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?

Did you not read the part where I said I think it’s my opinion!

And you’ll never find evidence of crab mentality as it’s not something people admit even to themselves. I’m sure the people you know cope well but a lot struggle and are unhappy, most people would not choose to be in that situation, and I question people who know how difficult it is trying desperately to force others into that situation involuntarily.

@JustAnotherManicMomday how many disabled children have you adopted?

Yet they’re all individuals, whose circumstances are also individual, whose treatment is, you guessed it, individual. Why does it matter what other women around them are doing? Why should X’s decision about her pregnancy have any impact on the care Y receives?

Circumstances are dynamic. They can change. What is feasible at 20 weeks may not be at 26 weeks. Thank fuck women in these horrible situations aren’t subject to your opinions.

Sometimes it's a case of the parent does not want a child with DS and that's not to say the child would not lead a happy life with another family

🤦‍♀️ Yeah because there are queues of people trying to adopt DS kids. And the situation would be 100x worse if this law was to be enacted.

Yep I do not want a child with DS. You are right there. Nor do I believe that there are tons of people wanting to adopt them. So I would rather not bring any into the world. That's my personal choice and has nothing to do with anyone else who is fighting for their child.

@JustAnotherManicMomday nobody aborts at 39 weeks 'just because'. If it happens, it will be because that baby's condition has deteriorated dramatically or the mother's life is now in danger. You're setting up a strawman.

As for 'a woman shouldn't be allowed to change her mind once the diagnosis is known' - that is forced birther crap. A baby's condition can deteriorate dramatically post diagnosis, because diagnosis isn't an exact science and nobody can predict the future. There's also the scenario upthread where family circumstances change. Who would benefit from a forced birth in the scenario set out by @CaveMum ? Nobody.

And yes, there should be separate facilities for mothers who have suffered stillbirths and the like. I agree on that 100%

@JustAnotherManicMomday When you say 'OK' in that sentence, I presume you mean ethically. The answer is that law and ethics are not the same, nor should they be. You can't legislate for 'ethically optimal situations'. It's a) impossible and b) not the purpose of the law.

Sometimes it's a case of the parent does not want a child with DS and that's not to say the child would not lead a happy life with another family

There are currently 2030 children in the UK waiting to be adopted and around 2370 already-approved potential adopters. Why haven't those 2030 been snapped up when the numbers suggest that there is a child for almost all of the potential adopters? It's because most adopters want a baby or toddler. They don't want an older child, a sibling group, or a disabled child.

Furthermore there are currently around 82,000 children in care and around 45,000 foster families. The number of children in care is forecast to reach 100,000 by 2025 and there will be a shortfall of foster placements - 25,000 short to be exact.

Where will these forced-birth disabled babies go?

And that's not even taking into consideration that their birth families did want them. The 274 families esch year who take this decision to end a pregnancy post-24wks are ending a much wanted pregnancy, a potential child who they have already loved, who they have hopes and dreams for, who they were looking forward to meeting and bringing home. They're not suddenly deciding at 24+ weeks that they don't fancy having a baby after all, they're making an incredibly difficult medical decision about what should be done in the best interests of their own health and that of their child.

Also this:

Sometimes it's a case of the parent does not want a child with DS

That is their choice. It is a choice upheld by the law. If they do not want a disabled child, do not feel they can properly care for a disabled child, and feel that having a disabled child would impact on their own wellbeing (as well as that of the child) then that is their choice.

It has nothing whatsoever to do with you.

this thread also shows that a lot of people either don't know or don't want to know what the reality of TMFR is and therefore why the law needs to either stay the same or change to implement equality in the direction Heidi and her people don't want.

@pointythings I'd actually have more time for this campaign if they'd just say what they want, which is to outlaw abortion, and stand by all the implications of that. I always have more time for people with principles, even principles I oppose, than people who fudge and hedge around the less palatable aspects of what they actually believe. I actually had one of my best exchanges on the topic with a Christian who believes in the sanctity of life from conception, because she actually has the courage of her convictions, has thought out what they entail, and still stands by them. I disagree with her, but I respect her far more than the Christians who fudge and hedge and try to get their views in by the back door.

Yes, yes you should. The choice to change their decision should always Remain as circumstances change. And yeah you're right, i don't want a DS child and I would terminate rather than go through the pregnancy. Its not my job to provide babies for other people. The choice for the woman must always be there.

I think if the baby would survive and have a chance at life then shouldn't they be allowed to live

Different people have different views on what constitutes "life" though. The range of "living" is huge, from perfectly able and sustainable without intervention to deaf/blind, hundreds of operations, permanently hooked up to machines. The choice must remain with those who would have to live with those consequences.

BloodAndFire

Thank you. I gave birth to him on Mothers Day of all days. I've had 2 more children since him and I've never been able to bring myself to celebrate mothers day.

