{"id":253230,"date":"2021-09-16T06:45:50","date_gmt":"2021-09-16T11:45:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=253230"},"modified":"2021-09-15T16:36:11","modified_gmt":"2021-09-15T21:36:11","slug":"pressured-abort-five-times-refused-thriving","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/pressured-abort-five-times-refused-thriving\/","title":{"rendered":"Pressured to abort five times, she refused. Now her son is thriving."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sami Bates thought her family size was just right, so when she had to have surgery to remove precancerous cells on her cervix in 2013, she didn\u2019t think she would get pregnant again. But in 2016, she was overjoyed to find she was unexpectedly going to have another baby. However, doctors repeatedly pressured her to have an abortion. She refused, and now her son is alive, thriving, and starting school.<\/p>\n

Although Sami was thrilled to be pregnant, the way forward was bumpy. Not only did she have the looming threat of preterm labor after the previous surgery removed a large part of her cervix, but her 20-week ultrasound showed there were some problems with her growing baby.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looked like CCAM, or Congenital Cystic Adenomatoid malformation \u2013 micro cysts that grow instead of the lungs, which wasn\u2019t great news,\u201d said Sami, according to The Sun<\/a>. \u201cThen one doctor mentioned it could be CDH [Congenital Diaphragmatic Hernia], where a hole in the diaphragm results in the intestines, and sometimes the stomach, entering the chest cavity to limit lung growth. This would\u2019ve been much worse than CCAM, and googling both, we were terrified.\u201d<\/p>\n

READ: SHOCK: UK\u2019s leading abortion group calls for end to \u2018coercive\u2019 policy driving women to abort<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Two months later, a follow-up ultrasound revealed that her preborn baby did, indeed, have a pretty severe case of CDH. Doctors gave him a 15% chance of survival, and encouraged Sami and her husband Paul to abort him. The parents refused, saying, \u201cwe had to at least give him a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sami\u2019s pregnancy was closely monitored with appointments and ultrasounds every three weeks. At almost every appointment, doctors pressured her to abort her son, Davey. \u201cIt was as severe a case of CDH as the doctors had ever seen. It just seemed impossible he could survive outside of my womb, but we couldn\u2019t live with ourselves if we didn\u2019t at least give him a chance,\u201d Sami told the Daily Mail<\/a>.<\/p>\n

All told, Sami was told an unconscionable five times<\/em> to have an abortion.<\/p>\n

Pressure to have an abortion in adverse circumstances has been widely reported by parents in the United Kingdom (UK), such that in late 2020 the Royal College of OB\/GYNs had to release guidelines for medical professionals instructing them not to pressure parents<\/a> after bioethics groups complained. In the United States, pressure to abort has also been reported<\/a>, even when lab results turned out to be the result of a decimal error.<\/p>\n

Currently in the UK<\/a>, abortion is legal up to 24 weeks, or up until birth if the baby has a disability<\/em>.<\/p>\n