Girl challenging abortion law on grounds of disability

[User273648]

I've name changed for this. A girl is challenging the right to abortion on the grounds of disability as she has Downs. I'd be really interested in opinions.

Personally, I have a cousin who has Downs. She is low functioning (the girl challenging is clearly high functioning as she lives alone supported by carers). My aunt and uncle struggle with it. My aunt admitted once that she had cried for the first two years. They found out at birth. She obviously loves her daughter but given the choice of the same child not having Downs' Syndrome she would wish for that.

Obviously this a very sensitive topic - I'm not intending to upset anyone...just listen to other points of view.

YABU - the law should be changed so it's equal regardless of disability
YANBU - the law should stay similar to how it currently is.

www.dsrf-uk.org/downrightdiscriminationcase/

She doesn’t get to project her own beliefs on others, though.

Well, that should apply to everyone then, shouldn't it? But it can't, because we have laws that do "project believes on others".

Beliefs!

Later abortions are cruel and a disabled baby has as much a right to live as a non disabled baby

This is actually incorrect. It is already the case that if a baby requires extraordinary measures to resuscitate at birth which would cause trauma and the baby would have lifelong, profound disabilities, doctors can refuse to resuscitate.

If a baby is born and survives for a period of time, but becomes more unwell as the medical conditions start to pose a risk to life, a doctor can make decisions about undertaking procedures to prolong life, if that is not thought to be in the interests of the child.

The “right to life” is not absolute for any person.

@Abbccc

Surely though i couldn't (and wouldnt!) Project my belief by forcing every woman to abort with xyz disablity, however this forces every woman carrying a child with it to have child and birth a child into whatever circumstance they happen to be in with no alternate options.

Removing the choice means enforcing beliefs.

I also agree with the previous comments that disability can be a sliding scale.

With ds, people like to think of smiling happy adults however i worked within challenging behaviour units and sadly thats not the case for every person. Its my pet hate describe any group of people into one descriptio of some sort of gentle benevolent puppy like (as if they are somehow a different type of human)
Its is frankly quite wrong and discriminatory. Ds also has a high prevalance of physical health and other co morbid conditions such as heart failure.

The use of the word disability in this case though wouldnt just pertain to ds, but to all manor of illness including as others pointed out ones where we know quality of life is likely to be very poor.

@JudyCoolibar having a medical issue incompatible with life is different to having a disability.

@Butterflywings1 exactly the point. What Heidi is proposing would leave the cut-off for legal abortion at 24 weeks for everyone. And as I have said several times upthread, that means that those women whose babies had the most severe and complex abnormalities would fall outside that cut-off. They would be forced to carry to term. This would include women like my friend, who had a TFMR at 28 weeks for a condition incompatible with life. Her baby would have died at birth.

Heidi and the people driving her want women like my friend to be forced to continue their non-viable pregnancies, all in the name of 'equality'.

So far none of her defenders have answered my questions: Are they OK with that?

having a medical issue incompatible with life is different to having a disability.

But that's not the example I gave, was it, @Butterflywings1? The example I gave was that of a child who was born alive and seriously disabled who then lives a life filled with pain before dying. Is it inevitably wrong to take steps to prevent that happening?

But what's really the difference between aborting a foetus with Down Syndrome before 24 weeks, and after 24 weeks? If Heidi's cause is equality, she should be campaigning for a total ban on aborting for this condition. Makes no sense otherwise.

having a medical issue incompatible with life is different to having a disability

And some disabilities afford no positive interaction, no ability to take part in life, whilst enduring constant discomfort.

Who had the right to impose life on those babies?

We need to be very careful about the mindset between ideological sanctimoniousness and true compassion.

I've always struggled with how to articulate this exact point but you've put it perfectly - thank you.

But what's really the difference between aborting a foetus with Down Syndrome before 24 weeks, and after 24 weeks? If Heidi's cause is equality, she should be campaigning for a total ban on aborting for this condition. Makes no sense otherwise

I mean, she probably would advocate for no abortions, but it’s easier to argue for ‘fairness’ in that a Downs Syndrome fetus is as safe as a developmentally normal fetus after 24 weeks.

It’s also an issue of fairness for her.

But I don’t think economic issues are really behind the high rates of termination for Downs as some are suggesting. The countries with very solid welfare and medical systems, like Iceland and Denmark, lead the way here.

Parents simply want a healthy baby free of disability. If we go through the rigours of pregnancy and childbirth, should we not have the best child possible?

Also, a parent’s time has value, and if there are other children, you will have less time for them than you’d otherwise have.

There is a very uncomfortable conversation here that we aren’t really getting into, and it does edge into eugenics.

So if we are talking about termination at the point a fetus is viable, and has a reasonable chance of survival (depending upon the severity of its condition), could it not be some kind of moral compromise that the mother can be induced but the baby removed by social services (obviously to go to NICU or wherever they need to go medically).

Surely that wouldn't be forced birth because it would be very much the same procedure for a termination anyway?

This just popped into my head, I'm sure there are all sorts wrong with it!