I wanted that little boy so very much, I loved him and still do love him, with all my heart. I didnt know him but I miss him everyday. He will be 10 in March and not a single day goes by where I dont wonder what life would of been like with him here

I think people hear abortion and think baby killers. And it's just not like that. Even if woman have an abortion because their not ready for a baby at that time, who are we to judge?

Having to have an abortion was the hardest thing I've ever done. I had to pick his funeral songs with him still kicking inside me. Had to watch his father carry his tiny little white coffin.

And it gave me a lifelong fear of my other children dying. I got PND with each subsequent pregnancy because I was terrified.

Shame on those on this thread judging any woman for any abortion. It's not a decision people take lightly

I assume she was sufficiently strong in her convictions that she also opposes abortion in cases of rape, incest and pregnancy in young girls (which is usually a combination of the first two), and also pregnancies that will lead to the mother's death.

Not sure I could respect such a person really.

I'm so sorry. I don't think the forced birthers care at all about the stories that you and many others have shared on this thread. The pain and torment is absolutely clear, and so is the love for the babies you lost. It was also clearly painful and courageous of you and others to share those stories on here. It's horrendous that anyone, especially other women and mothers, could still make the comments they've made after reading them

DearyMe571 I'm so sorry.

It takes a special kind of cognitive dissonance to be a forced birther - it's all about the bay-beee, and the rest of the world is simply erased from the conversation. Can't get my head around it at all.

I don't know, pointythings. Because even when it's very clear that the baby involved would be suffering, subject to a terrible quality of life, the idea that it should still be brought into the world seems actively cruel, to me.

@ArabellaScott agreed. I just can't wrap my head around that much cruelty wrapped in sanctimonious righteousness.

@BloodAndFire The first two cases, yes she would. Which makes sense in her belief system, because she believes the fetus is a person regardless of how its conception came about - like I said, at least she admits that, and admits its horrible, rather than pro-lifers who dodge around the question. In the case of it killing the mother - I don't know. I don't think we discussed that. Its a good question, because in the Christian fundamentalist view, surely that's two equal people with an equal right to life in direct contradiction to each other. I'll tell you one thing, I don't like the sound of their God very much.

You really haven't a clue have you?

No one is changing their mind for no reason - you get a dx, you decide to keep it, you only then change your mind if something else changes that affects that decision... Like, further information suggesting prognosis much more severe, like life circumstances changing that mean what you could have coped with, you now can't...

So your first scenario, it just isn't happening - people are not deciding to terminate late on a fucking whim. They cannot, you realise there needs to be the agreement of relevant medical people for this to happen, so there is no situation where someone up and says 'ah no, I fancy a termination' and everyone falls into line.

As for 'chance at life' - still no, then you're into quantifying how much life, quality of life... five minutes of agony? ten minutes? a month of being locked in, in pain, unable to communicate with anyone? a year? four years? forty years but only able to roll your eyes and grunt, and everyone you depend on runs about guessing at what you want, think, feel...

Unfortunately, the human body and medical science advances mean it is possible for someone to be alive, and yet have next to no ability to do anything at all, for a very long time - at obviously, enormous expense both financially and emotionally and in terms of hours of care.

So 'alive' and 'surviving' are not indicators in themselves of a life having quality and being worth living.

I agree with you that it's more consistent in those cases - because if you believe the embryo is a sacred entity from the moment sperm meets egg, it doesn't matter if the sperm came from a rapist forcing himself on his 11-year-old daughter. It's still a Magic Sacred Holy Life. I'd like to see her actually put that into practice though - telling a pregnant 11-year-old who's been raped by her father that yes, she does have to carry on being pregnant.

Because pregnancy itself carries a risk of death, giving birth carries a risk of death, and those risks are far, far higher when the pregnant girl is very young. As are the risks of her killing herself either during or after the pregnancy.

Indeed the risk of suicide is higher in any girl or women forced to continue with an unwanted pregnancy, as is the risk of neglect and harm or even death after the child is born.

So your friend's 'consistent' view is not really that consistent at all. And beside that, it's impossibly awful to imagine actually smugly informing a raped child that she has to continue the pregnancy.

I think the reason for the dissonance in the views of other forced birthers is that, even though they are inconsistent, they can't bring themselves to go along with that idea. So they do, in the end, start to recognise that the pregnant woman or girl is a human being to some extent.

I don't think I could be friends with someone who would put forward the beliefs your friend supports.

We know from Savita Halappanavar which life is considered more important. I mean in practise that was only one life, as her baby was not going to live anyway, but the doctors were still forbidden from saving her.

That case still makes me rage.

Yes, those wonderful doctors who cared so much for the sanctity of life that instead of saving one life by ending another, they happily let them both die in agony. Praise Jesus.

In fairness, I understand Savita's doctors were concerned that they may face life imprisonment if they were found to have aborted a foetus, so their motivation may well have been that, rather than religious.