Abortion in cases of severe fatal foetus impairment would lead to the practice of eugenics which could only be described as genocide, the Commission for the Rights of Persons with Disability said.

In a position paper issued in reaction to another by the Women’s Rights Foundation on Saturday calling for safe and legal access to abortion, the CRPD said it was focusing just on the point pushing for abortion in cases of severe fatal foetal impairment.

“The recommendation for access to legal and safe abortion by the Women’s Rights Foundation in relation to ‘severe fatal foetus impairment’, would lead to the practice of eugenics that would exterminate a group of persons with disability in a matter which cannot be described in any different manner than genocide." 

It said that given also that the ‘inherent right to life’ of persons with disability was locally extended to human beings before they were born through the Equal Opportunities Act, such protection to potentially impaired foetuses should under no circumstance be withdrawn.

“If anything, CRPD is of the opinion that such protection should be entrenched so as to afford such protection should abortion be decriminalised in the future,” it said.

The CRPD’s position paper in full can be read in the pdf link below.