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?

Thank you 💞 I so appreciate your kindness. I really don't deserve any admiration.

It was hell. It is hell. And a hell that people judge you for. Openly. I want to fall apart a lot of the time. It's made me incredibly fearful of losing my living child because I know I couldn't survive the grief. I go to bed most nights and think to myself "it's better just having one because if he dies, I can kill myself knowing there's nobody else who needs me to live for them." That's what TFMR does to you.

And these sickos think we're just merrily murdering our darling babies. It blows my mind to think how naive, selfish and blinkered they must be.

And you know that late it's not an abortion? It's an induced labour. You have to give birth to your baby.

This happened to a colleague of mine. Her baby was anencephalic - missing part of the skull and brain. S/he had no chance of survival, but my colleague had to go through labour, and was in a ward full of heavily pregnant women, and saw others with their tiny newborns. It was horrific for her.

This was 40 years ago - I hope that they have more consideration for mothers who have to endure this dreadful procedure nowadays.

Imagine the pain and distress of going through an agonising labour, knowing that you will not have the joy of a baby at the end of it. Absolutely dreadful.

@SnotRag22 you absolutely do deserve admiration for speaking truth to the ignorance of the forced birthers on this thread. They need to hear it - maybe one of them will even listen at some point.

There are no words. I can't even begin to imagine your pain.

People forget that almost every child is wanted, eagerly awaited, longed for - and that to have to accept that the best thing for your baby is to let him/her go, painlessly and as gently as possibly (for the infant), tears your heart into pieces.

@SnotRag22 I couldn't agree more. The groups behind HC are manipulating her but we mustn't fall into the trap of infantilising her either - she clearly doesn't want that! Not when so much is on the line.

@Whalesong people aren't coming after your friends children. Clearly they are people and have rights. We are taking about foetuses. What the law says is, if a woman feels unable to commit to the level of care a disabled child may require (because let's face it, still in our society the majority of care falls on the mother), they have the right not to chose that for themselves. Or if a child wouldn't survive outside the womb or would only know a life of suffering. They can terminate the pregnancy outside the 24 week limit, currently imposed.

And be under no doubt, if HC and her backers had succeeded in this, they would continue to chip away, until women had no body autonomy at all.

Absolutely this.

Unless those people have been sat in a room and told "there is nothing we can do for him and what life he will have will likely be over in a matter of hours", then they really have no idea of the hell anyone having to make that decision goes through. There are no words to describe the emotional turmoil you feel before, during and after the TFMR.
My son would have been in late 30's by now if things had panned out differently. Sometimes I imagine the man he may have been, but not often as it's so very hard to think about it, even after all this time.

👏🏼 All of you have been so brave to share your stories, thank you. Please never allow a forced birther to make you feel guilty

Hear, hear @Butitsnotfunnyisititsserious

Hear.

Hear.

What about if you already have a child with disabilities that needs a lot of support? I always wanted two children, but for various reasons that didn't happen. DS is probably ASD, if I found myself pregnant now I would have an abortion as DS takes up so much of my time and energy. Life isn't always straightforward.

Heidi Crowter needs to STFU and mind her own business.

No one is making her have an abortion. She might feel sad that other women make decisions about their own lives and bodies that she doesn't agree with. It it is still none of her business.

YANBU. Down Syndrome is often not detected until late into the pregnancy, and the people who want late abortions outlawed aren’t going to adopt any of the thousands who end up in Care.

Yep. She such a narcissist. ME ME ME. She should mind her own business, it is not her decision to make, it is the woman who is having the child. She’s continuing with this fight. How exactly is she affording this? Is she being funded by an anti choice group? These kind of legal battles cost hundreds of thousands of pounds.

For reference also, according to various sources there are approximately 750 children with DS born in the UK each year so the whole "women are aborting 40wk pregnancies because of DS!" thing is a red herring. More women keep their baby than abort it and this further shows that those who do choose to abort are doing so for compelling reasons (reasons which have nothing to do with anyone else).

@Miss03852 Heidi Crowter's family are evangelical Christians. Their movement is funded and supported by the powerful US anti abortion lobby. She's a willing figurehead.

Are you sure they aren’t just Christian’s? I’m sure there American backers and financiers are Evangelicals but it’s rare for someone British to be an Evangelical Christian

What makes you say that? There are plenty of Evangelicals in the UK. They're a powerful wing in the C of E. Heidi Crowter is aligned with Christian Concern - this is not a mainstream organisation, they are extreme.

It really isn't.

Evangelical Christians are pretty common, ime.

I have two friends who have had three abortion each and in every single case they didn’t have the ability to ask partners to use condoms. That’s a big issue which I don’t necessarily blame them for but it’s very wrong to me that men won’t wear condoms. Just because you don’t like what I’m saying doesn’t make it untrue. I don’t feel abortion should be used as contraception.

What would you have preferred to happen for your two friends in those cases?

If you were in charge, what would have happened when they sought to terminate those pregnancies that they were coerced into?

@mummylondon16 so those were coercive relationships then. Which makes abortion by far the best option, because children should not be brought into coercive relationships. This is exactly what abortion is FOR.

Well first off, abortion isn't a contraception purely by definition. Contraception is the act of preventing a pregnancy from occurring.

Thankfully we live in a country where abortion is a safe back-up option for when an unwanted pregnancy has occurred so that women aren't forced to continue that pregnancy (and here's hoping this access is extended to all women in the UK).

It also doesn't matter whether or not you like people have repeat abortions or whether you feel it shouldn't be allowed in certain circumstances.

Know why?

Because its None. Of. Your. Business.

Mind the contents of your own uterus and your own medical choices, leave other women to mind theirs.

Ain't no hate like Christian love.

I do think HC is vulnerable and, to an extent, a victim in all this. The trusted adults around her have brought her up to believe her life is not valued, that society would prefer it if she, and people like her, had been 'screened out' and aborted.

It's worth remembering that HC is not the only appellant in this case. The other is Maire Lea-Wilson who does not have DS. Technically the other appellant is her son, Aidan, who does have DS. Maire is Aidan's 'litigation friend'. But Aidan is an infant, far too young to have an opinion on the issues in this case.