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?

Not true.
Based on one study 45% of women in the US who had an abortion had previously had an abortion. You pay for contraception in the US.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5771530/

This, absolutely. These sorts of threads give me the rage, with thick as fucking mince comments from people who would take women back decades.

But you're missing the point! The 24 weeks is only relevant for healthy foetuses. For pregnancies with medical issues there is no limit, so there is no "forced birth" or "lifelong care" needs.

not sure why you're quoting me. I think abortion should be available for all as early as possible and as late as is needed. And yes, right up to the last week if that is the decision of the mother and the medical professionals.

Nobody should be forced to have a child. Leastways a child that may have complex needs, live a life of pain etc.

If you don't want an abortion? don't have one.

Amniocentesis is carried out at between 15 to 20 weeks, I was close to 20 weeks when I had mine.
It revealed a life limiting chromosome disorder plus a pretty catastrophic heart anomaly.
I terminated 2 weeks later. Fortunately I can live with myself that you are disgraced.

Perhaps educate yourself a little before judging, there are many reasons for terminations.

@notinagreatplace

I'm so very sorry you had to go through that. The pain of such a decision must be unimaginable and I'm sickened that anyone can think the choice of women in your situation should be removed or lessened. I'm so sorry for the comments some PP have made, they've been disgusting

this would probably end up with a lot more abortions as if women were not allowed to abort after 24 weeks, then some of them would terminate before having the full information

I was thinking this as well.

Sadly it appears that they are now taking their case to the Supreme Court

Then don’t YOU abort after 16 weeks then.

And everyone else can do as they see fit too

Margaret Atwood always said that the terrifying thing about The Handmaid's Tale was that everything in it had happened, somewhere in the world at some point, to women. We have become complacent of our rights.

I will bet money you’ve completed your family and all of your children were born healthy. It’s like those super fertile women who are against fertility treatment for others.

Some of the shit on here is outrageous giving birth to babies and watching them struggle to breath until they die is the most disgusting thing I have read on here
how dare you put shit like that on here
i am one of those awful human beings who has had to make the decision to terminate my pregnancy at 25+4 days due to my little boy having a condition that would have made his life awful
i had to go to a hospital to have a professor inject something into my babies heart and they scanned him to make sure that his heart had stopped before I had to deliver him
im not going to lie it was awful
BUT
I do not regret my decision
My son was a very much wanted baby but I was not going to be selfish enough to continue the pregnancy just to have him in my life when his life would have been very bad for him and I also had to think of my two older children.
I am sure that women who terminate a pregnancy at 24 weeks do not do it lightly and for those of you that even think that there is something wrong with you.

This. I’m delighted my child, who has Down syndrome, exists.

I’m not interested in limiting women’s reproductive rights or choices.

There’s, as ever, a lot of ableism on this thread that makes difficult reading. You can support women’s rights, disagree with Heidi, and also recognise that the vast majority of people with DS and their families have good quality lives. But it’d be easier with better access to support and less assumptions and ableism!

Why won’t she stay out of other peoples business?

I have a child with SN similar to Downs . I didn't know but I still think you should be allowed to abort right up to birth if the child is incompatible with life or will have severe SN ..

As above it's your choice !

The right to abort for disability would have to remain for anything other than DS so DS would become a different category of disability.

What would happen in practice, is that instead of having the results of the 12 week tests followed by CVS and then heart scans etc at 20 weeks to try and understand the extent of the issues alongside DS, the clock would be ticking.
Most people - 99%- are likely to abort as soon as possible rather than risking the time running out.

Yanbu. The number of abortions post 24 weeks in uk is miniscule and it tends to only happen in exceptional circumstances. Some infants with severe manifestations of DS have health impacts that mean they will not survive at birth, as is the case with other serious health issues.

There are people who go into a 20 week scan at 21 weeks, to find they are carrying a foetus with for eg, brain or other major organ malformations incompatible with life outside the uterus.

These are not people choosing to end a successful pregnancy. Often they are being given the choice to bring forward an almost inevitable stillbirth or neonatal death so as to limit the risk to the mother of continuing a pregnancy

I'm so sorry you're going through this @georgarina

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FWIW I have a genetic physical disability. Though I lead an independent life, I'm also completely comfortable with the idea that I might have been aborted if my parents had known.

Ironically my disability means my back is really crap and I can't do much lifting. That in itself would mean having a disabled child who couldn't walk and needed lifting a lot would be utterly impractical for me, and if I found myself in this situation it would be yet another reason to abort. I know someone with a severely disabled 7 year old who is still trying to get the council to provide a hoist, and meanwhile she's expected to lift her child despite it causing back pain (and she has a normal back!)

Funny how the pro lifers never spend their time fighting for better support for existing disabled children and parents. I'm sure that seeing the woeful lack of support has been a contributing factor for more than a few women who do choose to terminate.

I'm responding to all those saying that the poster who said "by 24 weeks you should know whether you want the baby" is awful, because a lot of issues aren't detected until later in the pregnancy.

There is a difference between saying 24 weeks is too high for healthy pregnancies (which is what I assume PP meant) and 24 weeks should be the limit for all pregnancies regardless of any medical issues (which I do not agree with). But that second part wasn't what I was replying to.

This. I’m in the very fortunate position of having never been pregnant without wanting to be. It absorbs horrifies me that women are being deprived of their rights across the pond and that a disabled woman is being used in a cynical attempt to do the same here. It’s scandalous.

@bananas Downs syndrome and other fatal syndromes get tested at 12 weeks

Educate yourself.

NHS;

www.gov.uk/guidance/fetal-anomaly-screening-programme-overview#target-population'

"Screening for 11 physical conditions as part of the 20-week scan is offered to all pregnant women and takes place between 18⁺ and 20 weeks of pregnancy. Scans can be completed up to 23 weeks of pregnancy.

Absolutely, not absorbs. Bloody autocorrect.

My baby would have been blind ,deaf, unable to speak, move, fed by tube and a whole host of other things. In what world is that a "life"? Trust me if he had been a DS baby I would not have terminated at 26 weeks, but there was no way I was going to let my child live a (very) short "life" as nothing more than a living corpse. I loved him too much to inflict that horror on him.

Further tests mean that most babies with DS alongside many other issues are aborted. So most of the DS children born these days do tend to be more high functioning.
Children and adults with severe disabilities can have a good quality of life. But it can also destroy families. I find it hard enough having two DC and a DH with a genetic disorder and they are nowhere near having a severe disability. But it still has a negative impact on them and me.

Oh piss off.
You have no idea how life changes when you find your unborn child has a disability. I do.

I am 100% behind full-term abortion in the case of severe abnomalities and disabilities.

It is ALWAYS the right of the mother to choose.

Fantastic news. I know it would be a heartbreaking decision I hope I never have to face - I have friends who have severely disabled children and that's the rest of their life now as a carer and all the worry that comes with that. There was a post here last week of a woman caring for an adult child with disabilities and reading it was eye opening.