Disability/abortion debate in UK

[Bretontops]

www.itv.com/news/meridian/2022-11-04/teenager-with-downs-syndrome-meets-rishi-sunak-over-abortion-laws

This cause went to the High Court and was rejected, so why is Rishi meeting with her?

I’m getting irritated with this ‘pressure group’ who basically want to ensure more babies with disabilities are born by stealth, by taking choice away from women. I’m also dubious about how many of these disabled people are truly advocating for themselves and how many have been ‘encouraged’ to do so by pro life parents.

In some cases the parents had the screening but slipped through the net - so they didn’t make an active decision to parent a disabled child, but now expect others to do so, to affirm their circumstances presumably?

Prepared to be told AIBU, but I feel we should be able to discuss it as it’s potentially our rights they want to restrict.

There are so many strawmen (straw pregnant women?) on this thread it's worth looking at the actual law in the UK as it currently stands.

The Offences Against The Person Act 1861 outlaws abortion. The penalty for both the woman and the person performing the abortion is penal servitude for life.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Vict/24-25/100/contents
(see S.58, S.59)

The Abortion Act 1967 creates a set of exceptions to the above law. It says:

'a person shall not be guilty of an offence under the law relating to abortion when a pregnancy is terminated by a registered medical practitioner if two registered medical practitioners are of the opinion, formed in good faith ...'

... and then it lists the specific exceptions. To summarise:

1. Before 24 weeks, that the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated, of injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman or any existing children of her family

2. At any gestation, that the termination is necessary to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman

3. At any gestation, that the continuance of the pregnancy would involve risk to the life of the pregnant woman, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated

4. At any gestation, that there is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped.

For any of these conditions to be valid exceptions to the law which criminalises abortion, two registered medical practitioners must be of the same opinion, formed in good faith.

There is one additional exception that does not require the agreement of two doctors in a case where one doctor is of the opinion, formed in good faith, that the termination is immediately necessary to save the life or to prevent grave permanent injury to the physical or mental health of the pregnant woman.

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1967/87/section/1

We do not have abortion on demand in the UK.
We do not have a right to abortion. We are permitted one if two doctors agree.
There is no legal sex selective abortion.
There is no legal late abortion just because.
Partial birth abortion is made up anti-choice propaganda.

I think abortion law in the UK works reasonably well, certainly compared with most other countries. Despite the noisiness of this disingenuous group of 'disability rights activists' I don't think the law is particularly under threat because it's primary legislation, not case law as was the situation in the US when Roe V Wade fell. Also because we do not have a large, organised, religious right wing in this country and votes on amendments to abortion law have always been free votes.

But as long as there is a time limit, and as long as there is a specific set of conditions, these can be chipped away at, through private members' bills or through the courts.

I like the sound of NZ abortion law. It seems very sensible to me and much less vulnerable to attack.

Ugh I wish MN would fix the stupid list feature or just turn it off.

The people who are currently attempting to criminalise abortion past 24 weeks in the case of disability are exactly the same people who have been campaigning against early testing for trisomies for quite a few years now.

https://dontscreenusout.org/

Like many other conditions, DS is a spectrum. A simple diagnosis, or probability of diagnosis, from a blood test at 12 weeks, is not enough to determine the extent of the foetus's likely disability. It's not unreasonable for women to want to wait until 20 weeks to get a better idea of the prognosis for their baby before they make a decision. Even then of course there are no guarantees.

But limiting abortion to 24 weeks for some or all conditions will likely result in more abortions for DS because the option of waiting for more info about their specific baby's health will be taken away. I wouldn't take that risk. (OK, women theoretically would have 4 weeks between scan and time limit but that depends on everything happening on time and even then it doesn't leave enough time for further investigations).

There should be no list of conditions. Abortion should be a clinical decision made on an individual basis between a woman and her doctor.

Oh fuck! Yeah I did - I am not a forced pregnancy zelot!

And the families you sometimes get in magazines where they have 18 kids because they wanted a girl and the first 17 were boys isn't?

You are basically saying to the younger kids at least, you are only alive because I wanted your sister not you.

@LangClegsInSpace

I find that campaign sinister, they actually want more babies with disabilities to be born, I don't know any other support group that are campaigning for that.

I think abortion law is exactly right in the UK.

I think it’s quite clear the campaigners are simply anti choice.

If they actually cared about the issue, they would be campaigning to improve services for those with disabilities or with disabled children. They want to force more women to give birth to children they don’t want, not giving a shit about the quality of life any of the people involved will have.

