The priorities of Iceland’s political leaders are all messed up.
The small European nation recently drew international scrutiny for its nearly 100-percent abortion rate for unborn babies diagnosed with Down syndrome.
The deadly discriminatory practice drew massive outrage from across the world, but Iceland lawmakers did not react by passing protections for unborn babies. Quite the opposite, earlier this year, they voted to expand abortions.
Then, on Sunday, Prime Minister Katrin Jokobsdottier joined other political leaders, scientists and environmental activists to hold a “funeral” for a melting glacier, The Connect News reports.
The Okjökull, or Ok, glacier in Borgarfjörður, Iceland, was estimated to be about 700 years old. Environmental activists described it as the first casualty in the climate change crisis and warned that more glaciers soon could disappear as well.
“We have to accept that what is happening is not right,” Jokobsdottier said. “It has to be stopped. All the necessary steps need to be taken for this.”
The government paid to erect a bronze plaque at the site of the “dead” glacier, according to the report. It reads, in part: “Ok is the first Icelandic glacier to lose its status as a glacier. In the next 200 years all our glaciers are expected to follow the same path. This monument is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you will know if we did it.”
Nonprofit Quarterly reports NASA has monitored the glacier since 1901 when it measured 38 square kilometers; five years ago, geologist Oddur Sigurðsson said the glacier had almost completely melted and was dead.
About 100 people participated in the ceremony, including a group of children who helped install the plaque, the AP reports.
No matter what one’s opinion about environmental issues, it is tragic to see a glacier – an inanimate object – treated with greater reverence and mourning than the life of a child.
In 2017, CBS News shocked the world with a report about Iceland’s near 100-percent abortion rate for babies with Down syndrome. Just a handful of children with Down syndrome have been born in Iceland in the past decade. Two are born each year, on average, but the rest are killed in the womb. Most of the children who are born with Down syndrome have mothers who decided not to have prenatal screening tests.
Ignoring the outrage, the political leaders in Iceland took a step to expand abortions even further this year. In May, they passed a law allowing unborn babies to be aborted for any reason up to 22 weeks of pregnancy, the Iceland Monitor reports.
The legislation ends the requirement that underage girls have a parent’s permission before an abortion, and adopts euphemistic new language that disguises the true nature of the life-destroying practice, according to the Iceland Review.
At the time, Prime Minister Jakobsdóttir said she would have gone even further and supported a no-limits abortion law.
“This bill is a step toward increasing the liberty of women in this country, and I whole-heartedly support it and would, myself, have supported having no time limit,” Jakobsdóttir said, previously. “But I consider this bill a certain compromise of attitudes, and I will support it because I consider it an immense progressive step toward individual liberty.”
This is the same woman who so deeply mourned the “death” of the glacier on Sunday. So much compassion for a melting block of ice but none for a baby in the womb.
