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’.

Because the campaigners say this is specifically about discrimination within the law (although I suspect that’s not the full story). So then they would have it wouldn’t they?

I also think the debate is presented in a misleading way, very often. There was a high-profile case a few years back where someone was going on about how termination for a cleft palate was allowed, and this was terrible as a happy adult who’d been born with a cleft palate. On the face of it, this was verging on a reasonable argument. However, when you look into it, cleft palate picked up on a scan is rarely ‘just’ a cleft palate, I believe, and is more likely to be one indication among others of serious problems, many incompatible with life. Similarly, deafness picked up in utero could be ‘just’ deafness, or it could be one indication that something is very seriously wrong.

I have a disability (dyspraxia) and I am absolutely pro choice. My disability cannot be picked up on any scan but I am at the less affected end of the scale. I am married, have in the past had a full time job (thank you covid) and own a property. I occasionally trip over my own feet or slitter food and drink. At the other end of the scale because is affects amongst other things both fine and gross motor skills and coordination people at the other end of the scale struggle to stand up, walk and write.

@unicormb There is something weird to me about a bunch of people declaring another group inferior, less able, less worthy. Even the word 'disabled' is strange to me, with its assumption that there is one right way to be.

Who said they’re inferior?

I’d be happy for them to screen for everything if they could and it would then still be the womens right as to if she continues that pregnancy. It’s her body and the majority of the time it would be her giving up work or taking on any extra burden that having a disabled child would bring. Be that the extra hospital appointments, learning sign language, translation for those who don’t, time off though school exclusions, never getting any respite from a child who frowns into a very much stronger than them adult who cannot live alone but isn’t given a care place. Mothers who are looked down upon if they do place the same children into those fully funded care places with excellent staff.

it’s never men is it and it’s always women judging those women who go no I can’t do that.

The more we abort for disability, the less normal it will be for children and adults with disabilities to exist. Fewer provisions will be offered and reasonable adjustments will be made less often because there is so little demand. This will increase the pressure to have further terminations because there is so little in place. With there being so little in place to help and disability less common in society, it will be harder for women who wish to carry to justify keeping disabled babies to their families and doctors. If it goes on, we will have taken part in an exercise in eugenics while thinking we were focusing on women's rights.

So many reproductive choices threads end in posters being told they've no business to consider having their baby in adverse circumstances as it is - this does not constitute choice for me. I cannot imagine the hurdles those posters would have them jump through to justify having a disabled child. And yet they shouldn't have to do anything of the sort in a truly civilised society.

For feminists who only consider women it may be ok to have different rules for disabilities, even when the child couldn't have lived a fine life without hearing, with DS or with a cleft palate. It's not for me. I am as uncomfortable with a society where no one knows what DS is because those babies were all aborted as I am with a society where women aren't offered an intervention for DS after 24 weeks. It's not forced birth. Birth of some description (and who would really find it easier to deliver a dismembered late term baby) is inescapable at that point. Doctors are not fairy godmothers who can wave a wand.

could

I agree. I have a friend who’s daughter has downs and is close in age to me.

he’s very pro life because he sees abortion for downs as his daughter being murdered but he’s also massively worried (he’s 55) at his daughter getting dementia. She still lives at home. Still needs a lot of support in her 30s

he’s lucky, really lucky, that even with the mentality of an 8-10 yo his daughter is a very very gentle being.

we talked about living wills recently and how I have it written that if I get dementia or any other issues that limits my cognitive ability significantly and is incurable and progressive I don’t want treatment for cancer, palliative care only. Or antibiotics to treat sepsis or pneumonia. I must be allowed to die.

it struck me his daughter doesn’t have that choice. She’s never had capacity to make that choice nor can she comprehend what dementia is. The majority if not all downs children do not have that capacity.

my own DC has a chromosome deletion, needs a lot of supervision despite being ‘normal’ because they behave in a risky way. Poss adhd and asd going on.

