quijano wrote at the time

Since prenatal screening tests were introduced in Iceland in the early 2000s, the vast majority of women — close to 100 percent — who received a positive test for Down syndrome terminated their pregnancy.

While the tests are optional, the government states that all expectant mothers must be informed about availability of screening tests, which reveal the likelihood of a child being born with Down syndrome. Around 80 to 85 percent of pregnant women choose to take the prenatal screening test, according to Landspitali University Hospital in Reykjavik.

I railed against the CBS News report and how before the segment even aired, the network tweeted that “Iceland is on pace to virtually eliminate Down syndrome through abortion.” Of course, as Patricia Heaton posted in her own tweet that “Iceland isn’t actually eliminating Down Syndrome. They’re just killing everybody that has it. Big difference.”

Click here to sign up for pro-life news alerts from LifeNews.com

However, writing for EWTN News, Bryan Lawrence Gonsalves recently did a Fact check headlined “Did Iceland really ‘eradicate’ Down syndrome in that country?” It took on particular relevance when a husband-and-wife team of mega-bloggers announced that having found out in a gender reveal that their second-trimester baby was diagnosed with Down syndrome, aborted the child.

As Gonsalves wrote, the narrative about Iceland had been received as “established fact,” a miserable reveal, but “established fact” nonetheless.

So, he wrote, “EWTN News went looking for current, primary sourcing and reached out to Catholic organizations on the ground in Iceland to find the truth of these claims.” For example, Gonsalves “contacted Caritas Iceland and the Chancery of the Catholic Church in Iceland, both groups referred EWTN News to April Frigge, who sits on the board of Lífsvernd, the pro-life group of the Diocese of Reykjavík.

“Frigge highlighted a response that Dr. Hulda Hjartardóttir, chief of obstetrics at Iceland’s National University Hospital, gave to Morgunblaðið, Iceland’s most prominent newspaper, within days of the CBS report airing.

“Hjartardóttir had been one of the doctors CBS interviewed, and she was direct about what had been left out. “I went over this with CBS’ journalists, but then they decided to publish one thing and not the other,” she told the paper.

What had CBS omitted?

“That the 100% termination figure applied only to a specific subset of women.”

She explained that 80% to 85% of pregnant women in Iceland choose to undergo prenatal screening, while 15% to 20% decline it altogether. Among those who receive screening results indicating a higher risk of Down syndrome, about 75% to 80% proceed with additional testing, but roughly 20% to 25% decide against further tests and continue their pregnancies. Hjartardóttir noted that these were women who, after counseling and discussions, couldn’t “bear the thought of ending the pregnancy despite the Down syndrome emerging.”

Taken together, she estimated that about one-third of Icelandic mothers either decline screening from the outset or choose not to pursue further testing after an initial positive result, opting instead to continue their pregnancies regardless of the outcome.

The updated results are surely not what pro-lifers would want or hope for. Two-thirds of these precious children are still lost. But saving a third of Down syndrome babies is a glimmer of a silver lining.

LifeNews.com Note: Dave Andrusko is the editor of National Right to Life News and an author and editor of several books on abortion topics. He frequently writes Today’s News and Views — an online opinion column on pro-life issues.