In the UK abortion is permitted up to 24 weeks pregnant. But if the fetus has Down syndrome, a woman can choose to abort it at any time during pregnancyeven until the day of delivery.
For Heidi Crowter this is discriminatory.
“The law should be the same for everyone,” says the 27-year-old Briton, who has set out to get her country’s courts to amend that section of the Abortion Act, which dates from 1967.
The young woman told BBC Mundo that for her it is a very personal battle, because she was also born with an extra chromosome, the genetic disorder that causes Down syndrome.
“I want to fight for the rights of the unborn with Down syndrome so that they have the same rights as everyone else.“, Explain.
“What defines us as human beings is who we are, not what problems we have,” he says.
So far both the Supreme Court (High Court) and the Court of Appeal have denied his request, stating that the current rule does not undermine the rights of people living with disabilities.
But Heidi doesn’t give up and he has already announced that he will take his case before the Supreme Court, the highest instance of the Judiciary.
“Surprise Package”
Speaking by videoconference from the English city of Coventry, in the center of the country of England, The activist pointed out that she understands the fear that many parents feel when they find out that their baby has trisomy, the formal name of the genetic disorder.
“My parents only found out that I had Down’s when I was born, and the first thing they felt was fear.“, he recounts.
“They didn’t know what to expect, they thought I would never be able to be independent, that I would never get married.”
Also, like many children with Down syndrome, Heidi had health problems.
“My first year of life was very hard because I was born with a hole in my heart and they had to operate on me. I was in and out of hospitals. I still have the scar on my chest,” he reveals.
“It took my parents almost losing me to start loving me, when they realized I was just a baby in need of love.“, He says.
They ended up loving her so much that when she was little they even wrote a book about her childhood, called “Surprise Package”.
Heidi, the third of four children, grew up with her two brothers and her youngest sister.
They went to the local school together – she with the help of an inclusive teacher – and when she graduated from high school she began working in a children’s hair salon and studying Customer Service at a higher institute.
At the age of 20, she moved on her own, “two buses from my parents’ house,” she says.
When the pandemic hit, like so many other businesses, the hair salon closed.
However, Heidi had other distractions during the long period of restrictions: she was in a long-distance relationship with James, a young man she had met through a second cousin, who lived about four hours from Coventry.
Heidi and James, who also has Down syndrome, fell in love and were engaged a year later.
“To think that my parents were worried that I would never get married and in the end I had three ceremonies,” the young woman laughs, explaining that, due to the quarantines, she had to organize three events, first the civil one and a small celebration, and then one more. traditional and large when covid allowed.
James moved into her apartment, where the couple still reside.
100% abortions
Heidi began doing political activism in 2018, after the British government introduced an optional test for pregnant women into the public health system that allows, through a non-invasive test, to determine if a fetus has Down syndrome.
The goal was to reduce the number of pregnant women resorting to riskier diagnostic tests to rule out the abnormality.
But critics, like Heidi, warned that it would lead more women to decide to abort babies with Down’s.
Today it is estimated that 90% of British pregnant women who receive this diagnosis decide to terminate their pregnancy.
“If there are more tests, fewer and fewer children will be born. In some countries, such as Iceland, 100% of babies with Down are aborted“he points out.
Heidi joined the NGO Don’t Screen Us Out, convinced that these abortions happen “because people aren’t getting the right information.”
“Many parents, like mine, fear what they don’t know. And the medical institution tells them only negative things, which is why so many choose to abort,” he says.
Heidi recognizes that children with Down require more assistance, since they often have learning difficulties and often also have heart, vision, hearing, digestive or endocrinological problems.
But he considers that this is not a justification for allowing fetuses with trisomy to be aborted beyond the limit that exists for babies without disabilities.
“We don’t want them to see us as a problem… There is no perfect baby,” he stresses, stating that in his country parents of children with Down’s can turn to aid organizations to find support.
court battle
Heidi says that the Abortion Act does not only affect fetuses with Down syndrome.
“The law also allows abortions throughout gestation for things like cleft palate and clubfoot, things that are easily correctable. it’s a shock“he points out.
Literally, the text indicates that abortions can be extended beyond 24 weeks of gestation when “there is a substantial risk that, if the child were born, it would suffer physical or mental anomalies such that it would be seriously disabled”, something that today includes Down .
Lynn Murray from Don’t Screen Us Out told BBC Mundo that other countries, such as Iceland and Denmark, also have laws that allow abortions until the end of pregnancy in cases of Down syndrome or other disabilities, and that in those countries almost all babies with trisomy are aborted.
For Heidi, British legislation, which was enacted more than half a century ago, is completely outdated.
“When it was approved, people with Down could not go to school and were admitted to institutes. They did not have the treatments or the technology that exists today“he points out.
The young woman clarifies that she respects the right of women to choose whether to continue with their pregnancy, but believes that no difference should be made between babies with and without disabilities.
“The judges say that the law does not affect the rights of people who live with Down, but I feel stigmatized,” he says.
“When I see my nephew, who is a baby, I wonder why my life is less valuable than his. Or my mom’s or dad’s.”
“You have to stop thinking about Down with the old look, from decades ago, and see it in a new, more positive light,” he asks.
“People need other different people, we need variety“, answers the question why he thinks a world without people with Down syndrome would be a bad thing.
“Yes, it is hard to have a child with Down syndrome, but there are enormous rewards in the end,” says the activist, who recently had the pleasure of writing the second part of the biography that her parents had dedicated to her in 2003.
“I’m Just Heidi: Living to the Fullest with Down Syndrome” – which was published by her uncle’s editorial – describes her life as an adult, including her legal battles, her married life and her current job as a teacher’s aide for children with Down syndrome.
The title of the book alludes to a concept that she reiterates during this interview: “I am not a syndrome, I am a person, I am Heidi.”
“We are all amazing just the way we are.”
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BBC-NEWS-SRC: https://www.bbc.com/mundo/noticias-63952030, IMPORTING DATE: 2022-12-16 10:40:07
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