im not having any more children be ause my risk of another child with genetic issues could be high but I do want them and if I did get pregnant o would be having the whole battery of tests and would abort if I felt it necessary. I know my limits and they’re very low these days. I’m old and tired.

being a parent carer to a child with significant needs is a multifaceted long term grief and can leave families broken.

grief for the child you thought you’d have and grief for the child who isn’t capable of living the experience you’ve had. It’s the hard side of it no one wants to talk about and it all exists in such starkly different ways for different people. Try to talk about it and you’re told by those without kids you’re ‘lucky to have one’ fuck off. I’ve lost kids too. They’re very different pains.

my child isn’t ‘normal’ and isn’t having ‘normal’ experiences like their peers but I’m still incredibly lucky my DC should be able to live independently, just a bit later than most (though house prices and rent my DC for once might actually be ‘normal’)

A child with disabilities isn't a group. He or she is an individual, as is the pregnant woman who is also the most statistically likely individual responsible for cobblimg together scant and ever changing resources in order to support to provide a good quality of life for this child against a backdrop of a multitude of confounding responsibilities that might make that impossible.

Because those two situations are not equivalent. A teenage mother may find life as a parent more difficult ( or with the right support and circumstances, she may be perfectly okay - and so may her child). A severely disabled child which may or may not survive into a severely disabled adult has very serious impacts on the family and on other children within the family. Many grow up to have difficult and frustrating lives.

DS campaigners always seem to feature the more high functioning members, well, of course, they would. The doubly incontinent, non verbal do not feature, nor those who probably suffer even more, those who have enough awareness to know how limited their lives are . And yes, I do know what I am talking about first hand, although thankfully not as a parent.

For all of those saying that rejecting difference isn't acceptable, and that people with a disability are a blessing, from what basis have you made that decision?

Let me tell you about my son. He's 9. I love him to bits. He has an x linked, familial dominant syndrome that has almost full penetrance. In layman's terms that means that if you're a boy born into my family, you are almost certainly going to have the family syndrome. We just don't know what it is yet.
He might be 9 but cognitively he is much younger. Imagine a 9 year old toddler because that's effectively what he is. Toddler mentality with the size and strength of a 9 year old. It's an interesting mix. Before I had him I had no idea what the acronyms DLA/HRC/ASD/SEMH/EHCP/VCB/CPVA/ISP/MLD and lots more besides meant. All of those apply to him now.
His care is constant. He cannot be left alone for a second. Things like drinking out of the toilet, eating soap and soil, attempting to jump out of second floor windows, releasing his seatbelt in moving vehicles, running away, tantrums and meltdowns are all commonplace in my house. I live in fort knox. All my upstairs windows have restrictors on them. All my downstairs windows are locked. I have door alarms on my front and back door. I've already ended up in A and E once this summer as a direct result of my son's actions. My mental health is absolutely wrecked and I live day-day. I haven't worked since I was 20 weeks pregnant with him. I can't work. The amount of time I spend on dealing with his needs is well in excess of a full time job.

And there is absolutely no support whatsoever if you have a disabled child with complex needs. Respite. Doesn't exist. Carers. I've been advertising without success for 2 years. He's in an independent specialist school costing my local authority in the region of £125k per annum because there was nothing suitable in my county for him. Disability benefits are absolutely shocking as well. Before I had my son I was earning on average 32k per annum. Now I no longer work, my wages are paid by the government in the form of carer's allowance. It works out at 41p per HOUR. Fwiw if you are recruiting private carers for a disabled child, the going rate in my area is around £20 per hour.

I am by no means the only person in this situation. Its a scenario borne out by many, many parent carers caring for disabled children that I know of and also nationally.

As for my attitude on abortion because of disability, I believe that everyone has the right to make the decision that is right for them and their family. No-one has the right to say what anyone else should or shouldn't be doing. A lot of the campaigns doing the rounds at the moment about abortion on the grounds of disability have (in my opinion) a completely unrealistic view of what it's actually like to be the parent of a disabled child.

*Who said they're inferior?"

