To draw your attention to this U.K. abortion law court case?

[Wouldloveanother]

Evening ladies
in light of Roe v Wade, it seems more important than ever that we are vigilant about abortion rights here in Britain.
there is an upcoming case at the Court of Appeal which seeks to repeal section 1(1)(d) of the Abortion Act 1967. Which permits later terminations for fetal abnormalities.
the hearing is on 13th July (next month).
very few posters seemed to be aware of it, so thought I would open it here for anyone who wishes to discuss.
thanks

That's not happening at all. Again doctors are not coercing women into late abortions for minor reasons. That's the stuff of conspiracy theories.

Exactly.

I think there needs to be an earlier limit. Anything past 25 weeks for serious medical reasons seems uncomfortable to me. Surely, no one can class it as an abortion when a baby’s life is ended at such a late stage as full term. I personally think that if you are carrying a severely disabled baby and you are considering termination you should have to make this choice by 25 weeks. I feel that anything later is morally questionable in the most polite terms.

I also think there should be a non-medical choice limit of no more than 10 weeks.

@DixonD what if they don’t find out until gone 25 weeks? And the baby will suffer if born?

Some women don't know they're pregnant until after 10 weeks.

It is not always clear at the 20 week scan though @DixonD. As I mentioned above, my scan (actually conducted at 21 wks) picked up an abnormality and they weren’t yet sure whether it indicated anything serious or not. We had a barrage of blood tests and extra scans but weren’t given the all clear (as far as is possible before birth) for at least another month. There was no way I would have terminated a very wanted baby unless I was sure it was seriously ill and actually that time pressure was quite stressful, because what I considered serious and what the hospital considered serious wouldn’t necessarily align.

Or we leave it up to the woman who is carrying the pregnancy and who will be raising the potential child, should she continue the pregnancy. The current parameters are realistic and give women the space needed to reach a decision without time pressures - that statistic show that the majority of TOP take place prior to 10wks and very few (less than 0.1%) take place post-24wks. There are not huge queues of women lining up to end second or third trimester pregnancies for shits and giggles.

The only person who gets to make a choice over the contents of a uterus is the owner of that uterus.

Yes, it often gets left out of discussion (either because people assume everyone knows, or because they don't realise) that '10 weeks pregnant' doesn't mean you have been pregnant for 10 weeks. Most likely about 8 weeks.

Lots of women don't have regular periods for various reasons. You could quite feasibly not know for a couple of months if you were pregnant. I actually know someone who found out incredibly late (when the baby started kicking) and the baby was really prem.

It absolutely is happening. I know a lot of families who have kids with DS and I know a lot of women who were given very, very poor or misleading information antenatally about what life would be like. It’s not happening to every woman but it’s far too common. I don’t think it’s malicious, I think it’s due to poor training, lack of exposure to people with learning disabilities, and a wider stigma surrounding DS. I definitely don’t think it’s a conspiracy. But it’s happening, I’m afraid.

That was a reply to @titchy

Yes I think it should be lowered to 12 weeks.

This is dodgy ground. It’s not about womens’ rights here. abortion on grounds of disabled baby is not anything to do with the woman’s right. it’s about quality of life for a potentially disabled baby, which I find a bit horrific reason for abortion if I’m honest.

My cousin has Down's syndrome, she's 17 now. My aunt was given the test results and offered counselling to help her decide how to proceed. Termination was discussed and she was also given details of charities supporting parents with children who have Down's syndrome. After she made her decision nobody mentioned termination again. Everyone she saw at the hospital treated her like any other pregnant woman. Occasionally a midwife would ask if she knew about a charity or support group but nobody suggested she'd made the wrong decision. She's involved in supporting new parents expecting a baby with Down's syndrome and has never mentioned an issue with doctors or midwives pressuring them to terminate.

It happened to me. Didn't get my 20 week scan til 22 weeks, then I had to wait another 2 weeks for a confirmation scan, then another 2-3 weeks for the termination (all NHS). It was a very much wanted pregnancy, but unfortunately the condition was incompatible with life. None of the HCP's coerced me, but they were all supportive of our decision and it wasn't something we took lightly.

There's a lot I could say to some of the posters on this thread who are giving their hypothetical situations and talk of murdering babies, but I don't want to get to banned. All I will say is the law should be left as it is.

oops never meant caps

or big don't know what happened there

How lovely. Just to add my own perspective I didn’t have NIPT, DH and I agreed our initial standpoint for Downs would be to continue the pregnancy unless something medically significant changed our minds.

i can’t help but feel the ‘pressure to abort’ May sometimes be ‘I was offered an abortion and found that offensive’, if you see what I mean

I think the big writing was absolutely perfect, and my condolences about your wee boy.

I feel it It important to remember that the fetal anomaly scan is not foolproof. Here is what I am seeing in my professional work:

-a rise in obese women which makes it very VERY difficult for us to visualise fetal anatomy on ultrasound.
-a lack of understanding that, for example, only 50% of cardiac anomalies are detected as the FAS (20 week fetal anomaly scan), meaning that in turn we have…
-a rise in late term anomalies identified due to increased fetal surveillance thanks to care bundles such as smoking cessation, low PAPP-A, diabetes, prev SFGA baby, rainbow clinics meaning women who have had pregnancy losses have more scans
etc.

you get the idea. So now, we see the ventricularmegaly that’s wasn’t visible on the FAS at the 28 week growth scan - it’s massive, woman was low risk on her screening so now it’s time for invasive testing or best case a cell free fetal DNA test. Let’s say that’s inconclusive, now we have to run the karotype… meanwhile WEEKS are ticking away.

No woman makes these decisions likely. When we do a very late TFMR it’s a tragedy for everyone, including the practioners. We go home and we think about you and your baby and we feel very very sad.

Choice for women is essential. No one should be forced to give birth or parent.

It’s not about womens’ rights here. abortion on grounds of disabled baby is not anything to do with the woman’s rights

Given that it is her body carrying the pregnancy and that the majority of caring responsibilities fall to women, yes it is about the woman's rights and she has a right to not continue the pregnancy should she so choose.

I am so sorry but we have to agree to disagree on this one, a personal friend of mine could have potentially been aborted for the "crime" of having a cleft palate.

But she wasn’t, was she?

We could have all been potentially aborted, that is how choice works. We're here because oir mothers chose not to but that doesn't mean their choice was better or worse than women who made the opposite one.

But…. She wasn’t?

I don’t get your point. the number of babies aborted for cleft palate alone is negligible.

The number of babies I see with cleft palate alone is also very rare. Clefts often go with a myriad of other issues. Mid line defects are like that.

@chiffchaffchiff it sounds like she received excellent care. I don’t really know what to say apart from that I know people who’ve had different experiences.

Again, I disagree with the case.

For what it’s worth most families I know with kids with DS are pro choice (let’s remember DS is randomly occurring and anti choice beliefs are thankfully not at all mainstream in the UK, so it stands to reason that the majority are pretty moderate, normal people).

@Wouldloveanother i think pressure to terminate more often means “are offered a termination again after they’ve indicated they are continuing with the pregnancy”

I personally think that if you are carrying a severely disabled baby and you are considering termination you should have to make this choice by 25 weeks

I got my 20 week scan with dc2 at 22 plus 5 due to staff shortages and my father's "inconvenient" death. I'm sure if the scan had thrown up any issues, follow ups would have taken us to beyond 25 weeks. As it was, given I was 40...I hated every single second of the delay.