Mother with disabled son calls for curb on abortion law
- Noah Wall lost 98 per cent of brain at birth due to condition from spina bifida
- Mother Shelly Wall, 45, wants 24-week abortion limit changed in some cases
- Urged mums not to abort babies who are ‘not perfect’ as son was perfect to her
- Doctors advised her to abort Noah five times but he survived and is now happy
Claire Elliot for the Daily Mail
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The mother of a child born with just 2 per cent of his brain has launched a campaign to change the law on abortion.
Women can terminate foetuses with disabilities up until birth – rather than the usual 24-week limit.
But Shelly Wall, 45, says all children should have equal rights from the moment of conception.
Noah Wall’s mother has called for limits to abortion laws, which currently allow mothers with disabled children to abort their children up until birth
The mother-of-three urged mothers not to abort children who are not ‘perfect’ – arguing that her son Noah was perfect to her. Noah developed congenital hydrocephalus at birth, caused by spina bifida, and lost 98 per cent of his brain.
Doctors advised Mrs Wall to abort him five times during her pregnancy. She even planned Noah’s funeral.
But he survived and – despite being confined to a wheelchair – is a happy and popular five-year-old.
Now Mrs Wall has joined forces with a disabled parliamentarian – Lord Shinkwin – to bring in ‘Noah’s Law’. The peer says that abortion laws are a ‘licence to kill’ disabled children.
He added: ‘The tragedy is that some in the medical establishment still see disability as a tragedy to be eradicated by abortion. It’s eugenics.
‘What no one can explain is why after birth I’m good enough for the Queen to send me to the House of Lords while before birth I’m only good for the incinerator.’
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Mrs Wall, from Abbeytown, Cumbria, said: ‘It is not about having the perfect baby. What is a perfect baby?
‘Noah’s a perfect baby to me. Mothers who abort their disabled baby’s life will miss out on a very special relationship.
‘It didn’t cross my mind to contemplate termination. When you create a life with a person you love and you wanted to have a baby with, then you love that child. It was a child conceived in love. Do you love a child any less because it’s disabled?’ Mrs Wall, who has two daughters Ally, 20, and Steph, 25, and is married to Rob, a 50-year-old design engineer, said she treasured every moment with her son despite knowing he might die.
‘We didn’t know how long we’d have with him – minutes, days, months – we had no idea,’ she said. ‘I feel that all disabled children should be given a chance. Noah is normal to me.
‘He’s my son. We need to treat disabled people with respect and treat them like human beings.
‘Everybody has the chance to abort their baby up until 24 weeks but I don’t think that destroying a child up until birth just because it’s got a cleft palette or just because it has spina bifida is right.’
Lord Shinkwin suffers from osteogenesis imperfecta, a rare genetic brittle bone disease.
The peer proposed a bill in parliament that would have seen all abortions banned after 24 weeks but it was defeated last month.
Lord Winston, the fertility scientist, argued the plan was not reasonable for women facing ‘hugely difficult decisions’. Others warned it would lead to a rise in backstreet abortions.
In a statement, the charity Disability Rights UK said: ‘Whatever time limit is set after which abortion should not happen, no distinction should be made between a foetus where the child will be born disabled and where the child will be born non-disabled. All lives are equal.’
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