Academics advocate forced abortions for ‘impregnated girls’

Parents and carers have a “moral duty” to ensure under-18s abort their babies, researchers have argued.

Professor Kimberley Brownlee and PhD student Alyssa Izatt, both at The University of British Columbia, claimed that “in relation to children, we should be ‘pro-abortion’” and promoted forced abortions for those who express a wish to carry their babies to full-term.

In a paper published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Ethics, the academics branded attempts to discourage under-18s from having an abortion as “antigirlism”.

‘Sedation or restraint’

Brownlee and Izatt said that adults should view a child’s “impregnation as a malady and take steps to terminate it”. Similarly, doctors should revise their approach “so that adequate medical care includes abortion care”.

They wrote: “A critic might balk at our contention that doctors should provide abortion care to a girl who has contrary preferences or an aversion to the procedure.

“Such a patient might interpret her pregnancy as a baby and feel love for it and a desire to be a mother. She might believe that by having an abortion she is killing her baby.”

In such instances, they proposed, carrying out an abortion might justifiably “require sedation or physical restraint”.

Totalitarianism

Writing in the National Review, author and philosopher Wesley J. Smith warned that the “push for unlimited abortion access is now advancing beyond the issue of ‘choice’” and described Brownless and Izatt’s rationale as “totalitarian”.

He said: “The authors claim that abortion is always in the best interest of girls because of the many supposed harms of giving birth, mothering, or allowing the baby to be adopted. Failing to immediately abort costs girls their ‘carefreeness,’ don’t you know.”

Smith added that “the fact that an article as authoritarian in its argumentation as this one appeared in one of the country’s most prestigious philosophy journals — and passed peer review, no less — is deeply troubling”.