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.

I needed aminio to test for downs and I didn't get the results for some time, there weren't able to give me the 5 day result, I needed to wait 2 weeks, I can't remember if it was before 24 weeks but it was close and if I then needed to think further about what I wanted to do and get appointment, it would be over 24 weeks. No one has the right to dictate to women what they can do when the consequences will almost always impact mostly on the woman

ah, religion. Makes sense. Are there any atheist forced-birthers?

I had to agree to a termination at 27 weeks as it was the only thing that would save my life. Thankfully my DS survived. I don't agree with the pressure put on women to terminate pregnancies if a baby is predicted to have Downs, as I know many people who have children and also friends who have adult children who have Downs. They live full and happy lives.
The choice is solely there for the women in pregnancy, as it is their body and their child. I just wish that there was less pressure to terminate.

I know Heidi personally and she’s a lovely lady, great fun to be with and she and her family were a great inspiration to me when DD was born with Downs. I do feel she’s being used to push the anti abortion agenda though both from Christian groups and some in the Downs community and that doesn’t sit right with me as a pro-choice believer.

In reality, with the new testing for downs, practically all abortions for that condition will be done much earlier than the law that Heidi is campaigning to be changed so I don’t think it will make much difference.

My daughter is nearly 12 and I have seen a lot of dishonesty on both sides of the debate over the last decade. It’s a shame.

I’m sorry, but I don’t give tuppence how Heidi feels. Her feelings do not overrule the reality of women in this situation and the impact on them and their families. This is what law should be based on, not hurt feelings.

What dishonesty have you seen from the pot choice side?

Because the only stance I've seen is it's a woman's choice. End of.

That is a little bit sad @kalinkafoxtrot45. Why wouldn't you care how another human being feels?

I have had many men say to me that they don't care about how women feel about sexism, because it doesn't happen to them (the men). Because it does not happen to them, they don't care.

We should listen to how every single human feels.

We really don't. Some people feelings over matters and their opinions mean nothing.

And now to me. Heidi and her mother fall into that category.

The current abortion act is not just about women’s choice. Here is a summery of the medical and legal requirements that are supposed to be in place.

Sorry here.

We should listen to how every single human feels

Of course. That doesn’t mean one has to agree with her nor think that what she’s proposing is abhorrent

I don’t need your “summery” @beakerbabe. I’ve read the Abortion Act, various commentaries on it, and legal cases as I have studied this area of law in detail and at length.

@GothamProtector i wasn’t meaning the pro-choice/anti sides as such, I was referring to the reasons/info some give for aborting a baby with downs which are often wrong, outdated or not the real reasons and then on the other side, some parents of children with Downs making out everything’s amazing and are part of the ‘wouldn’t change a thing’ campaign which I also think is bollocks.

@Meltedicicle So what reasons for women deciding to abort do you think are wrong? Give the actual reasons.

My understanding is that due to the physical risks of pregnancy it’s pretty much always going to be the case that point 1 would be satisfied as abortion is less dangerous to a woman’s health than continuing a pregnancy (certainly physically and perhaps also mentally as well in some cases)

In the battle between Heidi’s feelings and woman's rights over their own bodies, it is obvious which should win. I mean that in the nicest possible way.

What someone should be explaining to Heidi is that her own position is not necessarily typical. She’s high functioning and from a family who obviously have significant reserves of emotional, physical, financial support to give. That’s by no means true of everyone.

Would Heidi want to see us forcing children to be born into pain and suffering, into families likely to be broken by the efforts required to look after them? How does she feel about mothers whose lives are put in significant danger by carrying a child to term? What about seriously disabled children who would end up in an ill equipped care system because their parents just don’t have the resources?

These are the hard questions that pro-lifers have never been able to answer. The fact that Heidi has DS doesn’t give her a free pass on those questions.

I think it’s unfortunate that Heidi feels how she does, but her feelings don’t get to trump other women’s rights. The law isn’t there to make her feel wanted and loved. It’s there to offer a solution to a terribly complex issue.

It’s only from Wikipedia !

