Washington D.C., Feb 24, 2023 / 16:30 pm
A local Democratic official in Framingham, Massachusetts, is facing backlash after comments he made at a city council meeting in which he said he feared disabled children place an undue burden on local taxpayers if their parents do not abort them.
Michael Hugo, who serves as the chairman for the Framingham Democratic Committee and as the director of policy and government relations for the Massachusetts Association of Health Boards, made these comments while voicing his opposition to pro-life pregnancy centers. The subject of abortion came up in the context of the consideration of a proposal to declare the city council’s support for “reproductive rights,” a proclamation that Hugo supports.
“Our fear is that if an unqualified sonographer misdiagnoses a heart defect, an organ defect, spina bifida or an encephalopathic defect 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,” Hugo told the city council.
In his apology, Hugo said his comments “were poorly drafted [and] hastily put together” and added that “they did not accurately reflect the meaning of what I was trying to say.” He did not explain what he had meant to say.