Culture YouTuber Jesse Ridgway and Wife Made ‘Difficult Decision to Terminate’ Pregnancy After Down Syndrome Diagnosis: 'Gut Punch' - The couple shared on their Instagram Stories that Jesse's wife Ashley got an abortion earlier this week

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Jesse Ridgway and his wife Ashley have ended their pregnancy and are explaining why.

In a series of posts on the YouTuber's Instagram Stories from Wednesday, June 3, Jesse, 33, said that they'd recently made the "difficult decision" to end Ashley's pregnancy after receiving a fetal Down syndrome diagnosis. Ashley later reposted the statement on her own Stories.

"This week, my wife and I made the very difficult decision to terminate the pregnancy due to Trisomy 21," wrote Jesse. Trisomy 21 is another name for Down syndrome. "The choice was not made lightly."

Jesse acknowledged that some of their fans might be "very disappointed" to hear this news and said the experience has been "extremely traumatic" for him and Ashley, 31, who terminated the pregnancy earlier this week.

"When I first confronted this news, I was shocked but optimistic," Jesse wrote. "If they're a little slow intellectually, then we'll make it work. I signed on to be a parent, come what may...but I just didn't fully understand what Down syndrome entailed."

He went on to list health risks that can be associated with Down syndrome, including heart defects, hearing challenges and delayed physical development.

"Down Syndrome isn't a 'blessing,' it is objectively s---ty from a health perspective," Jesse claimed. "I didn't realize just how rough it is for the child, let alone the family...more often than not, they would be fully dependent on others for the rest of their life."

The influencer said he spoke with friends, family, doctors and genetic counselors and claimed that 90% of women terminate their pregnancy after learning the baby has Down syndrome. (According to Healthline, that figure in the U.S. is 67%.)

"This was WAY higher than I expected, I thought it would be lower given I hear so many say they kept or would keep the baby," continued Jesse. "I believe that's because most terminations happen privately [and] it feels shameful. A lot of judgement being cast."

He directly addressed his fans who have autism or Down syndrome and have weighed in on their decision, saying that they "appreciate" them.

"You matter a lot and we're glad you're here," he said. "I commend you and your families for having the strength and courage to push forward."

"As for us, we made a difficult decision that we believe in the long-run will be beneficial for our family. Thankfully, we had a choice," Jesse said. "It will take a little time to move on, but we are excited to try again in the future and hopefully have a better outcome."

The couple, who are based in New Jersey, first announced they were expecting in March. In a joint Instagram post, the two sat together and held up a series of sonogram images.

"BABY RIDGWAY - COMING FALL 2026," they wrote in their caption.

 

[More AWS-8Q Than You]

Yeah. I wouldn't give the state the power to do that but eugenics is a valid science that's used in every other industry so I don't think it's unreasonable for people to consider it if they will be knowingly passing down a huge life destroying threat. However I don't think downs is a genetic disorder but a fuck up during gestation, could be wrong though

Eugenics works when it's done unintentionally, like when Europe spent centuries executing the 0.5-2% most anti-social men in every generation or that time when the stars, and technology, aligned in Bongistan and for about a century and a half the top two quintiles of the Brits out reproduced them bottom two quintiles. And then they built a global empire with the surplus quality population. And then squandered it by power walking it into German machine guns.

Reminder that part of the reason that the Bongs suck these days is because WWI disproportionately killed their best and brightest. Literally a living example of what Eugenics and Disgenics can create.

 

[Snack Cracker]

The problem is that they made this heart wrenching and devastating event content, not that it happened.

If someone isn’t prepared to have a lifetime child that will have hefty medical bills and will never be independent, ending the pregnancy is the right thing to do.

 

[Adrian Dittmann]

Down syndrome is usually caused by random error in cell division. The vast majority of parents don't carry anything that causes it.

Yeah, it's usually an error but women with mosaic down syndrome are more likely to have children with down syndrome,. There's some woman on social media who had three downies then got tested and it turned out she had mosaic DS. If a full blown downie woman gets pregnant it's a 50/50 chance for the baby to have it.

 

[FunPosting101]

The people who go on and on about "the commitment" to caring for a disabled kid are using literal nigger-tier logic. It's a commitment to care for any child, period. It's what you fucking signed up for when you decided to "start a family".

If your perfectly healthy child with a normal amount of chromosomes gets hit by a car and suffers a TBI that renders them functionally identical to a downie, can you back out of the "commitment" then? Of course you can't.

