A mum has shared how she resisted being pushed into having an abortion after being told her baby had a 99.9 per cent chance of being born with Down’s syndrome.
Rebecca Shelley said she was offered an abortion again and again throughout her difficult pregnancy but “never wavered” in her decision to choose life. She went on to describe the joy and blessing she now knows as the parent of a child with Down’s syndrome.
In the UK, abortion is available for most reasons up to 24 weeks, and up to birth for babies deemed to have the chromosomal condition.
Pressure
When 14 weeks pregnant, Rebecca was told that Violet had Down’s syndrome and was likely to have other health complications. She recalled that the nurse “had nothing reassuring to say” other than reporting a few weeks later “she’d found a leaflet” about the condition “in a store cupboard”.
Rebecca was repeatedly reminded of the ‘abortion option’. She explained: “At every midwife appointment a ‘no termination’ box was ticked. It upset me every time it was mentioned.”
When informing family and friends about the diagnosis, she wrote: “One thing we know for sure is that we absolutely love our baby boy or girl, and we can’t wait to welcome them.”
‘My beautiful girl’
Violet was born four weeks early by emergency caesarean section and taken to intensive care. She needed surgery and had trouble breastfeeding. Despite the challenges, Rebecca shared: “It felt natural to be her mother.”
Having given up full-time work to be there for her daughter, she said: “Life is not a fairytale. Her development is around 18 months behind and she is pre-verbal. But I take her to Makaton signing classes and she can ask for the toy keys she loves, and [say] ‘more’ if she’s hungry.”
She added: “When my beautiful, sociable girl waves at everyone – which she always does – most wave back.”
Rebecca noted that some opportunities for people with Down’s syndrome are changing for the better: “Not only has life expectancy lengthened, but there isn’t the same assumption about people with Down’s syndrome in education or employment.”
A blessing
Earlier this month, father and YouTuber Jesse Ridgway and his wife tried to justify on social media their decision to abort their son because he was deemed to have a high probability of being born with Down’s syndrome.
Responding to the news, Rebecca said: “The Ridgways have since justified their termination using shocking language. They have suggested that children with Down’s syndrome are a glitch, that the condition is ‘not a blessing’ and have expressed how excited they are to try again for a ‘better outcome’.
“That’s like a punch in the gut. Violet isn’t a tragedy. She isn’t a glitch. She is a blessing.”
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