The families who are campaigning are usually in a privileged position where their/their childs disabilities has been well managed. Either due to their finances or severity of disability. They clearly don’t care that many families may end up trapped in poverty, not have access to support and treatments and therapies and respite care in or out of the home. They don’t care about the quality of life of the person with the disability. Not everyone has the capacity or resources to provide the care someone needs.

You only need to read the boards here where women are trapped in bad or, even, abusive marriages and can’t leave because their children are disabled and they haven’t been able to work. Because there’s no outside support available. School places that are suitable aren’t available. Support caters aren’t available.

There’s not enough support or help for people with disabilities or with children who have disabilities. Why are they not thinking ‘Actually, if society had plenty of easily available support for those with disabilities, and who care for those with disabilities, many people may actually choose to proceed with their pregnancy and the children that are born (and their families) would have a much better quality of life’

Because it’s not about disability discrimination. It’s about reducing abortion rights.

And yes, many use their disabled children as a shield to avoid being robustly challenged.

A cleft lip and palate can be really very severe, such as this case from Thailand (graphic photos)
www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/doctors-remove-eyes-baby-girl-9326889.amp

They are also very often associated with foetuses that have other problems too, and sometimes any one health problem would be reasonably resolvable in isolation, but several put together start to interact, compound and ultimately signify a syndrome of some variety.

I very much doubt you'd find a doctor willing to abort after 24 weeks for a relatively mild cleft lip and no other abnormalities.

I'm pro life but don't think it's right to bring a baby into the world who will suffer and die shortly after birth. Obviously not good for the child and the parents.

No you are pro choice, just in limited circumstances.

If you are truly in the 'prolife' camp then you would object to the treatment of ectopic pregnancy, the morning after pill and the coil.

We have declined any screening for genetic abnormalities in both pregnancies. However, I was alwys very relieved that the 20 weeks scan did show us an all clear.

I am not against the screening or the offer of an abortion, I am more pro awareness what choices the screening will give you and I'm pretty sure many people never thought about what they would do in case of a concerning result.
And the awareness that a lot of disabilities will present themselves later in life/cannot be screened for in utero.

It is a very difficult discussion.

But you must understand that now every DS child thrives? And medics cannot pretend everyone is going to be like your friend’s child - they have an obligation to give parents the absolute facts. People are adults, why do they want to be lied to?

What do you mean?

Well in societies where a woman can abort for any reason it’s worked out incredibly well as that means a woman doesn’t have a baby she doesn’t want and literally nobody else is affected. I have no idea who has and hasn’t had abortions - and I NEVER need to know because it doesn’t affect me.

Do you think it’s worked out badly for societies that women get to do things that are nobody else’s business?

That’s a by prodigy t of rampant sei sim and there is no reason for the rest of the world to suffer the impact of that by reducing abortion rights

Surrogacy involves using another woman’s body. Abortion literally only affects the woman having the abortion.

Its like comparing apples with oranges

That should say a by product of rampant sexism

Perfect post. I completely agree with everything you say.

Your DS sounds adorable.

❤️

This is an excellent post and summarises my feelings also, absolutely spot on!

I will never, ever debate mine or my daughter’s right to our OWN bodily autonomy.

You shouldn’t read a load of crap then.

Re the (imaginary) scenario where a woman aborts a term pregnancy because of gender: it makes me feel uncomfortable and I very much wouldn’t make that choice.

However I’m not arrogant enough to think I’m judge and jury of what’s right and wrong so have no interest in restricting abortion for the reason because it just opens the door to be subjective about what is a ‘wrong’ reason for abortion. And before you know it, abortion is unavailable altogether

And apples and oranges are both fruit. Surrogacy and abortion still involve consent of a pregnant woman regardless if the woman is raising the baby or not. A woman’s body is still the centre of it all.

OK, it’s like comparing oranges and bicycles.

Surrogacy is using someone else’s body. The abortion only involves one person and THEIR decision only has an impact on THEM.

It’s interesting isn’t it how these groups aren’t advocating for better lifelong care and provision for disabled children. They aren’t fighting to make it so much easier to have a disabled child, and you can say “Would you struggle to cope? Fear not - we have a world class infrastructure, with a commitment to the next 200 years, so your struggles are kept to an absolute minimum and that’s guaranteed”. We have nothing like that now - but that’s not what these groups are fighting for. They just want to damage women.

Parenting a severely disabled child is fucking HARD. I love my son more than anything but I would not choose to have another child with additional needs. Or at all tbh.