What about serious fetal abnormalities?

Serious or fatal fetal diagnoses raise profound emotional and ethical questions, but they do not change the basic distinction between care and killing. When a child develops without essential organs and is expected to die, the medically appropriate response is perinatal hospice and palliative care—not ending the child’s life through abortion.

In cases involving born children with terminal conditions, medicine does not respond by euthanizing them. Instead, families and physicians focus on comfort, pain management, and surrounding the child with love for however long life lasts. The same standard applies before birth. Abortion in these circumstances functions as euthanasia by means of abortion, replacing care with an intentional act to cause death.

Perinatal hospice and palliative care already exist to support families facing these diagnoses. More than 350 hospitals, hospices, and organizations provide this care, often with multiple options available within a short distance. These programs help families meet their child, manage pain, and ensure the child is not abandoned or treated as a problem to be eliminated.

Framing abortion as a compassionate or humane response to fetal suffering obscures the reality of the procedure itself. Most abortions are carried out through methods such as suffocation, dismemberment, or lethal injection that induces cardiac arrest. Violently ending a child’s life is not a dignified or respectful response to suffering, even when that suffering is severe and the prognosis is fatal.