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Alberta health system accused of pressuring women to abort babies with Down syndrome – LifeSite

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Alberta health system accused of pressuring women to abort babies with Down syndrome – LifeSite
Originally posted by: Lifesite News

Source: Lifesite News

Tue Aug 5, 2025 – 2:29 pm EDT

(LifeSiteNews) — A new report has exposed how Alberta’s healthcare system pressures women to abort babies with Down syndrome.

According to a report by the Wilberforce Project, a pro-life organization, Alberta women are routinely encouraged to undergo screening for Down syndrome, only to be pressured by the medical community to abort their children.

“The underlying communication to mothers is that bringing babies with disabilities into the world is wrong,” the report stated. “‘Options’ has clearly become a euphemism for abortion.”

The report has caught the attention of pro-lifers, including Campaign Life Coalition’s Pete Baklinski.

“This is modern ableism, not medicine,” Baklinski wrote on X.

According to the report, titled “Deadly discrimination in Alberta,” most women undergo prenatal screening without fully understanding its purpose or risks, often due to unclear communication from healthcare providers, undermining informed consent.

The process, framed as a routine check, is also incredibly invasive for both mother and child. Diagnostic tests like amniocentesis and chorionic villus sampling (CVS) carry risks of miscarriage, and screening tests often produce false positives.

READ: Canada’s euthanasia regime is already killing the disabled. It’s about to get worse

“Approximately 10,000 pregnant Canadian women undergo amniocentesis each year, which will confirm around 315 cases of Down syndrome as well as result in the loss of 70 babies without Down syndrome due to the risks associated with the procedure,” the report found.

Furthermore, if expectant mothers receive a positive test for Down syndrome, their doctors will often pressure them to abort their child, warning that raising a disabled baby will diminish their own quality of life.

According to the report, upon delivering the news of the diagnosis, doctors will tell mothers, “Your life will be over” or “You should abort and try again.”

“Your baby won’t be able to feed itself or dress itself. It will be a burden on society” is another phrase often told to expectant mothers.

Unfortunately, eugenics, or killing off sick or disabled individuals, is not new for the province of Alberta. Despite being a Conservative province, Alberta was the first jurisdiction in Canada to pass a sterilization law, resulting in over 2,800 sterilizations.

To combat the ever-expanding abortion and eugenics campaign, the Wilberforce Project proposed six recommendations to improve prenatal testing practices. The changes are being presented to Alberta lawmakers in a petition signed by Albertans.

These include emphasizing optional testing, enhancing informed consent, training medical professionals to use neutral language so as not to lead women to choose abortion, requiring genetic counselors to meet people with disabilities, supporting physicians’ conscience rights, and affirming the value of all lives through medical policies.

“Women and their families need to accurately understand the purpose behind prenatal testing and not be pressured by Alberta’s medical community to terminate a pregnancy if their baby has Down syndrome,” the report concluded.

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