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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSorry, Sally Phillips, but a woman should be able to know if her unborn baby has Down’s syndrome
Sorry, Sally Phillips, but a woman should be able to know if her unborn baby has Downs syndrome
Hadley Freeman
A womans right to terminate a pregnancy is non-negotiable. Even if Phillips someone Ive long-admired doesnt like their reasons
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Phillips and her online supporters insist that theyre not anti-choice they just want women to make informed choices. Photograph: Ken McKay/ITV/Rex Features
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Which brings me to Phillips documentary, A World Without Downs Syndrome?, which screened on Wednesday night on BBC2. There has been an enormous amount of publicity for this documentary, with praise for Phillips clearly heartfelt intentions. The actor has an adorable young son, Olly, who has Downs syndrome, and one of her aims is to provide a counterbalance to the almost entirely negative depiction of Downs syndrome in both society and the media. For this, she should be loudly applauded. True, her wholly positive depiction of her life with a child with Downs syndrome is as partial as the wholly negative ones, not least because her son is relatively high-functioning and Phillips and her husband are able to afford help. Still, as I said, its a much-needed corrective, and hats off to her.
But that is not all Phillips and her film are arguing for. Rather, the documentary was pegged to the imminent availability of non-invasive prenatal testing on the NHS, which is a safe and more accurate method of screening for Downs syndrome than the form currently available, and with no risk of miscarriage. This, according to Phillips, is sad, its just horrible, really. Later, she describes herself as really quite angry about it. Phillips makes no bones that she is coming at this subject from a deeply personal perspective, one that is occasionally blurred with tears during her film. This perhaps explains why such a bright woman repeatedly and determinedly conflated equipping pregnant women with knowledge about their unborn baby that is, being screened and the advice they are then given about it. No doubt some medical professionals have advised women to have terminations after receiving a positive test; there absolutely should be campaigning about how this kind of information is imparted to expectant women and mothers who have just given birth.
This, however, does not mean that women should be denied available information about their unborn babys health, and instead be unnecessarily surprised at birth with a situation for which they may be entirely unprepared. Phillips is right: rates of Downs syndrome probably will decrease with the rise of easier, more accurate screening. But she is wrong to then draw the conclusion that women should therefore not be informed about the health of their in utero baby. Phillips did not know Olly had Downs syndrome until he was born. But this, she says, was a good thing, because by having no choice she was compelled to see how much Olly benefits her family. That made me wonder whether choice is always the wonderful thing its cracked up to be, she says, a statement which casts something of a shadow on her description of herself as pro-choice. But while not having a choice has worked out wonderfully for her family, no consideration is given to women who do not have Phillips aforementioned privileges. A single mother with two jobs and three kids, for example, might not find similar benefits from a lack of choice. It is very difficult to see how compelling women who genuinely feel they cannot care for a child with special needs to give birth helps anyone, least of all people with Downs syndrome.
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And therein lies the rub: the idea that women should only have terminations for reasons someone else finds acceptable. How about if a woman feels too young to have a baby, or too poor, or doesnt want to be tied to the man she conceived with for the rest of her life, or she doesnt want a third baby, or any baby at all are these permissible reasons for a termination? They are all pretty common ones. Or is it just a Downs syndrome diagnosis that is deemed an unacceptable cause for an abortion? In more controversial areas, such as sex-selection abortion, the correct approach is to tackle the attitudes behind it, not ban abortion per se. Similarly, with Downs syndrome screening what needs examining is the image around the syndrome and the way doctors discuss it, not the screening itself. Its the attitudes, not the science, thats the problem. Science is what gives women the choice. Which brings me to the nub of Phillips documentary.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/06/sally-phillips-woman-unborn-baby-downs-terminate-pregnancy
dembotoz
(16,799 posts)before birth
agreed with her then and agree with her now
WillowTree
(5,325 posts)muriel_volestrangler
(101,306 posts)Mariana
(14,854 posts)that's most commonly used in the US. What's the matter with them, anyway? Don't they know some Americans get all upset over such ridiculous things as a slightly different usage that is in no way confusing to anyone?
Warpy
(111,245 posts)so the absolutely correct form is Down's syndrome since Dr. Down is the first to describe it in the English literature. The very first incomplete description was written up by a French physician nearly 30 years earlier.
It has been shortened in the US because people simply shortened it. It is, however, not correct. It's a matter of streamlining correct English in the name of convenience.
Warpy
(111,245 posts)from kids who are able to grow into semi independent adults to babies born with horrific internal deformities who go through the hell of multiple surgeries to correct them, the constant recovery time delaying their development as much as the Down's does.
What this numbskull fails to consider is that many families just don't have the resources to raise even an uncomplicated Down's child, that both parents must work outside the home and that neither is capable of the type of intense work it takes to help a Down's child reach his/her full potential. Institutionalization isn't the answer, either, since families can't afford good places and the bad ones care for the body but not the child within it. A lot of these kids are going to fall through a lot of cracks and that's beyond sad.
In addition, families with few resources will direct them all to the Down's child, either having no other children or giving those children short shrift so that they don't grow into their full potential, either.
This twit is coming at this one from her own exalted socioeconomic class. Those of us on the bottom have seen things very differently for a very long time, and women who find themselves pregnant with a Down's child need the information in order to make the correct choice not only for themselves but also for their families, including any other children.
Tl:dr: this ivory tower idiot needs to get out more because not everybody is rich enough to cope with a seriously compromised child.