Disability And Abortion: The Hardest Choice CHANNEL 4

[Wouldloveanother]

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-11155443/DOMINIC-LAWSON-Doctors-stop-pushing-mothers-aborting-disabled-babies.html

I’m planning on watching this in the next few days, but I’m getting increasingly concerned about the amount of anti-choice activity going on under the guise of ‘disability equality’.

Why on earth would someone do that unless incredibly extreme reason. It just isnt a thing.
The abortion limit for severely disabled foetuses is so high because we cant legalise euthanasia.
Its not the pretty face of medicine but its an important choice, and its incredibly rare that it happens, and is between a woman, herself, herself, her doctors and herself.

How can an adult human with a functioning brain not understand some people don't want to give birth to disabled children?

24 years ago i was told the same thing

i didn’t have an amnio due to the risk of miscarriage

i did ask the dr if i could have one at 30 weeks where the risk was lower and he said ‘but you won’t be able to have an abortion then’

i wasnt going to have a pn abortion i just wanted to know if he had downs so i could prepare family and friends

I totally agree with you. If a baby is viable, able to live unaided, then it's horrific to abort. The emotional trauma to all involved must be horrendous

So when it's about 16 years old then?

The difference is the woman’s choice, and what she consents to being done with her body.

Adoption has it’s own issues, and isn’t a valid choice for many.

fuck me. lovely post.

Sorry I was quoting a pp there!

At what point is a foetus able to live unaided?

I have every admiration for your honesty x

Could you share your verified statistics on how often this happen

When it’s born and can be cared for independently. It may indeed be viable prior to delivery, but whilst it is in utero a woman should imo have full autonomy.

I have a severely disabled DD, discovered indications of disability (clubfoot) at 20 week scan. The pressure to terminate was intense (from medics).
The key idea should be that support is given in pregnancy and if a baby is disabled there should be a lot more support.
However, no idea how that would be funded- which is probably the central reason that termination is permitted to full term.
There is no social support where I live: school fees (paid for not by me) are enormous, a disability of my DD’s type has numerous consultants involved, across two hospitals and she’s had a long neonatal stay and another ten days in hospital.
She has incontinence products, medications, occupational therapy items, wheelchair needs - all paid for by local authorities/the NHS. I only get carer’s allowance and she DLA but I can’t work any more, so I’m not contributing to society.

Sadly, I think it’s this that gives women the additional time frame to have terminations rather than a concern for the woman’s well-being or freedom to choose

As a pro choice lifelong disabled woman it’s a really difficult one for me.

Absolutely it’s a woman’s decision for any reason. I will stand by that even if it’s something I may not personally have chosen to do.

I also understand the argument from disability campaigners who fear it is a form of eugenics. The idea of getting rid of unwanted conditions because it makes life easier for the parents and the presumption that living with a disability is awful and something to try to change is for many hurtful and unthinkable. I’m not sure it would ever change my mind on pro-choice but I do see how hurtful it is to know people feel I’d rather have been aborted than given my chance to exist.

Because in extreme cases of disability and deformity, it is incompatible with life, or it becomes clear that if the child is born, it wont have a good quality of life by most standards and will have excessive suffering instead. Its a kindness in some cases more than the cruelty or heartlessness its sometimes painted as. We can all usually identify when an animal is suffering in this way or feel sad at how we let elderly people suffer, and yet would guilt trip mothers into sacrificing themselves.

I have a disabilty, my children all have disabilities. I know there are some things I would have terminated for, and things I wouldnt, but others would.
Ultimately, I think its up to the woman herself.

The way the world is going, i really dont understand why people would want to concentrate on the plight of unborn foetuses.

I was told there was a 1 in 5 chance that our child would have DS. We declined amnio and started to do our homework as to what that might mean. At no time did I feel ANY pressure, from family or from the medical profession, to consider terminating that pregnancy.

They dont think you should have been aborted though surely?
Majority of people would hopefully have considered your mothers right to decide to birth you or not, but once the child is here, you have as much right as anyone.
Before youre born, youre part of your mother.
I would likely have aborted for DS for example but that doesnt mean I think others should, or that there shouldnt be excellent provisions for disabled people.
People who deny the severity and huge difficulties faced by the disabled and their families, is either dishonest or stupid or both.

