November 7, 2011 (LifeSiteNews) – Even though Marie Ideson already had six children when she found out that she was expecting her seventh at the age of 40, she and her husband enthusiastically welcomed the news.
“Both Allan and I wanted a big family, so we were thrilled when we discovered I was expecting again,” Marie told the Daily Mail in a 2011 article.
Even after she got back the results of a blood test, and then amniocentesis, showing that her child had Down syndrome, Marie says abortion never even entered her mind as an option, even though she was scared.
“My first thought was: ‘How will we cope?’ It wasn’t: ‘I can’t have this baby.’”
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However, that was all to change when the couple went in for a consultation at the hospital, the day after finding out about their daughter’s condition. To their shock, not only did the nurse and consultant present abortion as the only option for the couple, but they even suggested that it would be cruel not to have an abortion.
“A nurse said not aborting my baby would cause it to suffer, and she’d only become a burden on society if I went ahead,” says Marie. “She even said: ‘Ninety-nine per cent of women in your situation wouldn’t want the baby.’”
So heavy was the pressure put on the couple, that ultimately they decided to go ahead with the abortion.
Marie was given a pill to start the abortion that same day.
“I felt numb as I swallowed the tablet. This wasn’t how I imagined this pregnancy ending, but looking back, I was in shock, just operating on autopilot,” she says.
Three days later Marie gave birth to her dead daughter, and, she says, her life has never been the same since.
“She was so small, but otherwise perfect. I broke down in uncontrollable deep sobs. What had I done? I realised in that instant that I’d been railroaded and bullied into taking that first pill. I felt overwhelmed by anger.”
So intense was Marie’s guilt after the abortion that she says she “couldn’t stop crying.” The abortion also became and issue between her and her husband. “I knew he was devastated, too, and wanted to keep the baby, but I felt angry he’d allowed staff to rush me into getting rid of her,” Marie says.
“Before the abortion we’d been a really happy couple, but now, we could barely communicate.”
Ultimately the couple’s marriage ended, despite their having another child.
Marie now says that she is certain that other women must find themselves in the same position as her – wanting to keep their child with Down syndrome, but pressured into abortion by a hostile medical establishment.
‘Today I never see mums with Down’s syndrome babies,” she says. “I can’t help feeling other women must be having abortions they don’t want. I can’t believe that everyone who finds out their baby has Down’s syndrome willingly chooses to abort it.’
Read the complete story at the Daily Mail here.