Today's ruling re Down's Syndrome

[Shirazboobaloo]

Sorry to hijack AIBU for this but can someone explain this ruling to me please?

What I can't understand (from press reports) is how this has "come to this".

Who is Heidi Crowther and who are those supporting her?

I am genuinely confused but don't know where to ask

Tigger85

I cried reading your post, thank you so much for sharing your story. 💐💐

@ThanksIGotItInMorrisons

Excuse my ignorance, but just how the fuck would one terminate an almost/full term pregnancy? Surely that’s fucking murder not the morning after pill/8 weeks abortion?

You are aware that being ignorant is no excuse to call a grieving mother a murderer?

After 22 weeks gestation, an injection is given into the baby's heart, to stop it, then labour is induced.

Then the mother gives birth to her precious, wanted and loved baby, takes the time to take their hand and foot prints, sing to them, bathe them, dress them, read to them. I had my son baptised shortly after he passed, whilst he was still warm.

Then you start to plan a funeral, and you prepare yourself to hand your darling baby over to a mortuary in a children's hospital and then a funeral director. And then you Bury them, or cremate them. And then you begin making sense of the hell that has been thrust upon you and how you are going to live, and survive going forward.

Ignorance is no excuse for cruelty

@ShushShushShush

Sending love, I'm so sorry you had to go through that, I'm glad your son knew love from the womb and beyond

so what do they do if the baby becomes disabled a birth, or later ?

Put up with it, love their baby, support it the best they can, cry when it dies, and if it lives a long time accept it may put them in an early grave. And greive for the child they should have had and cry for the life they should have had. And pray that SW will support it in the future. Even if they have been let down before with SW being over stretched.

What do you think people do when a child becomes disabled at birth, go that's fine?

@ThanksIGotItInMorrisons

Excuse my ignorance, but just how the fuck would one terminate an almost/full term pregnancy? Surely that’s fucking murder not the morning after pill/8 weeks abortion?

Murder is illegal. If the termination is performed legally, then it is not murder, by fact of it being legal.

Generally murder only applies to people once they are born anyway. So whatever someone does to an unborn child, legal or otherwise, it isn't murder. Think about it, if you could be prosecuted for that, then lots of mothers who drink/smoke during pregnancy would be prosecuted for child abuse. That doesn't happen, because a person isn't a person until they're born.

I know of someone who had to have a late term abortion, how late I'm not sure.

On the early scans they noticed some abnormalities, the head seemed to be growing too fast. She was monitored as a high risk pregnancy, at a later scan it appeared as if the babies head was bent to the side, as if the neck was broke and the head was still developing at a faster speed. She was advised that if she was going to go ahead with birth, it would be a high risk cesarean and even picking the baby up in the slightest wrong way could lead to instant death, and if they could get the baby out, baby would likely die shortly after anyway, and if somehow the baby survived it would be severely disabled.

She chose not to look at the baby when aborted, but she was advised it was apparent the baby was not compatible with life.

I know that's a rare story, but it's just one example of why it is necessary to give parents the opportunity to abort and in this case more humanely kill rather than allow for a traumatic birth with suffering on all parts.

Down syndrome is the same, later scans can show further complications and abnormalities that weren't present when people initially decided to go ahead with their pregnancy.

@Tigger85 and @ShushShushShush

I'm so sorry for your losses

ShushShushShush Well said.

@ThanksIGotItInMorrisons you have absolutely no clue what you're talking about.
I, and others on this thread have lived it. Ignorance is no excuse for calling us murderers.
My baby was wanted. I never wanted to give birth to him dead or plan his funeral.
None of us do this for fun you know.

So many heart wrenching stories.
to all women, whatever your circumstances and outcomes.

For me, the principle is absolute. A woman has the right to decide whether her body supports the development of an embryo / foetus / baby whatever the circumstances.

Then there is no discrimination or perceived value judgement about any of it. ‘Should’ the embryo of a rape victim be preserved over conception due to contraception failure? Do some women ‘deserve’ an abortion while others are forced to continue a pregnancy they do not want?

A woman’s right to choose, as early as possible, as late as necessary.

Based on her decision about her body, not society’s judgement about the status of the foetus.

And all stand together to support services for disability, and fight discrimination against (born) disabled people.

@Staryflight445

I sadly sense that a lot of posters in this comment sections don’t understand how bad DS can actually be.

Yes.

The Downs people we see around us and who are promoted in the media whenever there's this discussion, are the lucky ones.

I taught children with severe learning difficulties for my entire career (now retired) and I taught the ones you don't see. The ones whose quality of life is poor, and whose families suffer greatly.

I'm glad for those parents of the smiling happy DS children, but I do wish they'd have some empathy and understanding for those who battle their own children's huge behavioural, care, and health needs.

Samcro a lot end up in the care system, the lucky ones are placed with long term forster carers or are adopted. But a lot arent. And a lot of families struggle on and end up needing residential care at some point.

If we had an outright ban on later term abortions we'd be condemming babies to short, painful lives and probably have to go back to the days of having instituions because a lot of families just cant do it.

In fact it would be interesting to know how many of these campaigners have put their money where their mouth is and adopted a profoundly disabled child

P.S and in reality the number of very late terminations would be tiny. As it is now.

@ShushShushShush

There are so, so many people on this thread with opinions about something they know absolutely nothing about, and they should be grateful they know nothing about the experience of TFMR and the horrific distressing, traumatic experience that it is.

I am so sorry to all of the other TFMR mums on this thread and others like it, where the hugely painful loss of our beautiful, precious babies, has been reduced to us being "killers" and "murderers". Where we are judged by those who have no idea at all if the hell we have been through.

