Abortion law challenge - 24 weeks limit for Down's syndrome

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Just read that there's a high court challenge to try and change the clause that currently allows abortion to be carried out after 24 weeks, up until birth when the foetus/baby has Down's Syndrome or another severe disability.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-56982646

The campaign would bring the abortion limit for all babies with non-fatal severe disabilities to the same 24 week time limit.

Just interested to know what people think about this?

Inside the body = woman's choice.

I broadly agree but I hate that you have to be ok with (in theory) abortion til birth for any reason, to be pro choice. Even the law (in the overwhelming majority of countries) doesn't reflect complete unrestricted right. Not supporting that is not anti abortion.

I do also think, it could happen (healthy, non medical reasons). It's stupid when anti abortions bring this argument up 99% of the time, but also a bit disingenuous to deny the possibility (and simultaneously claim it should be legalised).

I don’t think having individual laws on separate conditions is particularly sensible anyway. There is such a spectrum even with Down’s Syndrome, let alone all of the other conditions. However if someone having a post 24 week abortion for Down’s Syndrome it’s unlikely to be “just” Down’s Syndrome. More likely something else detected on 20 week scan that’s led to further testing and the diagnosis. I expect we’re heading towards NIPT being more widely available which may lead to earlier diagnosis.

I think the law as it stands is quite reasonable and not too specific but requires input from multiple professionals. As it was written in the 1970a though it does still contain the word handicapped which could be removed.

MN is about the only place I ever see people change their mind.

In the original case the claimants argued that the different time limit constituted direct discrimination against foetuses on the grounds of disability - i.e. that foetuses had legal personhood and thus human rights.

Thankfully the judge threw out that argument because ECHR has never ruled that foetuses have personhood. We've seen how that reasoning works out in NI and some US states.

Of course a born baby has more rights - human rights begin at birth. Anything else leads to a very dark place for women, even those carrying much wanted pregnancies.

Even if you are staunchly anti-abortion, there is no need to make that argument - e.g. apart from a few exceptions, abortion past 24 weeks is illegal, nevertheless those foetuses do not have human rights under UK law.

The claimants were permitted to appeal on one ground - that having a different time limit for disabled foetuses stigmatises all disabled people by implying their lives are worth less, and therefore this is indirect discrimination against disabled people.

That's a fair argument. They will lose because this part of the Abortion Act is clearly a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim and therefore it's lawful. But I do understand why it's hurtful.

To me it seems obvious that the solution is to remove the 24 week time limit for all pregnancies. This is the law in Canada and as far as I know there are not hoards of women there demanding terminations during the final weeks of pregnancy, and there are not hoards of doctors lined up to do late abortions on an informed consent basis.

No, you are 100% wrong.

It always has to be about the woman carrying the fetus, always. And it is black and white, it is binary. Because she either is pregnant or she isn't. She either wants tobe pregnant or she doesn't

Or are you a forced birthed?

Forced birther

But it is. The law is in black and white. The time limits are in black and white. A woman who goes a single day past 24 weeks has very different rights to abortion than she did yesterday.

Since the alternative is forced birth, I happily fully support a woman's right to choose without limitation.

Yes it is theoretical. It's the forced birthers' go to. It's how they try to manipulate people.

I will never support forced birth and the erosion of women's rights no matter how much it's dressed up as "but baybeeeees".
Their manipulative shit won't work on me. I won't allow it to.

Nobody is advocating for "killing babies with Down Syndrome" That would be murder and we're all against that.

However, terminating a pregnancy that has been diagnosed as Down syndrome is a very very different thing. Women have the right to do this and we will defend this right to the very end.

No person with DS is being discriminated against in any way.

So please, stop with the hysterical emotive bullshit.

as in a baby who is aborted at 30 weeks pregnant is obviously older than a newborn baby born at 28 weeks and yet the newborn somehow has more rights

No. A foetus terminated at 30 weeks gestation is 0 days old. It never lived. A live human baby born yesterday is 1 day old and is a physical legal born person with rights. There's nothing odd about that.

People have rights. Not-people, no rights. You see?

I have a sister with Downs Syndrome .She is 46 years old and is so precious to all of us . She was great company for my Mam and Mam and herself were best friends .My Mam never wanted to die and leave her , but unfortunately my Mam died suddenly last year with my sister by her side ( as they use to sleep together ) My sister misses Mam terribly but we are all there for her .
❤️

I think in cases of severe disability, or incest the Mother must make the choice how ever far along with her pregnancy however I do think abortion should generally be limited to first 20 weeks. After 5 months an occasional baby will be viable with modern treatments.

This

After 5 months an occasional baby will be viable with modern treatments.

