Campaign to remove prenatal tests

It’s a shame he advocates for banning antenatal testing as otherwise the article makes good points, especially about the really awful situation with COVID and the “do not resuscitate” orders put on people with learning disabilities. But it’s a Guardian article so it starts with problems of privilege - movie people falling over themselves to hype one actor with DS - and ends with a man trying to remove reproductive choice, and they don’t even notice, cos Guardian. Yes of course he is allowed to have that opinion, I have friends who worried a lot about the Emmerdale storyline and I love them and their child with DS so I know they see it from the perspective of their own wonderful child. But the fact that this Guardian writer and their editors, workers at a national paper rather than devoted parents, don’t question the effect of removing reproductive rights or ask him how he thinks that would work out in practice, speaks volumes about their attitude to women.

It's one thing to disagree and make an argument about your point, it's another to claim the discussion is invalid and be incensed that it's been printed in a newspaper because it goes outside some particular orthodoxy. I'd like to think GC feminists have seen through that sort of approach.

Um... what?!

BTW - Irish woman here. I trust you know enough to back off, given that you probably haven't gone door-to-door begging for reproductive rights in the past 3 years.

I know someone who had to care for their DS brother with dementia in his 40s and both elderly parents with stroke, dementia etc. All three died within a couple of years of each other. Some people may not find the risk of this sort of outcome that daunting at the time of a positive test, but others would, and there should be a choice in that.

This guy sounds like he lives in a TV producer luvvie bubble about trisomy 21 without the realities of taking care of a profoundly disabled child through to their adulthood for 40 to 60 years into your own elderly years with no money, until your own disabilities become too much for you to care for yourself let alone someone else. And he wants to remove women’s right to choose based on his perceptions.

Babies born with Downs syndrome may need specialist help at birth. Prenatal testing allows for greater preparedness.

As well as the woman being affected, it’s not fair on the child to have to grow up and live in a household where they are unwanted and their needs cannot be met. I’m sure that children with learning difficulties in these situations are often neglected or abused as well.

I don't care if people think this is immoral: if women were not able to abort fetuses with genetic abnormalities and conditions incompatible with life, then I will support infanticide. No woman should be forced to carry or raise a child she doesn't want, full stop. This would only lead to more disabled children and families in traffic situations and drains on institutional resources. I'm very sick of men telling women their opinions on what women should do with their bodies.

It's one thing to disagree and make an argument about your point, it's another to claim the discussion is invalid and be incensed that it's been printed in a newspaper because it goes outside some particular orthodoxy. I'd like to think GC feminists have seen through that sort of approach.

You don't fix the problem of sex-selective abortions by forcing women to continue with pregnancies they wish to terminate. It's ugly and horrible, but forcing women to continue with any unwanted pregnancy is not on, and it doesn't matter how awful their reasons are.

Anyone who's been involved with campaigning for reproductive rights has encountered this.

This is an area that people who advocate or have an interest in disability awareness are pretty concerned about, so actually I think it's a fairly important public discussion, whether or not I agree with all of his conclusions. Plenty of women have issues with sex selection testing for similar reasons.

the only difference with Down syndrome is that you have one extra chromosome and a learning disability

That's also rather dismissive of people's lived experience. My uncle had DS and it was responsible for a few more challenges and comorbidities than this sentence would suggest.

Want to reduce termination rates for pregnancies with t21? Improve public disability services, especially those for adults.

“Why do you need to know if your baby is going to have Down syndrome or not?”

So I can have an abortion and avoid the devastating heartache of trying to raise a disabled child with little support from the government? Because I know that my mental health would crumble if I was faced with this.

This is just anti choice rubbish in disguise.

White affluent man wants to dictate to women how they make pregnancy choices.

Presumably he gave up his own career to support his child through their associated health issues and additional needs?

It’s a real shame because he made some other important points about inclusion, and the way parents are supported when a child with a difference is first born or identified antenatally. But he fails to understand he is talking from a very privileged position.

Absobloodylutely.

Want to reduce the termination rate?

Rich guy can lobby for improved support for families. Might mean he has to pay higher taxes though. He not keen on that?

“Why do you need to know if your baby is going to have Down syndrome or not?”

Because it's really fucking hard raising a kid with special needs and there is never enough support or money, and it's all way more basic and everyday and pragmatic than 'valuing lives'.

I would put good money on this guy's wife doing 95% of the caring here.

He can FOTTFSOF.

Why do you need to know if your baby is going to have Down syndrome or not?” asks Ross, who is lobbying parliament to remove the NHS screening on grounds that it is prejudicial.

Do you think he even realises the other conditions that are tested for? Or that women who already know they would continue a pregnancy regardless of a DS diagnosis choose to have screening so they can be prepared?

This is something that rears its head from time to time.

It is worth keeping up with it and taking note in case it ever get more serious.

It would be unreasonable to withhold prenatal testing from women. Anyone with enough money could get it done privately anyway. It is not something you have to have if you don't want it.

Privileged male wants to force woman to carry and birth disabled children because his child has downs syndrome.

Arsehole.