Campaigners lose abortion fight

[EmeraldRaine]

Heidi Crowter and a few others were campaigning to remove the right for women to choose abortion if their baby was found to be affected by Downs syndrome. These campaigners feel that women shouldn't have the right to terminate a pregnancy because the foetus has Downs Syndrome, because it discriminates against people with Downs syndrome.

Cant help but think that this was a victory for common sense. Downs syndrome like every other disability is different from person to person and lots of people would feel unable to cope with a child with a lifelong disability. To say that isn't discriminating against disabled people. The only person who has the right to choose in every single case, is the woman who is pregnant. Perhaps these campaigners would be better off campaiging for better support for disabled people and their carers than trying to remove women's rights to make decisions that are best for them.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-58662846

I’m very torn on this one. I’m pro-choice, but I do think there has to be a limit, and 24 weeks seems sensible.

As the parent of a child with DS who was born prematurely, I find the idea of terminating any pregnancy once the baby is viable abhorrent, unless they have an unsurvivable condition or one that will cause them great suffering. The fact that DS pregnancies aren’t regularly terminated after 24 weeks doesn’t feel like a reason to let it remain on the statute books.

I do have sympathy with the detection and decision-making timeline problem, but there has to be a way of improving that, rather than late-term termination.

Jesus. I'm 30 weeks and can feel my baby kicking away, he can hear and see light.I feel sick at the thought of aborting a baby at 39/40 weeks.I believe in women having a choice but not after a certain point. Like, to the point just before birth seems too much imo even the 23 weeks I'm not so comfortable with...maybe 20 weeks. It's tricky

It's not tricky. You can't be pro-choice but only up until a point you personally feel comfortable...your comfort is only relevant to your own body, no-one elses.
How you feel is how most women would feel....so how about we let women regulate for themselves? You really think that because it's available up to birth that women will just wait until 8 months and then on a whim decide, nah, can't be fucked having a kid after all?

We don't need regulations based on yours or anyone elses moral line. We need to trust women to self regulate, and we do. Termination is available up to 24 weeks even without factoring disabilities, but how many actually happen post 20 weeks? Less than 2%, that's how many. 82% are under 10 weeks.
We don't need other people's arbitrary rules. We can decide for ourselves...as early as possible, as late as necessary.

. You can't be pro-choice but only up until a point you personally feel comfortable

Of course you can.

If the baby can survive then your right to end your pregnancy doesn't mean that you have the right to end the life of the child.
End the pregnancy and give the child to someone else.

Of course you can

Then you're not really pro-choice. You're "pro-choice but only until a point and then anti-choice"

@SomethingNastyInTheBallPool

. You can't be pro-choice but only up until a point you personally feel comfortable

Of course you can.

Then you are only pro-choice up to a point you have chosen. So you are taking away another women’s choice past that point. “I’m pro choice for other women as long as it’s within restrictions I have chosen”

@Outfoxedbyrabbits

Heidi Crowter and a few others were campaigning to remove the right for women to choose abortion if their baby was found to be affected by Downs syndrome.

No they weren't They were campaigning for the abortion limit to be the same for babies with Down's syndrome as it is for babies without it.

Prior to 24 weeks a baby is generally unviable outside the womb. Post 24 weeks a baby is generally viable outside the womb. Thus after 24 weeks some action has to be taken to deliberately end its life as it is removed from the womb.

I'm not convinced by the argument that there is no need for the limit to be lowered to 24 weeks for Down's babies because a) if that's the case then what negative impact does lowering the limit have and b) if it is indeed a matter of principle rather than practical outcome then let the principle (that Down's babies have the same right to life as any other baby) stand.

I very much agree, if there haven’t been any cases for a decade then the law can safely be changed surely?

@ManifestDestinee I’m against choice at the point where my or other people’s choice has a damaging effect on another human - in this case, a baby. That’s pretty much the basis of the legal system.

You don't have to be so horrible when writing a post @ManifestDestinee

@SomethingNastyInTheBallPool

. You can't be pro-choice but only up until a point you personally feel comfortable

Of course you can.

Right. So there’s a point. Before that you’re pro choice and after that you’re pro forced birth?

That’s not pro choice. That’s being against forced birth in certain circumstances.

If a women doesn't want to give birth at 36weeks pregnant then how is the baby going to come out of her in a way that is different to giving birth or cesarean?

At that stage you cannot take a pill and let the baby pass through.
You will have to have an invasive procedure. So whilst that is happening to end the pregnancy why should they have any say on whether the baby gets to live or die? If all it is about is not being pregnant anymore.

@SomethingNastyInTheBallPool

. You can't be pro-choice but only up until a point you personally feel comfortable

Of course you can.

Now does that work? You are either pro choice and all that it entails or you are not.

It’s a bit like saying I’m not racist but …. And then going on to be racist in some way

There isn’t a middle ground with these things called principles

Today's decision is utterly heartbreaking. No matter that it hasn't happened yet - the law now says murdering a child because it's disabled is okay. It's not. And never will be.

