{"id":233676,"date":"2020-10-28T15:42:05","date_gmt":"2020-10-28T20:42:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=233676"},"modified":"2020-10-28T16:07:02","modified_gmt":"2020-10-28T21:07:02","slug":"down-syndrome-abort-birth-canal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/down-syndrome-abort-birth-canal\/","title":{"rendered":"Mom of baby with Down syndrome: They said I could abort up until she was in the birth canal"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mothers have spoken out about the immense pressure they faced to have abortions<\/a> in a series of interviews with the BBC<\/a>. The stories bring even more attention to the United Kingdom’s controversial abortion laws, which permit abortion at any time in pregnancy<\/em> if the child is diagnosed with a disability.<\/p>\n

“We were offered 15 terminations”<\/strong><\/p>\n

Emma Mellor and her husband Steve already had a child when they got pregnant for the second time, when Mellor was 24 years old. At 20 weeks pregnant, doctors discovered fluid on her daughter’s brain, and from then on, the pressure to have an abortion was constant. Their son, Logan, had a hole in his heart, and was on the waiting list to receive surgery. Mellor said the idea of administering an injection to stop her daughter’s heart, while they raced to fix their son’s, was unimaginable.<\/p>\n

“In all honesty we were offered 15 terminations, even though we made it really clear that it wasn’t an option for us, but they really seemed to push and really seemed to want us to terminate,” she said, adding, “From that moment on, they recommended we should terminate and told us to think about the effect on our son and his quality of life.”<\/p>\n

By 32 weeks, Mellor’s daughter had been diagnosed with Down syndrome, and doctors told her an abortion could be committed up until birth. “At 38 weeks, the doctors made it really, really, really clear that if I changed my mind on the morning of the induction to let them know, because it wasn’t too late,” she said. “I was told that until my baby had started travelling down the birth canal, I could still terminate.”<\/p>\n

Today, Mellor’s daughter, Jaimie, is healthy and happy. She and big brother Logan are best friends, proving that a sibling with Down syndrome does not diminish someone’s quality of life.<\/p>\n