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We should want every woman carrying a child with Down syndrome to feel that she can choose to raise that child in the knowledge that she and her child will be cherished, supported and treated with dignity.
We should also want the Constitution to reflect the value of every human being, no matter how little, no matter whether or not she or he has a disability, no matter whether she is a woman facing a crisis pregnancy.
These values do not conflict.
Abortion is not just about personal, individual choices under tragic circumstances.
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The law, and societal expectations, affect individual choices.
The UNESCO Bioethics Committee stated that one of the consequences of the ready availability of the non-invasive pregnancy screening (NIPT) may be the "routinisation and institutionalisation of the choice of not giving birth to an ill or disabled child".
The UN Convention for the Rights of People with Disabilities (CRPD) Committee (a convention which Ireland has failed for a decade to ratify) has already said British and Spanish abortion law should be amended to avoid stigmatising "persons with disabilities as living a life of less value than that of others".
Stable
In a recent article about UK statistics regarding pre-natal diagnosis of Down syndrome and abortion, Fintan O’Toole claims, correctly, that the percentage of babies who are diagnosed pre-birth as having Down syndrome who are subsequently aborted has remained stable at about 90 per cent since 1989.
What he did not point out was that the National Down Syndrome Cytogenetic Register figures also reveal there is far more screening today.
In 1989, 318 babies were diagnosed with Down syndrome in utero, of which 302 were aborted. In 2013 the number of babies discovered to have Down syndrome had increased by almost 387 per cent to 1,232, of which a truly tragic 1,108 were aborted.
The percentage stays the same. The numbers of deaths have grown exponentially.
The British Medical Journal estimated in 2009 that, due to increasing maternal age, the numbers of babies born with Down syndrome should have increased by 48 per cent. In fact, the birth rate of babies with Down syndrome had stayed fairly constant. It states that increase in terminations accountfor this. O'Toole is correct in that every family should be confident that they will not be left to struggle alone to raise a child with a disability. There was a particularly disgraceful case recently involving Molly, a teenager who has Down syndrome and autism, and is completely dependent.
Molly’s foster carers appreciate the love and positivity she has brought into their lives, but the Ombudsman for Children said that her foster mother was “financially, emotionally and physically drained” by the bureaucratic hoops Tusla and the HSE forced her to jump through to access the most basic services.
Adequate support
The Eighth Amendment, by itself, cannot guarantee that people will have their right to adequate support vindicated.
But removing the Eighth Amendment will do nothing to increase supports for families raising children with disabilities.
Instead, it will just remove an even more basic right – the right to be born.
I have met several families who were told at the moment of diagnosis of disability, when they were still reeling, that they could travel for an abortion.
How much more pressure will there be if abortion is available down the corridor?
Down Syndrome Ireland has asked both sides of the campaign debate "to stop exploiting children and adults with Down syndrome to promote their campaign views".
However, many people with Down syndrome are well able to advocate for themselves, including Heidi Crowter, a vivacious young woman in her 20s whose vividly coloured hair attests to her work as a hairdresser.
At a Westminster rally held by "Don't Screen Us Out Campaign", Heidi told health secretary Jeremy Hunt: "Don't screen us out, work with us so that we can make a society that treats everyone with the dignity, and respect, and compassion, and love that we all deserve." It would surely be patronising in the extreme to suggest that Heidi Crowter is being exploited? She knows what exploitation is like. A photograph of her was used in a hateful internet meme designed to mock people with intellectual disability. She fought back against that, too.
Ideological structure
Disability activist Rebecca Stapleford, describes herself as a proud, physically disabled, autistic woman. She points out that even for pre-birth children without a disability "the ideological structure that the pro-choice movement relies upon is inherently ableist".
She says that it relies on functionalism, for example, the ability to think, or to survive independently, and therefore, is inherently discriminatory against and exclusive of those who need constant care or cannot function intellectually to the approved level.
She also has a caustic article concerning privilege, and advises born people to check theirs. For example, she says that if you are born, "society doesn't try to justify killing you based on the hardships experienced by your mother. Instead, we try to help both you and your mother through your hardships".
Helping people through hardships is something both pro-choice and pro-life people can agree on. Pro-life people just draw the line at ending any human life as a solution to any crisis.