What would It do?

• This bill would weaken protections for unborn children and result in more abortions
• This bill would replace statute that defines an exception allowing abortion in for a fetus that "has a defect that is uniformly diagnosable and uniformly lethal" with a much more lenient exception for a fetus that "has a severe medical condition that will likely be fatal once the fetus is outside the womb".  This means instead of requiring a fetal condition to be fatal 100% of the time, it would only need to be "likely fatal" in order to qualify for an exception to our abortion law.
• This bill also creates a new exception allowing for abortion of a fetus that "has a severe defect not to include Down syndrome or uncomplicated spina bifida, that will require long-term intensive life sustaining measures and that will result in prolonged suffering for the infant".  This creates a new class of disabled children that would no longer be protected from elective abortion.

Relevant information

• The bill does not define how these "fetal defects" would be determined, but an analysis of 400,000 common NIPT DNA tests in 2020 shows that results showing genetic defects are incorrect 85% of the time.  Not only would babies diagnosed with Warburg Micro syndrome, Prader Willi syndrome, and Angelman syndrome now be subject to abortion, but 85% of the time the baby being aborted would not even have the disability they were aborted for.

Why we oppose this bill

• HB153 Abortion Revisions filed by Rep. Ray Ward (Bountiful) creates a new class of disabled children that would no longer be protected from elective abortion. Ward's bill, while maintaining protections for babies with down syndrome and uncomplicated spina bifida, allows all other babies with conditions that may require long term life sustaining measures to be aborted. Disabled people are just as human and just as valuable as the able-bodied, even if they require the use of a ventilator or an IV.  Creating a new class of disabled babies that we allow to be aborted is immoral and wrong.