Antenatal Results & Choices (ARC)

This page was created on 31 August 2011 and updated on 31 August 2011. Please send any information you may have about this charity to Anthony Ozimic, either by email to news@spuc.org.uk or post to SPUC HQ. For any older information about this charity or other charities, please see the 2006 edition of SPUC's Charities Bulletin.

Antenatal Results & Choices (ARC) was founded as “Support Around Termination for Foetal Abnormality” (SAFTA). It claims to be "the only national charity which provides non-directive support and information to parents throughout the antenatal testing process."

In July 2008 ARC lobbied MPs, urging them to vote against amendments which sought to curb abortion in limited ways. ARC's briefing for MPs cited various arguments in favour of abortion on the grounds of disability, such as:

  • "forcing a woman to continue a pregnancy when the fetus was known to be seriously abnormal would be ‘inhumane’."
  • "the majority of women are in favour of termination being available if a significant disability is diagnosed."
  • "preventing abortion on the grounds of fetal abnormality after 24 weeks would be extremely detrimental to those women who discover an abnormality at a late stage."
  • "Removing fetal abnormality as grounds for abortion at all gestations would particularly affect those parents who know they are carriers of a genetic disorder and risk having a baby with the condition."
  • "Abortion on grounds of fetal abnormality is not eugenics".

SPUC comment: ARC is actively complicit in the fatal discrimination against disabled people enabled by legal abortion.



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