I am pro choice but I believe there has to be firm time limits. I can't get my head around aborting a 40 week foetus. Imo it seems dangerously close to murder

Some people seem to think a woman terminating a disabled fetus is casting an aspersion on the value of other, living disabled children. She isn’t. She’s saying for me, right here right now, this isn’t the right decision. Not that disabled people don’t have a right to life, or that other women should terminate. I terminated as a teenager. Does that mean I think all teenagers should terminate, or that all children born to teenage mums are lower in value than others? Of course not.

People who deny the severity and huge difficulties faced by the disabled and their families, is either dishonest or stupid or both

This is the crux of it.

Way to pick up on one single sentence.

You missed the absolutely pro choice bits completely to focus on the fact that it’s possible to understand the other side of the argument without actually supporting it.

I have been told many times in my life if someone had a child with my disability theyd abort. That isn’t pleasant to hear but as I mentioned quite a few times, the decision is ultimately the mothers regardless of how disability activists might feel about it.

it never hurts to understand the opposing side though does it? Empathy doesn’t hurt

Not as surprised as I was! This was a young GP with clearly strong views, who tried to influence my decision. I was an older woman with the skills to understand the issues - others may have just accepted her "expert" view.

My niece had to have a late abortion due to a condition incompatible with life. Very different scenario.

What’s the difference, in practice, between performing a term limit abortion and then a C section under GA and just performing the C section and taking the baby away for a closed adoption?

Pressure from friends/family/partner to "just keep it" and the knowledge that people will judge you for going down the adoption route alongside promises from family and friends that they will help you (which fade away to nothing within a few months).

Social Services don't do "from birth" adoptions because the woman has to have the opportunity to think it over and change her mind (which is where my point above becomes relevant).

There are already 80,000 children in care in the UK and there are only approximately 3500 adoptions per year. Adding these hypothetical babies into the mix will increase the numbers in care but will not necessarily increase the number of adoptions because a, there is a shortage of prospective adopters as not everyone wants to adopt or is suitable to adopt and b, not everyone is willing or suitable to take on the care of a disabled child. They can't stay with foster families because there is a shortage of those too so would end up in care homes, babies and infants don't tend to do well in care homes.

There then becomes more societal pressure to "just keep it" because otherwise you're more than likely condemning the hypothetical baby to a life in a care home and all that this entails.

Then let's not get into the affect closed adoption has on the adoptee in terms of understanding their history and identity.

The discourse around abortion should be this:

1. Trusting women to make the best decision for their own bodies, and their own families, with the input from partners/doctors/close family as needed by the woman herself.
2. Society then placing high value on supporting these women in raising children, disabled or no, to ensure the rising generation is wanted and welcomed, healthy and happy, well educated and financially secure.

In the UK, we are much, much closer to #1 than #2, but both need to work in conjunction with each other in order to ensure a secure future for all children.

Until we have both #1 and #2, women's autonomy will continue to be used for political point scoring.

It doesn't, because late term abortions for non medical reasons aren't legal.

There does seem to be an underlying agenda.

To limit the current abortion laws.

So you have a programme with presenters have disabilities who are living fulfilling lives putting out their case.

The first step would be to limit abortions for pregnancies with health conditions and then the next would be to lower the age limit from 24 weeks.

You never see programmes showing parents who have children with very severe disabilities who are struggling, have had to give up their jobs and now need to provide 24 hours care. Parents who wish they had not been put in this situation. No parent would go onto TV and say I wish I had aborted my child.

No parent would say my severely disabled child has no quality of life and now the lives of my other children are ruined. My healthy children are traumatized, they get no time from me, the stress of caring for my child broke down my marriage and I'm having to live on the limited support offered by this government. I'm depressed and not coping. I wish I had never had my child.

No parent would go on TV and broadcast that to the world.

This will never be the picture painted in these kinds of programmes. It will always be accomplished people, the people will be able to live a mostly active life, and as the case here even have won some Olympic medals.