A local Massachusetts Democratic Committee chairman who suggested that unborn babies with disabilities should be aborted to save money on special education will retain his position despite a public outcry against him.
According to the Boston Herald, “Committee members on Sunday voted unanimously, 27-0, to endorse a statement ‘repudiating’ chairman Michael Hugo’s comments, but the committee opposed a motion to add an agenda item to a future meeting to discuss whether Hugo should be removed.”
Hugo made his controversial remarks at the February 7 Framingham City Council meeting. During debate over a proposed proclamation that warned of the alleged dangers of crisis-pregnancy centers, Hugo, claiming to be “speaking on behalf of the Framingham Democratic Committee,” spoke in favor of the measure. According to Framingham SOURCE, Hugo explained why, in his opinion, the continued existence of pregnancy centers is a local, not just a state, issue:
Our fear is that if an unqualified sonographer misdiagnoses a heart defect, an organ defect, spina bifida, that becomes a very local issue because our school budget will have to absorb the cost of a child in special education, supplying lots and lots of special services to children who were born with the defect.
Two individuals, each claiming to be a “lifetime member” of the Democratic Committee, voiced their discontent with Hugo’s comments during the council meeting.
No councilmen, it appears, objected to Hugo’s assertions at the time. When contacted by SOURCE after the meeting, only one of the five councilmen who are also members of the Democratic Committee responded. Councilman John Stefanini said he was “repulsed” by Hugo’s testimony, which was “repugnant and the vile philosophy used by dictators to justify genocide of people deemed ‘unworthy of life.’”
Hugo preemptively emailed a statement of apology to SOURCE, asking them (in vain) not to publish an article about his remarks. “The comments that I made were made in haste and solely by me, and do not reflect the beliefs or values of the [Democratic Committee],” he averred.
In reality, however, he had written a letter to the city council the night before the meeting on the Democratic Committee’s letterhead and with the claim that it represented the committee’s opinion. He also emailed a copy of the letter to his fellow committee members.
The letter makes essentially the same case that Hugo made in his verbal remarks, namely that pregnancy-center personnel cannot be trusted to diagnose potential birth defects. It continues:
As for those who say that our Council has no business dealing with a “state issue,” we ask if the state is going to cover the medical costs for a fetus that had sound medical reason to be terminated? Is the state going to cover the costs of special education for a down’s syndrome [sic] affected child? Is the state going to pay for the extraordinary medical expense of a child with an atrial septal defect? How much does Framingham’s Public School Department pay for unreimbursed special needs school transportation, specialized education and durable supplies?
Thus, there is no doubt that Hugo’s remarks to the council were premeditated and based on his own strongly held beliefs. He told SOURCE that he “literally got of bed and wrote the letter and emailed it after midnight” when he learned that the council was going to take up the proclamation the next day.
This was not lost on the Framingham Disability Commission, which stated in a letter to SOURCE:
Mr. Hugo’s comments assume a correlation between abortion access and disability that, at best, lacks clarity and is without grounding in empirical evidence. At worst, Mr. Hugo’s comments are grounded in dangerous ideological assumptions about socioeconomic inequity, institutional racism, eugenics, and rightful access to healthcare, education, and public assistance.
Hugo issued another apology on February 17, a full 10 days after the council meeting. But why should he apologize? He merely said out loud what the abortion lobby, since the days of Margaret Sanger, has really sought but tried to keep under wraps.
Besides, in the end, the Democratic Committee simply distanced itself from his evil remarks, unwilling even to consider dethroning him over them. As long as he supports abortion-on-demand, Hugo has nothing to fear from his fellow Democrats.