Life involves risk. Your child is constantly to exposed to risk that may very well put them into a position of requiring permanent care. What is the difference between getting literally hit by a car post-birth and being metaphorically hit by a genetic deficiency pre-birth? None, unless you are a nigger who believes that "risk" MAGICALLY begins when the baby pops out instead of when you decided to bareback your fat hog of a wife.

You know, aside from the fact that the chances of a functional, mentally normal kid getting hit by a car and being given a TBI is really small, while choosing to not terminate a downs syndrome pregnancy practically guarantees that the resulting child will be a potato with zero possibility of being anything else, there's also the simple fact that it's actually possible to recover from a traumatic brain injury. Especially when we're talking about a young child who can actually bounce back from things that you wouldn't expect them to.

A downsie isn't going to bounce back, recover, or whatever else. Not with current medical technology. So it's simply better to terminate the pregnancy, simple as that.

 

[Cpt. Stud Beefpile]

I'm usually against abortion on principle but after seeing the end result of a Downie who 'grew up' and couldn't move out of its parents home any more than Chris-chan could've, I'm gonna leave any judgement up to the great Judge himself. It's a lifelong burden that only gets worse.

Downies who represent the average - the ones with faces that make normie kids say "gross!", stupider than a liberal, often prone to teary outbursts/violence and often some level of physically disabled - rarely are represented on the TV shows or the silver screen. Not counting the channel "TLC" which has become a digital circus freakshow.

The ugly-cute Downies who can mostly or kinda-sorta function in regular society are the top 20% or so that you pray your kid will be when the doctor gives you the worst news of your life.

A downsie isn't going to bounce back, recover, or whatever else. Not with current medical technology. So it's simply better to terminate the pregnancy, simple as that.

There MAY be hope in the future.

But this is at the outer edge of science and it depends on Star Wars-tier technology to even be possible, much less affordably available to the common parent.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

We should add to "Depends on the race" a "and health defects",

 

[MongInTheMirror]

Everyone with such a strong stance against it should be forced to spend a weekend alone with a severely disabled adult. I've done it for a family friend a few times and it is absolute hell. It is wrong to guilt someone into that kind of life because you saw a few times, in short windows, where they were on their best behavior or sedated and being childlike and friendly and it would make you super sad if that person didn't take on a 24/7 heartbreaking caretaker job for the next 50 years.

God, this so, so much. Being vague so as not to PL here, but I've seen this play out IRL and it really can't be overstated. It always amazes me how casually judgemental random people will be about this when they have literally zero idea what it's like to care for someone like this. I had an acquaintance whose kid was severely autistic (as in, non verbal), and the amount of boomer spastics she had to listen to banging on about how they just "think differently" made me want to start pepper spraying them. Because they don't just "think differently". This lady loves her kid and they absolutely do a great job considering, but it is a level of intensity that regular parenting doesn't even approach. Every single child like that, and I'm honestly not even exaggerating, is the workload of at least a half dozen regular kids.

And of course, at this point the pro-life absolutists would claim I'm denying their lives have value, but that's not what I'm saying. I'm talking about the literal hours of back-breaking labor and added exhaustion they have to deal with, on top of the levels of those that normally go with parenting. I also mean the fact that unlike regular parenting, these people will never, ever need to stop parenting, and they have to worry about what happens to the kid after they're gone, as others have mentioned here already. With any other child you know there will come a point where as a parent you can finally exhale, because your kid is finally competent enough to stand on their own two feet in life: SPED parents will never, ever get to relax, even after death.

You simply cannot comprehend either the intensity or infinite timeline of the workload involved, if you have only ever interacted with such people from a distance.

 

[oreoless effect]

the difference is that the risk of your healthy kid getting wrecked by a random car is vanishingly small, while the downoid is 100% guaranteed to be a permanent liability and burden that just makes life worse

You know, aside from the fact that the chances of a functional, mentally normal kid getting hit by a car and being given a TBI is really small, while choosing to not terminate a downs syndrome pregnancy practically guarantees that the resulting child will be a potato with zero possibility of being anything else, there's also the simple fact that it's actually possible to recover from a traumatic brain injury. Especially when we're talking about a young child who can actually bounce back from things that you wouldn't expect them to.

A downsie isn't going to bounce back, recover, or whatever else. Not with current medical technology. So it's simply better to terminate the pregnancy, simple as that.

The entire point of my post is that you are comparing the wrong things.

