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’d like to know how many posters on this thread who have agreed that of course services for children and adults with disabilities should be better who do not have children with disabilities have ever campaigned in any way for those services to improve. The country as a whole has just re-elected (heartily) a government that has spent a decade savagely cutting down all support for vulnerable people in our community so it’s quite hard for those of us at the sharp end to feel that we are getting much understanding and support from the rest of the community.

I am obviously specifically thinking of those who have said they wouldn’t abort a child with disabilities who perhaps have no understanding at all of how difficult life is. I’m also quite surprised at parents of disabled children who don’t know families who are at their wits’ end. I know many, and have been one of them in my time.

Extracurricularfatigue
Absolutely, I raised the same point.
Who is supporting the families?, who is supporting the disabled adults?
Carers allowance is hardly adequate, social services massively under funded.

What if you are absolutely struggling your arse off (financially, emotionally, physically) with one disabled child and find your pregnant again with a disabled child.

So many variables have to make it a personal choice.

I have an actual fear that this campaign will win.

Somebody on my Facebook. A distant acquaintance lost a daughter with DS as a baby.
Now she's done a status with her newborns picture saying how awful it is that that beautiful baby could've been aborted at the gestation she was born. That she stands with Heidi. Do you?

What can people do?! Post under a grieving mothers status about her deceased baby that actually you do and that women's rights mean more.

Because that would look great! I can't see much opposition on Twitter. Because nobody wants to look like the twat who speak against such people.

Agreed. A Facebook friend whose son has DS has posted in support too, and i haven't said i disagree, because obviously i support her fight for her son's rights, but i do.

That's why Heidi and others like her are being used. Because it makes it personal. Because it makes it about people/children/babies that are already here and loved.

When the only thing that is personal is the pregnant woman's choice whether she wants to terminate or not.

Exactly. How does she know that nobody on her Facebook has had to have a TFMR for DS? How would they feel to read this?!

Women should have full control over their bodies.

Next.

Yes, it can be twisted to make those of us who want to keep the law as it is look awful. That is why this thread and any publicity for those of us who have good reasons to leave the law it stands, is very important If we are not careful just like the photos of babies in the womb used by the anti abortionists messages from people with disabilities will be used more and more to convince everyone to chip away this right of women to decide.

who do not have children with disabilitieshave ever campaigned in any way for those services to improve

Truthfully not beyond signing the odd petition.

If any of my friends post this crap, I will respond with a list of fatal genetic conditions and then unfriend them.

Pre empt them by posting the link to the latest BPAS Back Off campaign.
back-off.org/sign-the-petition/

I would love to.
But I would lose a lot of mutual friends.
It just really really wouldn't look good.

And while I fully support the campaign to preserve women's rights. I am not willing to bring down that reign of guaranteed vitriol onto my Facebook.

OK well that's your choice.

@itsallthedramaMickiloveit, well, God forbid that you would lose FB friends. Clearly much easier if abortion rights are weakened.

Hang on a minute. If you're not a troll, it's very hard to step forward and say something when you know you will get loads of personal abuse for it.

Mick is a perfectly normal person.

Yea. Facebook friends and friends who've been a massive support for years.
2 rules for my Facebook. I don't discuss politics or religion.

Keep your head in the sand, so.

-*Hang on a minute. If you're not a troll, it's very hard to step forward and say something when you know you will get loads of personal abuse for it.

Mick is a perfectly normal person.*

Totally agree. It’s hard to put your head above the parapet and risk not only upsetting people you care about but risking abuse. It’s the same reason I don’t post my gender critical views on social media

The woman in question had to sit by her infants bed as she died.
I am not going to be the one to cause her any distress. I don't agree with her. I think she's flat out wrong.

But through her grief and experience she is not going to see logic.

I am not going to enter into a pointless debate with her over Facebook.

I'm happy to discuss my views on politics, abortion, vaccination, and gender with my friends, one on one. Or in a face to face discussion. Or even with a group. But not on FB, because that's not what I use FB for. Not because I'm burying my head in the sand or worried about losing my friend count on facebook. But because I won't discuss a highly emotive topic when so much can get misconstrued when you're reading words on a page rather than talking to a friend face to face. And also because I have no interest in getting into a debate with people I don't even know and will never meet!

yes, it is hard for people to express different views from their friends and always has been. I repect both sides' views in this debate and if someone believes life begins at conception then all abortion is murder. It isn ot hard to understand that point. Nor would I villify anyone expressing that view or that disability should not be treated differently but I certainly don't want the law to change. I don't however look down on people with different views and some of the on line criticism of anyone who in public says they do not agree with abortion is pretty nasty too. It seems to be an issue which brings out the worst in people.

I think this campaign and similar ones have a lot of mileage on social media precisely because most people would choose not to enter a discussion about tfmr, abortion, women's right to choose etc on the FB/Twitter/Instagram etc of a parent with a child with Ds or a grieving parent.

They have considerably less mileage when they are in the more public domain of debates and discussions with organisations like BPAS and will, should they get there, have even less mileage in the legal system.

Public figures like Fiona Bruce MP are looking more and more out of touch with popular views as she continues to campaign against 'modern abortion laws'.

WRT the legal case.
Does anybody have knowledge in that area.
I know she's saying it's discrimination.

Will this get to court?
When would that be?

If this comes up I will politely state my view and say that my family who have a dd with serious mental and physical disabilities would have terminated had they known before birth

However I respect that friends with pro life views have the right to their opinions

I don't think it will get off the ground legally tbh.

Focusing just on pregnancies known to be carrying a Ds baby is discriminatory to other disabilities, is it not?

Then if other disabilities are brought into the debate, issues around time needed for diagnostic testing, scans happening at 22 rather than 20 weeks etc need to be considered.

Also, some of the information from Heidi's mother in the footage is just plain wrong. Women are not and cannot be offered an abortion up to the point when 'the baby is coming down the birth canal'. Terminations are not performed in a delivery suite, birth centre or anywhere other than a clinic which performs these operations.