For 4 years, the French Ministry of Health has established a system to record data of the pregnant women who are likely to bear foetus with Down syndrome – this is a first in History. Today, this terrifying reality happens in France; tomorrow, it may extend to other countries.
In July 2016, the two decrees establishing this data recording system in France were contested by 21 parties: the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation, the collective against handiphobia, healthcare practitioners, and women who have already done prenatal screening.
The French State Council recently announced a mixed decision.
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- The French State Council does not question the data recording by the French Agency of Biomedicine (ABM).
- However, the French State Council partly annuls the decree of May, 11th2016 organizing the data recording system of pregnant women. Thus, it acknowledges the legitimacy of the legal action led by the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation, who had shown that these bad “good practices” were illegal. This decision therefore partly deprives the data recording system from its interesting aspect.
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This data recording system increases the systematic elimination of children with Down syndrome, both in the intention and in reality. Already 96% of the children with a Down syndrome diagnosis are aborted; therefore it is not normal that the French State finds nothing better to do than improving a system which leads to national eugenics.
Which data recording system ?
These two decrees oblige healthcare practitioners to give a lot of private data about the pregnant women who have done prenatal screening :
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- Date of pregnancy beginning,
- Date of sonogram,
- Identifying number of the sonographer,
- Code given by the laboratory,
- How the pregnancy ended.
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These data are given to the French Agency of Biomedicine (ABM), which has been for the occasion turned into a “quality control” organ for the eugenic medical practices. It is planned that the ABM gives these private data to healthcare organizations such as the French Federation of the perinatal healthcare networks, the organisms certified by the French High Authority of Healthcare, the perinatal networks, and each organism certified by the French High Authority of Healthcare.
The French State Council acknowledges that giving the data to these organisms is illegal. Therefore, it concludes to the partial annulation of the decree of May, 11th 2016 organizing the data recording system. The ABM will keep collecting and centralizing the data but it will not be able to give them to organisms that have nothing to deal with this topic.
It is disappointing to see that the principle of the data recording system in itself is not questioned, given that it increases eugenics
It is evidence that the consequences of a data recording system about Down syndrome cannot be compared to the consequences of the national statistics which are done about other illnesses (such as breast cancer). Whereas for those illnesses the goal is to find a therapeutic solution, for Down syndrome, the goal is clearly to make an almost systematic elimination system more durable and more efficient. The purpose is not to improve the screening in order to cure more people, but to improve the screening in order to get rid of more people. “On one side, you have the illnesses for which you have a therapeutic solution; on the other side, you have Down syndrome, for which the only alternative to birth is abortion. Treatment and abortion are both qualified as actions for health”, writes Jean-Marie Le Méné, chairman of the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation, in Les Premières victimes du transhumanisme.
The implicit is terrifying. “Such tracking of foetus with Down syndrome, organized by the French State, leads to think that they are a threat for our society”, writes the gynecologist Patrick Leblanc in a French paper in July 2016. The French State defends an “established order” where people with Down syndrome are treated like a “disorder”. The Jérôme Lejeune Foundation denounces this discriminatory system to reorder the general interest around the most fragile members.
A campaign to inform about the data recording system
The French State records the data of pregnant women without their approval, and refrains from informing about this reality. To break the code of silence which is currently lingering over this data recording system, the Jérôme Lejeune Foundation organizes an information campaign for pregnant women, whose data are recorded without their approval, for healthcare practitioners, whose independence is harmed, and for political leaders, who are actively preparing the next revision of the bioethics law.
To break the code of silence which is currently lingering over this data recording system for pregnant women and babies with Down syndrome, please share our campaign!
By strengthening the efficiency of the Down syndrome screening system, the French State sanctifies the triptych “screening-diagnosis-abortion”. From now on, with the data recording of Down syndrome children, eugenics will go farther: the elimination system is validated, at the expense of women’s and doctors’ freedom.
The Jérôme Lejeune Foundation tries to obstruct the progress of a form of transhumanism, which, for want of producing improved men, is getting rid of the decreased ones. People with Down syndrome are the first victims of this situation and the Foundation who defends them is proud to see that she has partly obtained satisfaction against this data recording system. She will never surrender !
*Decree of May, 11th 2016 modifying the decree of June, 23rd 2009 establishing the good practice guidelines in terms of Down syndrome prenatal screening and diagnosis with the use of serum markers from the mother – published in the Official Journal of May, 18th 2016.
