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.

But I honestly can't fathom why someone wouldn't take all the testing

I didn’t have the amnio as it held a higher chance of miscarriage and i was already in danger of having a miscarriage

I had every other test they offered

It's not panic. It's not willing to throw the dice with another's life!!

Agreed Laurie the ONLY thing that matters is a woman’s right to make whatever choice is right for her.

@Meltedicicle but you said "There are a handful of children with severe health issues but I would say the vast majority have no or minor ones.". Can you really stand by that when you agree that 20% have a serious heart defect? Can you really look at that huge list (and there was loads that ) and dismiss them as just a few minor issues? Because a lot of these children will have many of these issues, not just one. It seems pretty callous to dismiss these issues as minor.

loads that I missed out is the bit that is missing from the brackets.

I don't support further restrictions on abortion. And if my prenatal tests had indicated DS I would have terminated.

It's not the issue of disability discrimination for me it's the issue of choosing what grows in your body.

If anyone refuses someone with Downs' in a club then I would be putting my foot down.

However nobody has the right to tell someone that they have to keep a baby for any reason.

Like a woman doesn't have to sleep with a black man as if she doesn't, it's racist. When it comes to your own body, you can be as choosy as you like.

I just want to say bravo to Sink and Hoik for their amazing and reasonable posts. I have a son with 'high-functioning' autism. The impact on the family has been enormous. And like Sink, we also chose not to have more children due to the increased likelihood of having another child with autism, which is also a spectral condition. DH had no problem getting vasectomy approved (we believe his father was on the spectrum and himself as well to some extent).

But I honestly can't fathom why someone wouldn't take all the testing

Became both amnio and CVS carry a miscarriage risk.

The eloquent posts by @Hoik and @SinkGirl show very clearly how invisible the people with the worst levels of disability, and their families are - because it is so difficult for them to access what the rest of society would define as normal life.

Conversely P, I would assume that the more visible families with a disabled member will be those where the disability is less severe and/or the family has really good support.

And these two things taken together may explain why people don’t realise how difficult life can be for these families - if you only see the ones who are coping well, you aren’t necessarily going to look beyond them and ask whether there is a whole invisible group who just aren’t coping, that you simply never see.

I think the term is observational bias, but I might be wrong. And I hope I have explained myself properly.

Miscarriage. Second-trimester amniocentesis carries a slight risk of miscarriage — about 0.1 to 0.3 percent. Research suggests that the risk of pregnancy loss is higher for amniocentesis done before 15 weeks of pregnancy.

Again I defend everyone to have a choice.
But that risk still doesn't make sense to me.
If you're going to one of these tests it's because there is a chance of the disabilities.

But that risk still doesn't make sense to me

Well I’m assuming that you didnt have bleeding and clots throughout your pregnancy and werent told by your doctor to not have any exercise or have sex because you may miscarry

The fact you don’t understand that some women have high risk pregnancies doesn’t make sense to me

@RufustheLanglovingreindeer Well I did actually :/ what's that got to do with the price of bread?

I understand completely.

What I don't understand is why somebody wouldn't have tests to find out whether or not their child could be severely disabled and get a clear picture about what is happening before it could potentially be to late.

Im not taking the chance of a 1 in 200 chance of losing the baby

Which is what the risks were

I wasn’t losing my child

My feelings do not differ from those on general abortion.

Any woman who wants an abortion is a woman who should not be then made to have that child.

The act of NOT wanting to carry, birth or raise a child, is all that qualifies someone to abort.

Because being a child raised by someone who does not want to do that, or does not feel able to do that, is not something any child should have to live with.

Specifically on aborting a fetus late, because you've discovered late on they may be affected by a disability - still yes, because does anyone SERIOUSLY believe a disabled child needs to live their life either in care because the parent cannot cope or does not want to cope, or with a parent who cannot cope, or does not want to cope?

Heidi is an amazing young woman, she clearly copes with her Down Syndrome very well and isn't as severely affected as some, she also very evidently has an incredibly capable and supportive mother.

Not everyone is that lucky, and not every parent is able to face the prospect of being a child, and then an adults, full time carer, until they or the child, die -and that IS the reality for some parents of disabled children.

And note, I say all this as a disabled person with an inherited condition.

Well something else I just read said it was more like 1 in 700. Again. Your choice but I would have to have it.

itsall

Obviously you felt the odds of not miscarrying were in your favour

They werent in mine

Well something else I just read said it was more like 1 in 700

That may be the case now...it wasnt then

I declined the screening tests as I wouldn’t have gone on to have a diagnostic test due to the risk of miscarriage. Therefore having the initial screening tests would have been a huge waste of time and resource

Up to 1 out of every 100 women who have amniocentesis will miscarry. You may feel this outweighs the potential benefits of the test

Nhs website

www.verywellfamily.com/amniocentesis-risk-odds-of-miscarriage-2371531

I take my advice from the nhs

Back when i had ds1 it was 1 in 200

• But I honestly can't fathom why someone wouldn't take all the testing

Became both amnio and CVS carry a miscarriage risk.*

I didn't test with my twins. I had gone through ivf to get them, I wasn't doing anything with a miscarriage risk.
I had worked for Mencap for five years in residential care and thought I could probably cope if I had to.
I was young enough that I thought I was low risk.

I also didn't have anymore dc because after having the twins I realized I couldn't cope with a child with disabilities as well as them.

I totally support the right of other woman to make different choices to me up to and including late term abortions. It is their bodies and their lives, not mine.

It’s not for me to say what another person should do. You look after your womb and I will look after mine.

Everyone comes at it from different points, you may have no support, it may be your third or fourth baby and you just cannot afford another let alone the additional financial implications of a disabled child / adult.

It’s all well and good saying it’s wrong to abort, but who is supporting the families? Who is supporting the disabled adults?