Rachel Campos-Duffy is a TV host and the wife of current U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy. The couple has nine children, including their youngest, Valentina. Valentina was born in 2019 with Down syndrome, as well as other health conditions, but today, she appears to be a happy, thriving little girl with the love and support of her family.
Campos-Duffy showcased this on Sunday night when she posted pictures on social media of her daughter joining President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance in the Oval Office before Sean's swearing-in. (Scroll through the Instagram pictures. You won't regret it; they're adorable!)
But something else in her posts caught my attention. In the caption, Campos-Duffy wrote: "What an honor to visit the most pro-life President in US history. 90% of children diagnosed w/ #DownSyndrome are aborted. Thank you President Trump for being so warm & loving with our little Valentina & for protecting all the baby humans in the womb."
90%? That number blew me away, so I decided to do a little research. What I found was pretty disgusting. A 2022 report from the Joint Economic Committee Republicans states, "It is estimated that 60 percent to 90 percent of children diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted in the U.S., compared to 18 percent of all pregnancies ending in abortion."
Outside the United States, it's much worse. 2021 stats from the UK suggest that 1,115 babies were diagnosed with Down syndrome prenatally, and of them, 973 were aborted. That's 87.26%. As of 2024, a woman could also abort a baby with Down syndrome up until the point of birth. In Spain, that number is 83%, and in Denmark, it's 98%. In Iceland, the number is even closer to 100. Australia is somewhere around 90% as well.
What's more concerning than the numbers themselves is how some of these countries got to that point. According to Down Syndrome Australia, which surveyed hundreds of parents of children with the genetic disorder in 2021, "49 percent of families felt pressure from their healthcare provider to terminate their pregnancy." Around 42% of those parents said they received "negative information about Down syndrome" or "information about Down syndrome by health professionals that they now know to be untrue."
And that's not limited to Australia. It seems to be a worldwide issue. In 2020, the BBC published an article that documented the journeys of several women who gave birth to babies with Down syndrome, suggesting they were "routinely given outdated advice and encouraged to have a termination." The details are pretty horrific.
One woman, who'd lost a baby to miscarriage the year before her pregnancy, found out she was most likely carrying a baby with Down syndrome. When she declined further risky testing because she was prepared to welcome the child either way, a healthcare worker told her "Women like you make me sick." She said she felt as if the only way the medical team was prepared to support her was if she wanted to abort the baby.
Another woman said that at 20 weeks, doctors discovered that her little girl would likely be "disabled." She was offered the chance for an abortion 15 times throughout her pregnancy, up until 38 weeks. She already had a son with a heart condition who was awaiting extensive treatment, and she thought to herself, how can I provide him with special care but not give my daughter that chance as well? Her daughter was born with Down syndrome and is perfectly healthy.
A 2024 article from Students for Life has more of the same. One woman said that when it was discovered that her daughter could have Down syndrome, the doctor encouraged further testing that could potentially lead to a miscarriage. He described it to her as let's "kill two birds with one stone."
Either these medical professionals are big eugenics fans, or they're hung up on outdated material or material that pushes hyperbolic myths.
Around 6,000 babies in the United States are born with the disorder each year, which simply means that they were born with an extra chromosome. Women who are over 35 are more likely to have a child with Down syndrome, but it can occur at any time for no specific rhyme or reason.
While people with the disorder are at risk for problems like heart defects, hearing loss, and sleep apnea — conditions that babies without it are also sometimes born with — many are born healthy and thrive. As a matter of fact, life expectancy has "increased dramatically in recent years," according to the Northwest Down Syndrome Association. The average life expectancy is just shy of 60 years old, though many people have lived well into their eighties. True, it's not the average lifespan for an adult without the disorder, but is that a reason to deny someone their 60 or however many years of life on this earth?
Many people born with this condition go on to live amazing, fulfilling lives. They have jobs. They have relationships. They have hobbies. They play sports. They start businesses. More and more are able to live independently as adults. I could write an entire article on all the stories I've encountered while researching this article about all the amazing things people with Down syndrome have accomplished.
True, parents may need more support in this situation, but wouldn't that be the case for a child born with any type of disability? If you found out your child might be born with hearing loss or missing a limb, wouldn't your first thought be "How am I going to help this kid thrive," not "How can I get rid of it?" I mean, I hope that's your first thought. And there is plenty of support out there. All it takes is a Google search to figure that out. And yes, it might be difficult at times, but how is raising any child not difficult at times? Life isn't meant to be smooth sailing for anyone.
I just don't get it. Reading all of this just made me sick to my stomach. Who is any one person on this planet to tell someone they don't have the right to have a child or to decide a child doesn't have the right to exist because they have a disability or might be a little different? Or any other reason for that matter. But the specific focus on people with Down syndrome just sounds downright Hitleresque.
Rather than focusing on eliminating people with disabilities, I'd like to think our medical and science community is focused on helping people overcome them.
Finally, you know you're probably doing something wrong when even the United Nations is willing to call it out. A November article in Crisis magazine states: "A U.N. human rights committee has surprisingly criticized some Western countries for their high rate of Down syndrome abortions. The criticism came during a session of the committee that oversees compliance with the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, one of the U.N.’s core human rights treaties. The session concluded in September, and the report was just issued. It included reviews of Belgium and the Netherlands."
And it's not the first time the U.N. has called a country out for this. The committee urged these nations to "make sure parents getting prenatal screening also receive information and counseling that does not promote stereotypes about persons with Down syndrome."
While the article states that the committee isn't pro-life exactly, "These statements were greeted with surprise and satisfaction by pro-life bioethicists who have, for decades, been raising the alarm over the issue of selective abortion on the basis of disability." Maybe it's time for these bioethicists to speak up a little louder.
I do hope these countries, including our own, will step back and take a look at what they're doing. I am a pro-life person who believes that all lives matter at every step of the way, from conception to death. I realize not everyone agrees with me, and I can respect that to some extent, but I also worry that attempting to eliminate certain groups of people is extremely dangerous territory. Where does it end?