The law isn’t there to make her feel wanted and loved. It’s there to offer a solution to a terribly complex issue.

Yes. Exactly.

I agree with a point made upthread that introducing a limit of 24 weeks could well result in more abortions, not less.

This is an appalling decision for any parents to make. A hard deadline, given that they may only have discovered the issues at 22 weeks, would be appalling pressure and might result in more panicked responses.

@GothamProtector regarding a baby with downs, people want a ‘perfect’ baby. They don’t want a child who looks and sounds different and they’re scared of the unknown. Those are the reasons I personally believe people abort but you rarely hear those because people don’t want to be judged as shallow or cause offence. Instead you hear about how it wouldn’t be fair on siblings or that they would have health problems etc. Lots of reasons have been given on this thread.

As I said upthread, I’m pro-choice myself, it doesn’t bother me why someone aborts but I wish people felt they could be honest. Lots in the downs community try so hard to change people’s views but if the real reasons are as I suspect, then it doesn’t matter what they say.

Instead you hear about how it wouldn’t be fair on siblings or that they would have health problems etc

Regardless of whether there are others reasons at play, these reasons strike me as very valid and understandable. Do you disagree?

And I don’t see why anyone has to justify themselves to you, me or anyone else.

Yes, it is a mix of reasons for abortion which will vary from person to person just as views of anti abortionists vary from those who think life is present at conception to those who just feel it is wrong once a baby can kick and those who do or don't distinguish between babies with disabilities and those with none.

Parents do make active choices about their potential babies in advance from choosing a man who is quite clever or who is tall or from their own country(less change the baby will be abducted back to Saudi etc) to all kinds of things. Some will be having genetic tests done before having children with a potential spouse too for conditions prevalent in their own group. It is not as if all conception is by chance and random and always just because love struck and therefore you ended up with Mr X. There is subconscious or concsious choosing going on from he is a good provider to she looks beautiful we will have beautiful children.

Some people seem to think there are two outcomes: highly functioning disabled child or child who is too sick to survive. Disabled children and people are not very visible in our society and this is the result. The human beings in between those two ends of the spectrum are treated appallingly by society - is it any wonder that parents are reluctant to knowingly have a disabled child?

I see evidence of this lack of understanding on MN all the time. People who can work full time, their children can access any childcare, any school, they can access holiday clubs and go to softplay or the park, eat whatever you’re eating, not have to worry about accessibility or safety beyond the normal requirements. I remember before my twins were diagnosed when they got mobile and I was suddenly unable to take them anywhere on my own, and I posted in my local twin group asking what on earth people did with their toddler twins - most of the responses were “just take them to the park / beach, what do you think will happen?”. Well what would (and did) happen is that while I was removing a handful of loose tarmac from the mouth of DT2 the other quickly scaled a climbing frame and ran straight off the edge. I don’t think people have any clue what it’s like to be physically unable to just take your children out of the house when you need to. It’s no bloody wonder we suffer from mental health issues. And my two are nowhere near as severely disabled as many others.

As has already been said, if you want more women to continue with pregnancies where there’s a known disability, we need to build a society that supports disabled children and their parents. Because right now, once the baby is born you’re basically fed to the wolves and have to fight for every scrap of help, and the help that exists is nowhere near sufficient.

How many women would have children if they knew they’d never be able to work again, struggle to earn enough as a family just to feed and clothe everyone, spend months or years in awful battles just to be access an education, never be able to go out because you can’t get childcare, spend years sleeping less than an hour or two per night, etc etc etc.

If HCPs apply pressure to terminate it’s not because because they are eugenecists. It’s because they are the ones who see what happens to children born with severe disabilities and their families.

You are either pro choice or you aren't and conversly some would say, you are either pro life or you aren't. I don't think it is as clear cut and straightforward as that. A woman has the right over her own body but once the pregnancy can produce a viable child there are two bodies, two lives and two sets lf rights.Should a person with a disability have fewer rignts than the next person? It becomes comp!icared. That said I don't think there are many very late abortions. Screening needs to be done as early as possible without delays so that terminatio s are always as early in the pregnancy as possible.