Down’s activist: I’ll battle on in abortion fight
A WOMAN with Down’s syndrome has vowed to ‘ fight on’ after losing a Court of Appeal challenge to overturn abortion rules for babies with the condition.
Heidi Crowter, 27, sought to scrap part of the Abortion Act that allows mothers to terminate a pregnancy right up until birth if the child has Down’s syndrome.
It states that mothers can ignore the 24-week abortion limit if there is ‘a substantial risk’ that the child would ‘suffer from such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped’.
Miss Crowter’s lawyers have argued that it is an ‘instance of inequality’ in their case against the Department of Health and Social Care. She took the case to the High Court last year but judges ruled it was not unlawful and aims to strike a balance between the rights of the unborn child and of women.
Yesterday three senior judges dismissed her appeal, saying that the Abortion Act does not interfere with the rights of the ‘living disabled’.
Lord Justice Nicholas Underhill, Lady Justice Kate Thirlwall and Lord Justice Peter Jackson said they recognised that people with Down’s syndrome may think the Act implies ‘that their own lives are of lesser value’. But they said that this interpretation ‘is not by itself enough’ to justify a change to the Act.
Speaking outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, Miss Crowter vowed to take the case to the Supreme Court.
She added: ‘I am very upset not to win again but I will keep on fighting because we have already informed and changed hearts and minds and changed people’s opinions about the law.
‘ I am angry that the judges say that my feelings don’t matter. That makes me feel that I am not as valuable as a person without Down’s syndrome.’
Around 47,000 people in the UK have Down’s syndrome, which occurs when a person is born with an extra chromosome.
It results in some level of learning disability with some people able to be independent and others needing regular care.