What is the chance of any pregnancy becoming a downie? That is what you should measure against any other risk. Once the "accident" occurs, you can't shift the goalposts to say "OMG, there's 100% chance that this accident that already fucking happened is going to be a liability! KILL IT NOW"

The equivalent to your post is saying "the risk of any child without a Toyota Tacoma speeding in front of them is vanishingly small, while the risk of any child with a Toyota Tacoma speeding in front of them is 100% guaranteed to be a permanent liability..."

 

[DumbDude43]

Once the "accident" occurs, you can't shift the goalposts to say "OMG, there's 100% chance that this accident that already fucking happened is going to be a liability! KILL IT NOW"

why not? thanks to moderm medicine, you can in fact do exactly that, as the couple this article is about has just proven. works pretty well when it comes to dealing with downoids.

 

[FunPosting101]

The entire point of my post is that you are comparing the wrong things.

What is the chance of any pregnancy becoming a downie? That is what you should measure against any other risk. Once the "accident" occurs, you can't shift the goalposts to say "OMG, there's 100% chance that this accident that already fucking happened is going to be a liability! KILL IT NOW"

The equivalent to your post is saying "the risk of any child without a Toyota Tacoma speeding in front of them is vanishingly small, while the risk of any child with a Toyota Tacoma speeding in front of them is 100% guaranteed to be a permanent liability..."

No. I'm saying that a Downie isn't worth the effort of raising, so it's better to terminate the pregnancy, furthermore, I'm in favor of elective abortion up to the 14th/15th week of the pregnancy remaining legal. I'm not opposed to abortion in all cases, far from it. I really don't care if this is "nigger logic" by your definition of the term, because even the most obnoxiously stereotypical hoodrat understands that raising a downs syndrome child isn't worth it, although they might take advantage of the situation to get more welfare payments from the government.

 

[Snack Cracker]

why not? thanks to moderm medicine, you can in fact do exactly that, as the couple this article is about has just proven. works pretty well when it comes to dealing with downoids.

Almost 100% of the time in some countries.

 

[Lurker]

Almost 100% of the time in some countries.
Ver archivo adjunto 9105421

my god, Iceland is genociding all the downies!

 

[Snack Cracker]

my god, Iceland is genociding all the downies!

Leftists will say this is a bad thing, when it’s a direct result of the *perfect socialized healthcare* systems that they claim to want.

 

[NoStepOnSnake]

This abortion was sponsored by RAID OF SHADOWLEGENDS. When you think of sweet orcs smashing up retards with sick battle axes, think of RAID OF SHADOWLEGENDS.

Shadowlegends is gonna get banned by Jack Thompson because the ads promote violence.

(I am old shut up)

 

[Lurker]

Leftists will say this is a bad thing, when it’s a direct result of the *perfect socialized healthcare* systems that they claim to want.

-existing leftishly-

well this leftist sees no problem with it

 

[Ser Prize]

Rare case where abortion is justified imo.

I'm as anti abortion as anyone and I agree. It's sad, but hopefully they have better luck in the future.

 

[Snack Cracker]

-existing leftishly-

well this leftist sees no problem with it

Then you’re one of the rare leftists that isn’t instantly outraged by anything approaching eugenics, which is refreshing.

Never understood the logic of “aborting perfectly healthy pregnancies is fine, but aborting pregnancies that will result in downs etc is bad”.

 

[FunPosting101]

Then you’re one of the rare leftists that isn’t instantly outraged by anything approaching eugenics, which is refreshing.

Never understood the logic of “aborting perfectly healthy pregnancies is fine, but aborting pregnancies that will result in downs etc is bad”.

You know, the whining from various left-leaning groups about the policies of, say, Iceland, on this matter are peculiar, if you assume that they're acting in good faith. When you consider the possibility of some sort of financial kickback, transfer payment, whatever, though; it starts making more sense.

There's probably money to be made in running long-term care facilities, especially if you're willing to ignore certain rules and laws about quality of care for the people at those facilities.

 

[Dante Alighieri]

While it's easy to make judgement calls in every direction, for and against, ultimately it's their choice and any moral consequences are between them and God. If I were in that situation I have no idea how I would choose, and I pray that many people never have to make this decision.

 

[Mr. Zed da Robot Poon Fed]

It’s not like people with Down syndrome can’t function in real life. There are fitness instructors with Down syndrome, like this fair lady here:



I’m a little torn by this because I understand where they’re coming from in making this decision, but this is further proof of why “content creation” is so trash; people will make content on anything, regardless of how trivial or personal it should have been.