@HeatherIV
I think you’ve made some quite ignorant points about people with Downs. How many people children or adults do you know that enables you to make these comments? They do not grow up into adults shunned by society, most live happy and successful life’s. There are quite a few people with Downs who have jobs. It is the attitude of some people in society who cannot and will not be more inclusive to people with disabilities. They play in football teams and some believe it or not achieve a good level of education! I know of young people who are great artists, one who plays the piano very competently. If speech is limited learning Makaton is not difficult and is quite fun, it can actually make it easier to communicate to lots of children not just children with disabilities.
Of course people with Downs are not all smiley faces and it’s quite an ignorant thing to say. Why should people with Downs be “smiley” all the time and compliant? I’m not smiley all the time and I’m certainly not compliant although I try to be and most people I know aren’t as we are all individuals going through our different emotions and life experiences which affect whether we smile or not. All children need guidance and support and some even during adulthood.

Some children/adults have accidents or strokes or any number of illnesses during their lifetimes which can leave them severely disabled but you wouldn’t say they were incompatible with life! Downs Syndrome is not incompatible with life either.
Heidi has just as much right to feel strongly as the rest of us and I can only hope that if I felt as strongly as she did about something I would have the courage to try and change the law.
As I said before every woman should make their own choices but please don’t put ignorant comments about people with Downs Syndrome.

They do not grow up into adults shunned by society, most live happy and successful life’s (sic).

Until the fairly ubiquitous onset of early-onset dementia starting in their 40s and 50s. Who looks after them then? Their 70-80 year old parents?

It is tough. My down's sister only lived 21 days. My mother's diary entries are so sad. The baby was taken into a baby hospital and put in an incubator - it was not as if they didn't try to save her (she had a heart problem too which I suppose today might be operable but that was in the 1960s). There was no detection of the issue before birth and my mother, a Catholic, I doubt would have had an abortion. My mother wished she had lived and I believe the erst of us are glad she died including my doctor father. I am not glad she was born with the disability and I wish she had been born both healthy and without down's.

UK abortion law is a right old muddle but it is too complex to start changing it now.

“Virtually all adults with Down syndrome (DS) show the neuropathological changes of Alzheimer disease (AD) by the age of 40 years. This association is partially due to overexpression of amyloid precursor protein, encoded by APP, as a result of the location of this gene on chromosome 21.”

I suppose we could make it lawful to abort at a any point up to birth whether disabled or not - that would give women more rights, not take rights away and would satisfy people with disabilities who think the distinction is unfair.

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30733618/?from_term=down+syndrome+alzheimer&from_pos=4

Parents simply want a healthy baby free of disability. If we go through the rigours of pregnancy and childbirth, should we not have the best child possible?

This is actually really offensive.

DD has a disability. She is an exceptional child, and pretty much anyone who meets her says the same thing. Her disability does not define nor confine her. The only thing that makes her life difficult is the attitude of other people towards her disability. You know, the people who decide she isn’t the best child possible just because a small piece of her brain doesn’t work properly.

Heidi has just as much right to feel strongly as the rest of us and I can only hope that if I felt as strongly as she did about something I would have the courage to try and change the law.

As I said before every woman should make their own choices

These points contradict each other.

If Heidi’s campaign changes the law, women will he denied their own choice if they find out about disabilities past 24 weeks.

YinMnblue life isn't "imposed" on someone who is already alive.

I mean, she probably would advocate for no abortions, but it’s easier to argue for ‘fairness’ in that a Downs Syndrome fetus is as safe as a developmentally normal fetus after 24 weeks.

I don't see how it can possibly be easier to argue if she is basing her case on discrimination. As I understand it, in effect she is saying that the current rules imply that people with DS are somehow less deserving of life. Surely that applies irrespective of the stage in pregnancy when a termination happens? I suspect her lawyers are going to struggle to deal with that one.

Until the fairly ubiquitous onset of early-onset dementia starting in their 40s and 50s. Who looks after them then? Their 70-80 year old parents?

Or their existing siblings.
My sister has DS and is starting to show very subtle signs of this already. My mom, a 70 year old, very unhealthy smoker who already has COPD is starting to struggle and she won’t be around forever. I love my sister, of course. But I do not know how I will look after her full time when something happens to my Mom. I have a full time job and a son.
I am not saying I wish she didn’t exist. But I do think that women should be free to choose to abort a child with DS - if not only for themselves but for existing children they may already have. It is such a huge burden.

They do not grow up into adults shunned by society, most live happy and successful life’s. There are quite a few people with Downs who have jobs. It is the attitude of some people in society who cannot and will not be more inclusive to people with disabilities. They play in football teams and some believe it or not achieve a good level of education! I know of young people who are great artists, one who plays the piano very competently

I’m not saying this ‘poster child’ version of adults with DS doesn’t exist.... but the key point is ‘some’ not ‘all’
My sister would not be capable of doing any of this. She is nearly 40. She communicates perfectly well but my mom still has to bath her, wash her hair, prepare all of her meals, run her finances and clean her up every month when she starts her period.

Parents simply want a healthy baby free of disability. If we go through the rigours of pregnancy and childbirth, should we not have the best child possible?

This is actually really offensive

Then why would parents in a rich country like Denmark or Iceland largely choose to terminate their child?

This is what I’m getting at. I don’t think it is an economic matter, as these countries have very strong social welfare and medical benefits.

So even if the UK could provide enough funds and solid respite care, parents still largely wouldn’t choose this for their families.