To think that the world would not be a better place without Heidi *Content Warning - abortion/disability edited by MNHQ*

[bridgetreilly]

Heidi is 24 and has Downs syndrome. She is beautiful and brilliant and very articulate in explaining why the UK abortion law is discriminatory in allowing abortion up to full term where the child has Downs syndrome (and other non-fatal disabilities including cleft palate or club foot), when the standard limit is 24 weeks.

She's not the only one to think that. The United Nations’ Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities’ concluding observations on the initial report of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland made a key recommendation that the UK change its abortion law on disability so that it does not single out babies with disabilities. However, the Government has decided to ignore this recommendation.

Heidi, along with the mother of a young boy with Downs syndrome, is planning to sue the government for discrimination. She is amazing and I hope she wins.

bflat actually a number of people on this thread have said they would welcome a change so that a women can abort for any/no reason until the moment of birth.
Fortunately this will not happen as the majority of the public would not accept it as morally (though not legally) it would be barely different to smothering a baby at birth.

angel and I would argue that anyone who says they don’t believe in abortion for any reason ever have never been in the absolutely heartbreaking position of finding out that your much wanted baby has a severe disability which could mean they live a very short life of pain, if they live at all.

I’ve already asked and you’ve ignored it - If you found this out at 28 weeks, that your baby would die very soon after birth and that time would be awful for them, would you be happy to continue with the pregnancy for up to 3 further months, deliver the baby and then watch them die? Do you honestly believe that terminating a pregnancy under these circumstances would never ever be the right thing to do?

Because by arguing this point, those are the women who will really be impacted by a change in the law. The excruciating decision those women have to make and the loss they have to face regardless of any choice is unimaginable.

And you think drawing comparisons to the nazis is appropriate.

No one knows what they would do unless you've actually been there.

sinkgirl is Heidi proposing that no abortions be allowed even if the foetus has disabilities which are incompatible with life then?

Most people in the Uk support the existing English law on abortion as do I. It is a reasonable compromise. Whilst I accept the right of mothers to decide whether the abort a baby with disabilities I do not want the rights of those who want an abortion to be chipped away.

I hope most mumsnetters can work very hard to ensure there is no change made to our laws. Most people in this country have a different view depending on whether an unborn baby has disabilities or not. Most people abort babies with down's for example. Most of us do not share the view that we should treaet babies without disabilities in the same way. That may be hard to stomach for parents with children with disabilities or disabled people but it the majority view. I hope we can keep the law as it stands.

onionface bodily autonomy is encapsulated in a woman making the right choice for her about her pregnancy at whatever stage.

Women who abort under Ground E don't have to give a reason like 'not being able to look after a disabled child'. They're offered this course of action by the doctor who diagnosed the abnormality and this course of action has to be agreed by another doctor.

Once a baby is born, s/he has the legal status of a child. The woman can't then decide to end her/his life. If she 'doesn't want it' then there are other choices to be made eg adoption.

That was his exact reply. He thought the same thing as me

There has been post after post explaining that late abortions are usually only carried out when there is something seriously wrong with the child or mother

the idea of being forced to give birth to a baby with very serious issues that will more than likely die after a short life filled with pain is abhorrent to a lot of people

It doesnt surprise me at all your friend thinks the same way as you...like attracts like

Xenia I'd suggest that you a.read the thread b. find out a bit more about the law and the reasons that individual women choose to terminate a pregnancy.

Your post doesn't make sense.

It is obviously not really a question of whether Heidi has a right to exist or not. That decision may been made in the distant past by her parents or perhaps her condition was not known before birth.

Sorry I do not think she is either beautiful articulate or any of the other gushing words used in the OP. To me she is being used as a pawn for issues she can probably can’t comprehend on anything more than a basic level. Be honest it is not Heidi suing except in name, but some idiotic quasi religious or right wing or misogynistic idiots who can’t bear women to have a a choice about their own bodies.

It is entirely up to individual women whether or not they wish to give birth to a child with profound disabilities and for every child who is an exception like the girl in the video there are hundreds more who prove the rule.

I don’t want to take away your right to give birth to a child with disabilities if you do wish, so don’t try and take away my rights to try and force me to do so.

I don’t know if she’s only calling for the law to be changed in respect of foetuses with DS, but that seems unlikely. And disingenuous again, because late stage abortions are rarely carried out purely due to a DS diagnosis. This would generally be made earlier allowing plenty of time before the 24 week cut off.

Those small number of abortions carried out after 24 weeks will be due to issues picked up in the anomaly scan and then further tests are needed - eg DS diagnosis already known but the anomaly scan picks up a severe heart defect.

The idea that there are lots of women who find out that their risk of DS is high at the 12 week scan (or earlier via NIPT), confirmed by amnio before 20 weeks and then just decide to wait until full term to terminate is a complete fiction (as is the idea that all these post 24 week abortions occur at the end of pregnancy, rather than prior to 28 weeks as the vast majority will).

I disengaged at the 'his'.

Sorry, but I don't think men get to make decisions about something that they'll never experience.

Have a read of this leaflet from BPAS about why women present for abortions after 20 weeks (it was part of their response to the move to lower the threshold from 24 weeks) then tell us that any one of these women, or the clinicians providing them with health care, are behaving like Nazis.

www.bpas.org/media/2027/late-abortion-report-v02.pdf

@datasgingercatspot I’m so sorry. I’ve considered it too but can’t leave DH to cope alone and I can’t make things even harder for my boys who need me. So there are no options really but try and cope, and that’s very hard much of the time. Sending to you.

Abortion is something that I’ve never had to cope with. I understand it’s exceptionally personal to an individual. It’s not my place to judge.

