Rishi Sunak declines to back MP's Down's syndrome abortion law change

[Nearly Sane]

On a day when quite an amount of my timeliness elsewhere is taken up by people marking Down's Syndrome Day, this is a difficult one. Sunak is right that this should be a conscience vote and not a whipped one.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-68617513

[jeremyp]

I don't know how I feel about this but I note the article says:

As the law stands in England, Wales and Scotland, doctors can authorise an abortion if "there is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped", meaning that if a foetus is found to have Down's syndrome, the pregnancy can be terminated after 24 weeks.

Are people with Down's syndrome considered to be so seriously handicapped as to fall into this category? It surprised me if they are.

[Nearly Sane]

I don't know how I feel about this but I note the article says:

Are people with Down's syndrome considered to be so seriously handicapped as to fall into this category? It surprised me if they are.

There isn't a definition, and it's hard to change what happens just because of medical improvements or changes to social attitudes. If I remember correctly, there was a cleft palate case that in court was OK because it was agreed by the doctors as a serious handicap in good faith, even though it was treatable.

I think I would vote with Liam Fox for once.

[Outrider]

I don't know how I feel about this but I note the article says:

Are people with Down's syndrome considered to be so seriously handicapped as to fall into this category? It surprised me if they are.

People with Down's Syndrome range in capability from virtually unencumbered to profoundly affected, and to the best of my knowledge whilst the condition can be determined reasonably early in a pregnancy, what the severity of its impact will be isn't something that can be gauged in advance.

O.

[Nearly Sane]

People with Down's Syndrome range in capability from virtually unencumbered to profoundly affected, and to the best of my knowledge whilst the condition can be determined reasonably early in a pregnancy, what the severity of its impact will be isn't something that can be gauged in advance.

O.

So do you think that abortion for Down's should be available to full term?

[Outrider]

So do you think that abortion for Down's should be available to full term?

On balance, I still think that it's potentially a significant disability - the quality of life of the child is in question, and the quality of life of people who may end up spending a lifetime caring for someone with very limited capacity.

When considering that prospect, giving people the option for as long as is reasonable makes sense, but I have profound concerns about when a pregnancy stops being a small bunch of cells and starts being a person - and I don't have a good answer for when that is. I don't think a person is a person at conception, but equally I don't think a person becomes a person at birth, either...

If you ask me on three different days what I think the right cut-off should be, I'll probably have three different answers. Today, my feeling is that the diagnostic tools are good enough that we should know if the condition is likely long before the current 24 week cut-off, and it doesn't seem unreasonable that should still apply.

Tomorrow I might well feel different, if I'm honest - just one more reason I wouldn't make a good MP.

O.

[Nearly Sane]

On balance, I still think that it's potentially a significant disability - the quality of life of the child is in question, and the quality of life of people who may end up spending a lifetime caring for someone with very limited capacity.

When considering that prospect, giving people the option for as long as is reasonable makes sense, but I have profound concerns about when a pregnancy stops being a small bunch of cells and starts being a person - and I don't have a good answer for when that is. I don't think a person is a person at conception, but equally I don't think a person becomes a person at birth, either...

If you ask me on three different days what I think the right cut-off should be, I'll probably have three different answers. Today, my feeling is that the diagnostic tools are good enough that we should know if the condition is likely long before the current 24 week cut-off, and it doesn't seem unreasonable that should still apply.

Tomorrow I might well feel different, if I'm honest - just one more reason I wouldn't make a good MP.

O.

I think it's an excellent thoughtful answer. I suspect it might be an answer that a number of MPs would agree with. Discussions on matters of conscience are often when MPs are at their best.

I don't think that as a society we're in a position that justifies having Down's Syndrome Day as we did yesterday while this applies.

That said, I think the reform needs to be more wide ranging rather than look at specific conditions on a one by one basis. That though would be an enormous challenge to get to an acceptable position.