@SickAndTiredAgain

I remember watching a video by that comedian woman who used to be on Smack the pony, arguing that even getting testing at all, with the tests now being available for 12 weeks was unfair to people with down syndrome.

Sally Phillips? Yeah I think that’s awful, even if she doesn’t agree with abortion, taking away even the information horrible.

Heidi Crowter was also involved in that campaign and she was quite young at the time. If I remember right, the campaign had financial backing from some international 'pro-life' groups.

I admire her determination but I think she's being exploited.

She has a job, lives independently and has recently got married but that doesn't mean she has the capacity to understand all the nuances of such a sensitive, controversial debate around conflicting rights, which is regularly fought over in the highest national and international courts.

She said today that even though the judges and the government don't think it's discrimination, she feels discriminated against so she will keep fighting.

That's where she's coming from and fair enough, but I wonder whether she's ever truly considered that she might be the one having to make this harrowing decision one day.

She (or whoever runs her twitter - it's not always her) is cheerfully retweeting evangelical accounts that would like to remove all abortion rights.

@Jobseeker19

If the baby can survive then your right to end your pregnancy doesn't mean that you have the right to end the life of the child. End the pregnancy and give the child to someone else.

So you would rather someone was forced to carry a pregnancy for a few extra months, with all the risks that in itself carries, then go through the awful process of giving birth, only to give the baby away to someone else? If there is even anyone to give it to, because children with disabilities are often left in the system for their whole lives.

How bizarre, you want to punish women and children like that rather than allow late term abortions.

@Mojoj

Today's decision is utterly heartbreaking. No matter that it hasn't happened yet - the law now says murdering a child because it's disabled is okay. It's not. And never will be.

The law still doesn't allow murder?

So what happens right now that far down the line with an abortion?
How would you end the pregnancy without the women having to have some kind of procedure?

I support abortion. It's rare that a woman 'chooses' abortion. That smacks of using it as a means of contraception. Which is problematic. Most women decide upon abortion due to circumstances. Money. Family. Culture. Etc ... and given favourable situations with all those - different decisions are made. BUT for me I am extremely uneasy about this term 'forced birth' . ..
If a pregnancy has got to say 36 weeks and a woman decides she doesn't want a child that has for example Downs Syndrome.. then that is obviously very sad - but at THAT point the child is able to exist outside the uterus.
To end the pregnancy a procedure is done that actively stops that life from living. I am just about as far from anti abortion as anyone can be but cannot support the actual stopping of a VIABLE life.
If a late term abortion on grounds of infant severe disability is requested then surely we are looking at semantics. The body of the foetus needs to be removed from the carrier.

The choice is between taking that foetus out alive where there is a good chance of it living OR intervening to stop it living. For me that is a VERY different ethical dilemma than aborting a foetus with no ability to survive outside the womb.

One is letting nature take its course. The other is intervening to end a life that would otherwise live.

Not 'forced birth' that's wrong. Forced motherhood is the issue. No one should be required to be a mother to an unwanted child.

I think it's a great result. If it's not your body, it's not your decision.
If I got pregnant and the baby had downs, then yes I would terminate. A friend has a child with Down syndrome, whilst he is a lovely child, he is a handful. They will always have to look after him. He comes with many health issues attributing from his disability.
Not everyone can look after a child with disabilities, neither should they have too.
Abortion as early as possible, as late as necessary.

@Mojoj

Today's decision is utterly heartbreaking. No matter that it hasn't happened yet - the law now says murdering a child because it's disabled is okay. It's not. And never will be.

Abortion is not murder.

@Mojoj

Today's decision is utterly heartbreaking. No matter that it hasn't happened yet - the law now says murdering a child because it's disabled is okay. It's not. And never will be.

It's still doesn't.

* I don't agree that abortions should be allowed up to birth for any reason, I.e. mother deciding at 37 weeks that she actually doesn't want a baby (not that I think that would happen)*

^I agree too

Up to birth? Isn’t that slightly extreme

@Jobseeker19

So what happens right now that far down the line with an abortion? How would you end the pregnancy without the women having to have some kind of procedure?

Of course there will still need to be a procedure, dependent on the gestation of the pregnancy, none of which are particularly nice. So if a woman is choosing that don't you think there woukd be a bloody good reason?

You seem to have missed quite a lot of my post and only focused on that one part though.

Having a termination at 24 weeks is very different to being forced to be pregnant for an extra 16 weeks and then giving birth and knowing that the baby will likely be stuck in the foster care system for the next 18 years before God knows what happens.

@Mojoj

Today's decision is utterly heartbreaking. No matter that it hasn't happened yet - the law now says murdering a child because it's disabled is okay. It's not. And never will be.

No, it doesn't. It says that women carrying children with Down Syndrome have the same rights over their bodies as everyone else.

Apart from anything else, this is simply unworkable. Is the idea that the only circumstance when you can be refused an abortion that would otherwise be legal is when you want it solely because the child has DS? What if the DS is incidental and you don't want the baby because you were raped, are you going to be forced to go through with it when otherwise you would have been given a termination without any difficulty? If not, what is to stop people saying that they want the termination for all the usual reasons and the DS is purely coincidental?