Viability is always used as a benchmark and I understand why. However, it's a very bad benchmark. Medical science will push back viability but not quality of life. So no one wants to induce at the point a woman asks for abortion. If you induce a 20 week old fetus it's essentially a much more distressing and painful abortion. The very best case is an extremely distressed and disabled, unwanted baby in an incubator. Probably with almost no quality of life to look forward to.

What you're actually saying is past the point of 'viability in very very few cases' you'll force a woman to carry to term. Still not acceptable.

I knew a lady who had to carry her disabled son up and down three flights of stairs, twice a day.

It is a very personal decision for any woman to think about whether she would be capable of looking after a severely handicapped child.

I really hate the forced birther slur, it’s ghastly, and actually only serves to alienate those who would otherwise support you.

No person with DS is being discriminated against in any way.

Person/Not Person is a legal Definition though, which varies by jurisdiction.

But actually it is insulting to all those with DS, legal person or not in that it states baldly that they are worthy of being aborted up until birth in a democratic society.

It also creates a Hostile Environment for all disabled people and their families, in that it serves to make having a disabled child “Voluntary” or a lifestyle choice, and therefore something which society doesn’t need to support.

I don't know about the UK, but in the US, the majority of late-term abortions are for social reasons (connected with either not realizing pregnancy until very late, or uncertainty about what to do or how to access abortion, which is turn is usually connected to a woman having a chaotic lifestyle, unstable and possibly abusive relationship and so on).

On discussions like Mumsnet, talk is dominated by education, middle class women who simply cannot imagine a woman living so chaotically that she might fail to realize pregnancy for ages and ages or dither back and forth for months about what to do. In the real world, it really does happen.

I am really far from being the "pro-life" type and was genuinely very surprised about this as well. But that is what the data says. It's actually not true that "most late abortions are for medical reasons"--at least, not in the US. I will try to find some UK stats.

See here, for example (please note that this is a medical source, and is pro-abortion rights, as you'll see from the summary at the top)
Who Seeks Abortions at or After 20 Weeks?
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1363/4521013

"Most women seeking later abortion fit at least one of five profiles: They were raising children alone, were depressed or using illicit substances, were in conflict with a male partner or experiencing domestic violence, had trouble deciding and then had access problems, or were young and nulliparous."

(Not denying that late abortions for medical reasons exist--of course they do, a friend of mine had one and was pretty traumatized by the experience. If a late abortion is done for medical reasons, by the way, it'll nearly always be for fetal abnormality not to save the mother's life. If you were carrying a 26-weeker and they suddenly discovered that being pregnant was dangerous to you, they'd sweep in and do a cesearean of a live premature baby, not abort the baby; frankly, that should be obvious).

I really hate the forced birther slur, it’s ghastly, and actually only serves to alienate those who would otherwise support you.

It's far more accurate than pro-life.

American study I assume.

What a load of bollox.

This is NOT about people with DS, it is about women accessing abortion.

Has there ever, in the UK, been a late term abortion for DS and no other reason?

As for the stats from the US, there is a very different healthcare system and different state laws. Some states do not allow medical staff to tell women where they can go for help.

ASN is a British charity that provides abortions, mainly to Irish women who cannot access abortion in Ireland but also from Malta and Poland.

Some of those procedures are later than would be available to women in Britain because they have to get travel documents and to find out where they can get support.

www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1016/S0968-8080%2805%2926193-1

UK discussion.
Again, it talks about women not being aware of pregnancy until late or being in denial. "For the vast majority of women taking part in this study, the signs and symptoms of pregnancy were not recognised until an advanced stage, making late abortion an inevitability rather than a conscious choice on their part." Suggesting no fetal abnormality.

My point is that I do find it a bit dishonest when people insist that "most late abortions are for medical reasons"the data suggests that that just isn't true. If you want to make the argument that "social abortion at any stage is OK" then go ahead and make that argumentbut don't say things that aren't true.

The thing I find irritating about the "abortion debate" is that both "sides" engage in a lot of dishonesty and untruthfulness. There is a lot of bobbing and weaving from both the anti abortion people and the pro choicers.

It’s used to shame women for not having the same opinion as you.

some, possibly even many women, do see it as a grey area with balancing/competing interests and perhaps unintended consequences.

When that’s doubled up with your certainty as to your moral superiority on the issue then people will just choose not to engage with you. And will work on the assumption that your hostility towards (bias against or even phobia of) the disabled will continue unabated once they pass the threshold into personhood. Go you!

If a woman has a late-enough abortion she's going to be forced to (more or less) give birth anyway. To a dead fetus. I know because my poor friend had to go through it.

The idea that you're saving someone from the birth process by denying them a late abortion is another example of the sort of dishonesty I've talked about. You won't escape birth (or something very much like birth) either way. At that kind of late stage, abortion is not going to be about swallowing a couple of pills and then it all dissolves and you get some gooky stuff coming out like a heavy period.