This with bells on x

I'm severely physically disabled, with conditions that affect my whole body. So I don't take ableism / disablism lightly. But I think it's simply naive to claim Heidi Crowter isn't being influenced in this battle - of course she has her own opinions and her own agency, but many, many abled people are also manipulated by the religious right, so I'm not sure why anyone thinks Crowter somehow couldn't be.

For what it's worth, I fully support the right to choose. While it's a strange thought to imagine someone having a TFMR motivated by feeling unable to raise a child with my disabilities, that's all it is - a thought. Not a reason to renege on my commitment to that fundamental right.

If anything I think disabled people should be more understanding of the importance of bodily autonomy.

To all the mums who've had a tfmr I'm sending my love to you and your sweet babys.

Thankyou for being brave enough to share your stories must be heartbreaking to try and decide what is best for your baby.

Generally murder only applies to people once they are born anyway. So whatever someone does to an unborn child, legal or otherwise, it isn't murder. Think about it, if you could be prosecuted for that, then lots of mothers who drink/smoke during pregnancy would be prosecuted for child abuse. That doesn't happen, because a person isn't a person until

Some legal systems they do charge people for murder if you intentionally kill a woman’s fetus.

Ground E is the abortion criteria which covers fetal abnormality. There were 229 abortions under this grounds is 2020 post 24 weeks

And not one of them was for Downs syndrome.

This is going to sound horrible but, as with many disabilities, the general public only see the "acceptable" ones on the media.

This. I’m all for representation, we need much, much more of it, but it is important to understand the whole picture.

Left without medical care the child would likely die at this stage. With care they could survive but need ongoing support throught life, they could have to be peg fed, deaf, blind, behavioural issues etc etc all due to the premature birth.

There are babies born full term who would not survive without medical care. There are children and adults who become ill or have accidents, who wouldn’t survive without medical care. We treat them regardless of what kind of value other people put on the life of disabled people.

Are all premature births given life saving care or can a parent decide they want to medical team to do nothing?

Treatment is a medical decision. A parent cannot decide.

A baby born at 23.6 weeks is left i understand ?

Incorrect there is no actual cut off date for when medical care is given. All babies, premature or not are assessed after birth and given an APGAR score, most will score highly. Premature babies are more fully assessed and if the APGAR score is zero, no medical intervention is not given. If the score is low, some medical intervention will happen to see if the score can be raised quickly. The higher the score, the longer intervention will take place.

We were at risk of premature labour and was told we needed to get to 24 weeks for medical care.

Told by whom? If it was the consultant team at your hospital and they actually said they would do nothing before 24 weeks, they were not only going against all medical guidance, but possibly acting unlawfully and could lose their medical licences. Maybe you were given the “advice” by a midwife who was actually trying to say most babies before 24 weeks don’t survive.

Being involved in Bliss Charity, I know hundreds of women who had premature babies. I’ve seen 23-26 weekers who have survived and thrived and have no long term problems. I’ve seen more who have not been so fortunate. My own 29 weeker is disabled due to her prematurity, but the vast majority born at that stage come through Ok. It is really important we don’t conflate abortion limits and premature birth. Every pregnancy is individual and should be treated as such.

I was 21 weeks when the anomaly scan picked up a heart defect. I was past 24 weeks when we got back the detailed chromosomal analysis that told us that our DC would not have the life-limiting syndrome suggested by their heart defect. If the 24 week limit had been in place for medical issues, I would have been forced to have an abortion that turned out to be unnecessary. People need time to make these decisions with all the information and consideration necessary.

Nobody would have forced you to have an abortion.

@AllTheUsernamesAreAlreadyTaken

How do they terminate full term pregnancies?

The heartbeat is stopped using one of two medications This is injected under local anaesthetic abdominal using US to guide The patient will then either have surgical removal or receive additional medication to enhance contractions

Disgusting that it’s even a possibility to murder a baby minutes before it’s even born!
I mean what sort of society would endorse this?
My beautiful granddaughter has congenital, bilateral talipes and the thought that she could have been killed until birth makes me sick and very fearful.

Some legal systems they do charge people for murder if you intentionally kill a woman’s fetus.

But not when it is done under medical conditions, for medical reasons. You are talking about someone shooting a pregnant woman in the stomach. And the charge is not murder.

@Helendee

Disgusting that it’s even a possibility to murder a baby minutes before it’s even born! I mean what sort of society would endorse this? My beautiful granddaughter has congenital, bilateral talipes and the thought that she could have been killed until birth makes me sick and very fearful.

IT's neither murder nor a baby, and it doesn't happen anyway.

@Helendee

Disgusting that it’s even a possibility to murder a baby minutes before it’s even born! I mean what sort of society would endorse this? My beautiful granddaughter has congenital, bilateral talipes and the thought that she could have been killed until birth makes me sick and very fearful.

But she wasn't ? And nobody suggested she would be ? It wasn't relevant to your situation ?

@Everydayimhuffling

I was 21 weeks when the anomaly scan picked up a heart defect. I was past 24 weeks when we got back the detailed chromosomal analysis that told us that our DC would not have the life-limiting syndrome suggested by their heart defect. If the 24 week limit had been in place for medical issues, I would have been forced to have an abortion that turned out to be unnecessary. People need time to make these decisions with all the information and consideration necessary.

Literally nobody would have ever forced you to have a termination of your baby. You may have been offered it, but literally nobody, medical or otherwise would have forced you to have a TFMR.