Frank Stephens, an actor, advocate, and adult living with Down Syndrome, spoke with Fox News Friday about the recent push from Democrats for more extreme abortion legislation allowing abortion up until birth.
“About abortion, I don’t want to make it illegal,” Stephens said. “I want to make it unthinkable. Politicians change laws. I want to change people’s hearts. I want to change people’s hearts by changing people’s minds and hearts together.”
“When they get a chance to get to know us they basically get a chance to like us,” he said of his work speaking in schools about his condition as an ambassador for the Global Down Syndrome Foundation.
Actor Ashton Kutcher recently shared Stephens’s viral 2017 testimony before Congress with the caption “everyone’s life is valuable.”
In the clip, Stephens warned of the high rates of abortion for those with Down syndrome.
“Across the world,” he said, “a notion is being sold that maybe we don’t need research concerning Down syndrome. Some people say pre-natal screenings will identify Down syndrome in the womb, and those pregnancies will just be terminated.”
Stephens paused, saying “it is hard for me to sit here and say those words. Let’s be clear, I completely understand that the people pushing that particular ‘final solution’ are saying that people like me should not exist. They are saying that we have too little value to exist.”
He called that notion “prejudiced” and “outdated,” saying “I have a great life.”
Stephens thanked Kutcher on Fox for using his platform to share his message.
“I don’t want to make abortion illegal. I want to make it unthinkable,” says Frank Stephens, a special Olympian who wants abortion advocates to know that the lives of people with special needs have unlimited value. #ProLife pic.twitter.com/637JJKCChm
— Rep. Doug Collins (@RepDougCollins) February 1, 2019
“I’d like to thank my friend Ashton Kutcher for bringing back my testimony,” he said. “It’s like the walking dead because it just won’t stay down.”
“My life is worth living because it is fantastic,” he emphasized once again. “I’ve gotten to travel all over the world. I get to workshop a play in New York. I’m going to be in two documentaries which will be on next month. And I have a lovely girlfriend, friends and a wonderful family.”
After a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome, about 67 percent of families in the United States choose abortion.
A CBS report last year found a near 100 percent abortion rate for those diagnosed with the condition in Iceland. Denmark has a 98 percent abortion rate following screening and diagnosis of the condition and in France the number is 77 percent.
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