To be glad that the Down Syndrome abortion appeal was defeated

[Fififafa]

A woman with DS has twice tried and failed to get the courts to outlaw abortion beyond 24 weeks for foetuses with DS. Under current legislation for England, Wales and Scotland, there is a 24-week time limit for abortion, unless "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", which includes Down's syndrome.
I read that she has is being supported by some religious group.

I’m glad that the appeal was lost. This is a personal decision that every woman has the choice and the right to make. What Heidi Crowter et al are doing, is fighting to remove that choice from women. AIBU?

I am glad to see this ruling.

The rights of the unborn should never come before the rights of the living.

When my daughter was born it turns out she had several bones break and reset during pregnancy.

She has multiple breaks and fractures as I birthed her.

She couldn't breathe.

She spent her whole short life laid there with a tube down her throat to breathe for her. A feeding tube in her nose. In pain constantly.

She had daily, sometimes hourly, painful tests, which she couldn't be medicated too much for because she was a newborn baby.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with her brain, she was alert and aware.

Your simplistic cut off point could have left me with no choice in my next pregnancy (when I found out my dds condition could potentially be genetic at 6 months) to put another baby through the torture my dd went through, which is just horrific.

You can't support some things through "tax and compassion" and to state such a thing on a thread like this just makes you sound a stupid and naive, at best.

Completely agree.

OP, YANBU

True. But then why are there few families choosing to adopt disabled children. I think some posters live in their own comfortable bubbles and have no idea about the lives some people live. About the poverty, the lack of help parents with disabled kids get, the appalling care disabled adults get. We all think of beautiful little babies but I certainly don’t see a queue of people at the county council offering respite care for those families with disabled children.

Hopefully people aborting for DS so late will get rarer and rarer as more people are able to take NIPT pre-natal screening earlier. The old combined test is so flawed that it does lead to people having no clue their baby might have certain conditions, such as Downs Syndrome, until the 20 week scan - and even then obviously it can be missed.
Technology will help us reduce the rate of late term abortions not legislation led by Christian lobbies..

Unnecessarily unpleasant. How am I supposed to know? Never had to make a difficult choice like this. As far as I was aware, a foetus would not be viable at an early stage so would not survive removal from the womb-obviously, I am aware of the pill and D&C type procedures.

Absolutely - it'll naturally decrease as technology improves.
Maybe that's where all this energy and money should be exerted instead.

I wonder who is advocating for Heid in all this? who is letting her live her life and have fun, doing things she wants to do?

sorry - are you on glue?

1. its not a child
2. its not your uterus
3. its non of your fucking business

It isn't just Down syndrome though is it? It isn't just learning difficulties either.

It covers a lot of conditions including some absolutely devastating defects that aren't compatible with life.

Google holoprosencephaly or cyclopia or treacher Collins syndrome. They're only the ones that I can recall the names offhand. It's about so much more than Down syndrome.

KitchiHuritAngeni for you and your daughter.

That's the thing about pro-lifers, although they try to claim they're all about the "rights of an unborn child", they've absolutely no intrest the actual welfayre or wellbeing babies / children.

It's all about controlling women.

This.
I have two DC and a DH with a disability. It is not severe and still restricts and makes our lives harder in ways I had not anticipated.

The way to fix that is to remove the 24 week limit for everyone.

i stand by what I say. You do not suddenly find out at 7 months that something is seriously wrong with the foetus. 6 months is plenty of time. Plenty of babies are actually born at 6 months.

fuck me, stop digging. You absolutely might find out at 7 months that something is seriously wrong.

Yup.
I'm happy with that.

That's the thing about pro-lifers, although they try to claim they're all about the "rights of an unborn child", they've absolutely no intrest the actual welfayre or wellbeing babies / children.

This.

Otherwise they'd choose to adopt children who already exist rather than trying to conceive.

@CoastalWave you really have no idea how things work in the NHS, do you?

A good friend of mine was pregnant with a much wanted second child. Her anomaly scan was delayed to 22 weeks due to NHS pressures. At 22 weeks, anomalies were found, but these were not clear cut so a CVS was needed. This could not be done until almost 25 weeks. It confirmed the devastating news that her baby had a condition incompatible with life. The abortion took place at 26 weeks.

Do you get it now?

No, you probably don't - because you've also reverted to the 'well, they should just use sufficient contraception then' trope. I know 3 people who were using double contraception and nevertheless fell pregnant. They kept the babies, but that was their choice.

You're one of the forced birth brigade. Just own it.

The way to fix that is to remove the 24 week limit for everyone.

absolutely agree. That won't shut the forced birthers up though

ive seen many friends of mine use abortion like a form of contraception and to be honest a lot of the time because they don’t feel able to tell a man to wear a condom, and no man I’ve ever met insists on one.

This line is trotted out continually but it's just not true. Getting an abortion isn't a case of just walking into a clinic whenever you fancy. You try and book as soon as possible and may be waiting for a couple of week. You'll be invited in for a scan, then you'll be invited back again to discuss your options or have a telephone consultation. Then you'll be given pill which cause extreme cramps and bleeding. Plus also commonly headaches, diarrhea, fevers & chills. And that's just a medical abortion.

Women do not use abortions as a form of contraception - and quite frankly even if they did, what would it matter to you?

@CoastalWave

I hope you read back some of the posts from women who had to make heartbreaking decisions at the time you've just mentioned, and later, and feel fucking ashamed of yourself.

Reporting your post now. Disgusting.

At least there is so common sense in the UK, unlike Poland where you can't proceed with termination for pregnancies with DS.

I don’t think people realise how difficult it is to actually get a late termination. I fell pregnant with a 4th baby just before I was 40. I was on the depo shot and had been for several months. In addition to this I had something called a subchronic heamatoma which causes substantial heavy bleeding that can last weeks or in my case, months.

For all the above reasons my doctor nor I even entertained the possibility of pregnancy. I was just past 21 weeks when I found out. I already had 3 children, was just about to start a new well paying career that would have supported my family. I couldn’t cope financially, emotionally or physically with another baby. But it turns out very few providers actually perform abortions so late and the ones that do have a waiting list which took me past the time limit.

I had a forced birth. It’s horrendous, barbaric and destroyed my life in so many ways despite the fact I love that child every bit as much as the other 3. And society as a whole pays as we can’t afford four children without some state help, especially as I wasn’t able to step into the career I had planned as a result.

If parents are expected to be responsible for their children after birth, then abortion should be provided as early as possible, as late as necessary for ANY reason. Nobody should be forced to look after a child they cannot provide for.