Editor’s note. This comes from our friends at SPUC–the Society for the Protection of Unborn Children. The story is about a family in Northern Ireland, the capital of which is Belfast. “Stormont” refers to the building that houses the Assembly.

Kathleen Rose with her parents Tracy and Thomas Harkin.
Photo: Belfast Telegraph

As abortion proponents protest outside Stormont and former Alliance leader David Ford seeks to introduce abortion in cases of “fatal foetal abnormality,” a mother of a disabled child has spoken out against the use of the term.

Tracy Harkin wrote in the Belfast Telegraph about life with her daughter Kathleen Rose, who was diagnosed with Pateau syndrome shortly after birth. She says:

“If diagnosed before birth, she would have been labelled with those ugly, dehumanising words, ‘fatal foetal abnormality’ or ‘incompatible with life’. Now two weeks after birth, and still alive and kicking, she was described as life-limited.”

Mrs. Harkin says that if other parents were offered better support, including perinatal hospice care, they wouldn’t consider abortion. She also points out that the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists have said that “fatal foetal abnormality” is not a medical term.

“It also saddens me to think that for some legislators and campaigners, children like Kathleen Rose have less of a right to life than children without a disability.”