It's pretty obvious that this is a deeply held belief. It is apparently vital that society retain the right to use medical advances to kill them while other babies enjoy protection from those medical 'treatments'. That kind of eugenics doesn't exist without an underlying philosophical position that death for a child like this is a lesser thing, and correspondingly, that their life is less valuable. It's unnecessary. We will never get far in women's rights by trampling on the rights of vulnerable others - it doesn't build the kind of logic that leads to a fairer society.

A child with disabilities requires a greater quantity and quality of care. It is sheer ignorance and bad faith to suggest otherwise. Some women and families can take on this responsibilities and others know they would fall short of the demand. Only you have said inferior. It is a slight of hand that suits a pro-life narrative.

It seems to me that reducing the time limit for abortion to bring parity between TFMR and 'choice' terminations is likely to result in more TFMR than not.

The time limits have already been set out above but if you effectively have 3 days to decide whether you are able to parent a child with a pre-natal diagnosis with no idea as to severity and limited time to get counselling and talk to people with experience of the condition, or have a termination within a very tight timescale 99% of people will terminate.

Babies born with known pre-natal disabilities will be limited to the much smaller number who have no pre-natal screening.

Personally, I wouldn’t want to change the law just to appease these campaigners. And while I realise they can no longer claim discrimination, that’s not really what they are after is it.

I trust the women whose body is continuous with the fetus to make that decision. I doubt there would be a queue of women going through 8 months of pregnancy and then requesting abortion without truely exceptional reason, and I trust women to determine their own truely exceptional reasons.

The legal framework already exists in the form of the Mental Capacity Act, Mental health Act and Gilleck competancy to ensure that vulnerable women are protected from themselves and from others who my have suprious motives. Therefore I think any women outside of these parameters are capable of making the best decision for their body and their fetus.

And why would you even thing that you'd need to ring its neck FFS, you provide the mother with drugs that peacefully stops the fetuses circulation.

I agree. I think our focus should be ensuring living disabled people are treated with value, respect and good quality care.

I don’t for a second hold the belief that people with disabilities are in any way inferior. My Ds is the most wonderful person I know but that doesn’t mean it’s not hard for both of us and it has a massive impact on everything.

just because personally it’s not a decision I think i would make in most cases though doesn’t mean I don’t understand why for many they decide for whatever reason it is better all around. That is personal choice which will be based on a myriad of different complex factors.

So if a woman who already has a severely disabled child (let’s say profound autism and non verbal) becomes pregnant, and the birth of another disabled baby would severely compromise her ability to care for child number 1, so she decides upon termination, that’s eugenics?

My Aunt and Uncle are in a similar position to you but 40+ years on. They are both in their late 70s now, with the knowledge that they will not live for ever, and that my Cousin will likely outlive them.

My Aunt aborted her next pregnancy after my disabled cousin due to some concerns and her absolute belief that this was the right thing to do as it was not worth the risk of a similar outcome. She is vocally pro choice.

The correct term for describing prejudice against disabled people is ableism. Not disableism. And disabled isn't a dirty word, a lot of disabled people are perfectly happy with it.

I’m so sorry for the appalling way you are treated as your son’s carer, and for the shocking lack of provision for him. I agree with every word you say.

I’m disabled, I’m on several medications and wouldn’t survive for long without them. I’m in some form of pain most days, my sleep is disturbed, there’s a lot of things I can’t do or that require an inordinate amount of ‘forward planning’. If I could ‘screen out’ my illness I absolutely would because it’s debilitating, exhausting and some days I cry. It’s not ‘me’, it’s an unwelcome intruder in my life.

I know a family friend who had a safeguarding raised against her her daughter is in her 40s with DS and has dementia. Family friend was giving her lots of Lorazepam as family friend is is in her 70s and her DD was becoming violent. It's easy for people to judge but when offered no support and early support isn't given. Her DD was sectioned under the MHA and will probably spend the rest of her days in a institution could have been prevented if better support and early intervention given.