Four Irish families will travel to the UN in Geneva next week to launch a global campaign aiming to end the use of the term ‘incompatible with life’ and to seek better care for families whose children are diagnosed with a life-limiting disorder in the womb.
Tracy Harkin from Cavan, Sarah Nugent from Laois, Grace Sharp from Wexford and Sarah Hynes from Dublin will join other families from around the world at the event in Geneva on March 11, when the UN Human Rights Committee dialogues with the Special Rapporteur on the rights of persons with disabilities.
“We’re calling on medical professionals to stop using this term, because it misinforms parents, and because it pushes families towards abortion, and denies them a chance to spend time with their children, to make memories and to heal,” said Tracy Harkin of Every Life Counts.
She said that ‘incompatible with life’ was a medically meaningless term because no doctor could say with certainty that a child, however severe their disability, would not live until birth.
“Every child is compatible with life, and compatible with love,” said Ms Harkin.
The campaign, which links with medical experts and researchers in obstetrics, neonatology, and perinatal hospice, will launch the Geneva Declaration on Perinatal Care, which states that: “As medical practitioners and researchers, we declare that the term ‘incompatible with life’ is not a medical diagnosis and should not be used when describing unborn children who may have a life-limiting condition.”