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Senator Lee Defends Down Syndrome Pro-Life Ad Banned From French Television

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The award-winning video “Dear Future Mom”features kids from around the world with Down Syndrome. The kids are smiling and happy, and the video is meant as a reminder that people with Down Syndrome can have happy childhoods and lead independent lives.

 

But the French State Councilruled on November 10 that the video is not permitted to air on French television. The court says the video’s cheerful depiction of Down Syndrome children is “likely to disturb the conscience of women who had lawfully made different personal life choices.”

In other words, seeing happy Down Syndrome kids would upset women who aborted their Down Syndrome children. In France, over 80 percent of babiesprenatal diagnosed with Down Syndrome are aborted.

Senator Mike Lee defended the international video and expressed his pro-life stance in his remarks to the Senateon December 6.

“Here in the United States, the free-speech rights of groups like the Global Down Syndrome Foundation to produce videos like ‘Dear Future Mom’ are protected by the First Amendment,” he said. “But the rights of actual Americans with Down Syndrome—both born and unborn—can only be protected by their fellow citizens. And not just in our laws, but in our communities, in our families, in our culture.”

Lee also read from a column written by George F. Will on the French court’s decision.

“The court has said, in effect, that the lives of Down Syndrome people — and by inescapable implication, the lives of many other disabled people — matter less than the serenity of people who have acted on one or more of three vicious principles,” Lee read from the column. “That the lives of the disabled are not worth living. Or that the lives of the disabled are of negligible value next to the desire of parents to have a child who has no special, meaning inconvenient, needs.”

The Global Alliance for Disability in Media and Entertainment started a petitionrequesting the French council reconsider its position.