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/

Btw, some of the syndromes that they were looking for would have been incompatible with the necessary heart surgery. Why would I subject a tiny baby to a painful early death if I could avoid it in any way? Some others normally result in a difficult and quite miserable life. I think we don't see the worst affected often as they aren't in society much.

It's a sensitive subject but it's important that we don't feel the need to tip-toe around it any more.

Stigma/shame/embarrassment around abortion is damaging. Throwing disability into the mix can make the subject virtually taboo even on an anonymous forum. This is a bad thing. Some women feel silenced.

My opinion:
The alternative to Free Choice is Forced Birth. I am pro choice - Whatever reason, as early as possible, but as late as necessary.

This was discussed in here a while ago, but unlike you, the OP was emotionally manipulative.

Whoever is supporting this just doesn't realise the realities of it. They will not be there to help with care, money, mh or anything. They just want to shout and the disappear. Basically like pro lifers do.

I feel fore Heidi, however, we must be realistic here. Not everyone can actually care for disabled child. It's not their fault they can't. Often it's for life. I will openly say that should I be into that position, I would abort. I've seen the life of friend who has a child with DS. Low functioning... Am I a bad person for it? Is anyone? No. We just know our limits.

Also remember the Irish lady who wasn't given medical treatment she wanted and needed because it could have harmed her pregnancy, putting doctors at risk legally, and she died. Doctors need to be able to treat legally when necessary.

I read about that, awful case!

If a woman found out she is pregnant with a baby with downs at 12 weeks, I don’t think I could support her aborting at 35 weeks for example and would seriously question her motive and mental health. How this could be policed idk as this is a highly emotive topic.

I also think it is horrendous people would contemplate aborting their baby for having minor abnormalities at such a late stage. Perhaps it doesn’t happen. The stats are relevant here.

Conditions, where parents would potentially be life long carers or where the child would not survive or not survive long is a different question.

I do think it would be worthwhile to look at the law. But not in a pro life kind of way.

I should stay away from threads like this. I have one of the defects listed. I wish I'd been aborted every single day of my life. Therapy doesn't work. And no, I will never get over it.

I would not have hesitated to abort if my DD had inherited it. I could not have inflicted a life of pain on someone I love so dearly.

As for the stats, yes. They were fairly certain at 16 weeks everything was clear. I had weekly scans starting at 11 weeks to check. I made my intentions clear at 1st mat appointment.

A woman has a right to choose. We should not remove this right. Neither am I suggesting late term abortion should be championed. It is a personal decision not to be made by the latest campaigner. If there was no right to choose a late abortion, for me, attempting to start a family would have been out of the question.

I suspect someone is using her as a figurehead to promote their cause. I used to see this a lot when I worked with people with learning disabilities.

It was always such and such with learning disabilities is leading a campaign when in fact it’s usually people pushing them from behind and using them.
One guy I working is the lead of a business that is meant to promote disability rights and they get so much money thrown at them because the guy “running it” has Down’s syndrome. In fact it’s his brother and dad that control it all. They just stick his photo on all the propaganda and have named it after him.

The business is so badly run and does more harm then good and had made other better projects go out of business as they have bid for all these contracts and get them because it “looks good”

An example would be getting funding to organise a conference for disability groups in a hotel. Getting other people from other groups to speak so you don’t have to actually organise anything. The guy who is the figure head has PAs who run around ragged all weekend. The guy who is the figure heads only contribution is to grab the microphone and yell “yippee” and “oggi oggi oggi” into it several times a day.

Meanwhile dad, brother and other family members spend the weekend in a nice hotel, in the biggest rooms and make good use of the spa and other facilities.

It was one of the few good things to come out of the spending cuts that the massive jolly’s this company organised under the guise of disability awareness stopped. A year later the business folded.

Why have you felt the need to change your name, OP?

Mind you, I think I've not addressed the OP. It's the lady's body. She can live independently and should be afforded the same right as any other woman.

Sorry posted to soon

The business folded and then started up again a few years later and it getting back to their old tricks.

