Heidi Crowter – who has just been named by the BBC as one of its ‘100 Women of 2022’ – is taking her case for discrimination to the Supreme Court.
Appeal judges had rejected her appeal against a decision that the Abortion Act 1967 does not unlawfully discriminate against the disabled. The Court of Appeal ruled that a ‘perception’ that it discriminates against the living who are disabled is not enough.
Heidi, a married Christian woman who has Down’s syndrome, sued the government for discrimination, along with a mother whose son also has Down’s. In an emotional response to the latest ruling in November, Heidi said: ‘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.’
The 1967 Act permits abortion up to birth in the case of serious disabilities, including Down’s syndrome. The Court of Appeal considered the specific question of whether the law unlawfully discriminates against unborn babies with disabilities.
In his ruling, Lord Justice Underhill acknowledged that the question of whether it should be lawful to abort a viable foetus on the basis of serious disability ‘is one of great sensitivity and difficulty’. But he ruled that it was for Parliament, not the courts, to decide that question.
Heidi said the decision ‘tells me that I am not valued and of much less value than a person without Down’s syndrome’.