Knowing happy, healthy children born at 24 weeks (I’m a mum of a premature baby) I struggle a little with the 24 week limit, but again i appreciate that it’s very personal.

The part that bothers me however, is as a mum of a premature baby I know they do so well, often with very little intervention other than tube feeds and warmth. 35 weekers will often go home within a week and need no help with body heat or feeding whatsoever.

If you’re ‘aborting’ at 38 weeks, it’s a full term, possibly completely healthy baby, but who also happens to have Down’s syndrome.

There’s a Call the midwife episode in which a baby is born with a disability, and they leave it cold and unfed in a sluice room. It’s horrifying and something I thought had been assigned to history.

Do people still ‘abort’ live, full term babies, and just allow them to die due to their disabilities? What if they don’t die? As another poster wrote, it seems incredibly cruel.

”I spoke to my male flatmate a couple of minutes ago. I said' "what do you think about this case, a woman with downs syndrome is bringing a case of discrimination against the government. Currently, abortions are allowed up to 24 weeks, but abortions of fetuses with disabiliies are allowed up to full term." His reply was:

"That sounds like something the Nazis would do. That is Nazi shit"

That was his exact reply. He thought the same thing as me.“

Ah well - a man has spoken so there can be no further debate.

Womans body, womens choice.

www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/society/2017/apr/18/late-term-abortion-experience-donald-trump

What about families who have childeen already with additional needs who feel they cant cope? What about woman who commit suicide if they cant have an abortion?

It needs to stay the way it is. You cannot force a woman to have a child she does not want.

What happens when the baby is born. The mother keeps it as it’s her child, she may end up with pnd and in rare cases this may put mother and/or child in danger. The mother may harm herself to try to induce a miscarriage before the child is born. The mother may decide to give the child up, a poor vulnerable ill child is then in the care system. It’s very rare (not unheard of) for anyone to adopt a disabled child and as a vulnerable person in the care system they
May be more at risk of abuse. The mother has the right to decide what happens to her body and giving birth is part of that.

His reply was ...

My reply to his reply is that as a man he has no idea what it is like to be pregnant. He will never risk his health, both short and long term, or his life in order to carry and deliver a child. He will never feel the societal pressure and the contradictions placed upon women. He, as a man, will always have the option to walk away from a child that he cannot cope with or that he does not want and society will not bat so much as an eyelid, he will even get extra "good guy" points if he sends over the bare minimum in maintenance and does a bit of half-arsed 'parenting' every other weekend. His opinion when it comes to the rights and wrongs of abortion and who deserves to be allowed access to one is irrelevant.

The average life expectancy for a person with Downs Syndrome is 60. At the turn of the century it was 8.

One of the issues that needs to be addressed is the support for families of disabled children. If, as a society, we valued the contribution of people with learning disabilities, instead of seeing them as a 'burden'; if we gave families the support and resources they need to raise children with disabilities then there might be fewer terminations. We are starting from a point of dread when we could be starting from a point of curiosity and excitement.

But until the resources are there (and the acceptance of difference) I can completely understand why people worry about the future. Having said that, I don't agree that terminations should take place beyond 24 weeks.

The mum in the clip was speaking of women offered abortions as late as 38 weeks, simply because the child had Down’s syndrome.

In the circumstance a woman is induced at 38 weeks due to the baby being unlikely to live, I don’t see how that would be an abortion, it would be induced labour in extremely sad circumstances in which the baby died.

The mum didn’t want to stop abortions. She wanted to stop late term abortions, unless I totally got the wrong end of the stick.

I have a relative with a disability like Heidi's and he is a reasonably happy adult but at the same time, he certainly is not self-sufficient and his needs are very complex and individualized, as I'm sure Heidi's are. Right now, his parents juggle his care, but who will do it when they die? He is sweet and friendly, as I'm sure Heidi is, but also anxious, because he knows he's smart enough to know that as much as he wants to be part of the conversation, he tires people out with what he has to offer. He doesn't have the attention span to do any kind of work effectively. He could be easily cheated . He's extremely vulnerable and has a hard time distinguishing between fantasy and reality. He would not be able to live independently because he can't groom himself properly, sometimes wets his bed and couldn't be relied on to feed himself properly, but there aren't really very good co-living spaces for him. His future looks fairly bleak. His life has value, but I would not make a woman carry such a child to term if she did not want to.

The part that bothers me however, is as a mum of a premature baby I know they do so well, often with very little intervention other than tube feeds and warmth. 35 weekers will often go home within a week and need no help with body heat or feeding whatsoever.

It is beyond rare for a 24 weeker to do very well, and certainly most need much more intervention than feeding and warmth. And my twins were born at 35 weeks, one spent two months in nicu - I saw so many babies, born very early who did well, born near term who didn’t, and vice versa. I have a friend with 28 week twins where they are very well, aside from the multiple heart surgeries one has needed, and 28 week twins with severe lifelong disabilities who may not live until they start school. They spent 8 months in hospital before coming home, but they’re are frequently back in.

Add in the sort of severe disabilities we are discussing here, and the idea that if they’re born at 24 weeks they’ll be fine with an NG tube and a bit of time in an incubator is far from reality for most.

IIRC the stats for babies born at 24 weeks is that half will have permanent disabilities of one sort or another.

Legally a woman could have an abortion at full term if there was a DS diagnosis. That’s simply the result of a law which removes the 24 week restriction where there are severe disabilities.

In reality there’s no evidence that any woman has ever had an abortion at 38 weeks due to DS and I cannot imagine that it would ever happen. We should all be questioning why a unicorn of a situation is being used as a reason to make sweeping changes to a law that protects women who are in the worst situation imaginable.