As early as possible, as late as necessary, for any reason

I agree with this.
The thought of someone having a termination at 38 weeks does break my heart - as much for the mother as the baby. But we need to see the law as existing to facilitate women in a wide range of extraordinary and rare conditions - rather than existing to prevent a woman from having control over her own body because the state knows best.

I wonder, as a thought experiment, if the legal cut off was increased to full term - how many women would actually have abortions at 38 weeks plus? My guess would be that it would vanishingly few judging by current statistics.

But for those very, very few... what if their situation did warrant it? What if they were in some awful and horrible situation whereby they couldn’t carry on with that pregnancy? What if something happened to the foetus late term - an accident of some description - that meant they would have a very poor quality of life should they be born?

This is not a black and white issue, and I’m not 100% sure how I feel about it... other than I don’t think it is fair for me to decide what another woman can do with her own body.

Personally I don't approve of abortions over 18 weeks. I am not against abortion if done early and for good reason but the more developed the baby is the more cruel it is to me. After 24 weeks a baby feels pain and before that a baby can feel stress.

news.sky.com/story/mum-of-baby-with-downs-syndrome-suing-government-over-abortion-law-11993666

According to a quick Google search, this started in February.

Personally I don't approve of abortions over 18 weeks

How does that work when one doesn’t get a scan until at least 20 weeks (in my case it was bang on 22 weeks) and I wasn’t my any means unusual in my PCT.

Personally I don't approve of abortions over 18 weeks. I am not against abortion if done early and for good reason but the more developed the baby is the more cruel it is to me

The anomaly scan doesnt happen til 18-22 weeks so how would that work?

2 doctors have to sign off an abortion at any point in pregnancy after implantation, is my understanding. If you think people are getting abortions casually for no good reason then you must believe there are a lot of doctors with zero morals. Personally, I think we need to fix any problem of lots of doctors with zero morals first, if there is such a problem.

I think in regards to the spectrum of disability in Down's Syndrome that doesn't complicate my thoughts as such, as perfectly healthy pregnancies are ended too. The woman has the choice to bring a child into the world either way. I suppose you could say would the woman have kept the baby if it wasn't Downs, but then you can apply that to all other terminations, would you have kept it if your financial situation was different, if you were a different age, if they had a different father, if your housing was different etc etc
The gestational limit is the discrepancy. A previous poster shared the heartbreaking story of her sister having a late abortion. Edwards children, if they survive birth etc rarely make it past their first birthday. I support women to choose a late termination over that as horrible as that is, it's just a totally awful situation, and these happen sometimes.
I think as long as late abortion numbers are low, which I believe they are and each case examined for ways to see if it could have been done earlier eg changes to antenatal care, intensive counselling etc then the option should stay. Including for Downs as the condition can be severe.
I think if people want to see more babies with Down Syndrome born the focus should be on reducing the daunting task for the parent - excellent support, residential opportunities if required, widely available tailored education, wonderful homes and care for them for after the parent dies that are equipped to deal with dementia. The life of a family with a Downs Child should be something women are able to feel more optimistic about, that comes from changing the support not the gestational limit.

as early as possible, as late as necessary

This.

Personally I don't approve of abortions over 18 weeks. I am not against abortion if done early and for good reason but the more developed the baby is the more cruel it is to me

Then, quite simply, don’t have one.
But don’t presume to tell other women what they should or shouldn’t do. Or judge their reasons for doing so.
Until you’ve walked a mile in her shoes...

as early as possible, as late as necessary

This. ^ It is no one elses decision. No one has the right to think they are that important that their views override the mother wanting the abortion, no matter what her reasons.

Although like a PP I do wonder if she is being used as a puppet and who is really behind thism

I have a genetic disability and would struggle to parent a child born with the same/a similar condition, never mind a worse one. Being physically disabled myself gives me more compassion towards those women who are pregnant and having to make that decision, not less.

I consider myself to be pro choice (at least I thought I did), but honestly aborting at 39/40 weeks is shocking. Where does it stop? Euthanising a new born baby with disabilities?

Your body, your choice.

Restricted abortion laws are awful and women shouldn’t be forced to give birth. It’s easy for people to say it’s upsetting so the woman shouldn’t be allowed to terminate, but it’s not your body, your life, your mental health.