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.

 

[DoomsdayElite]

So difficult... and then made a video for the cheap, fleeting dopamine hits provided by social media engagement. I hate this place.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

The same thing happened in reverse with defibrillation and life support. In the 60s through the 80s, if someone was a vegetable, in a coma, had a traumatic enough injury that until that point would have killed them, or even just had a heart attack, life support and restarting their heart was condemned as a sinful, artificial defiance of God's will. If your heart stopped, or your brain couldn't make you breath on your own, you were DEAD, and doctors restarting your heart or using machines to breath for you were Satanic necromancers. There were literally people picketing hospitals over this issue. By the mid 80s it was dying out, though some holdouts remained over the idea of life support even into the early 90s. Then Terry Schiavo happened and suddenly the evil doctors and her husband were trying to MURDER HER. Now we're at the stage where not only MUST you shit out the potato, if you don't DEMAND that doctors keep it on life support at the tax-payer cost of $10,000+ a day until they can repair its heart holes in a $200,000 surgery, you're a FUCKING MURDERER.

It correlates to when it stopped happening to Boomer's parents and switched to the Boomer's themselves.

 

[daffodils]

Fun Fact: Up until 1869 Catholic church allowed abortion for any reason if it the fetus was less then 40 day old

I looked it up and apparently they always considered it a sin, it just incurred a lesser penalty if it happened in the 40 day window. They changed it in the 19th century to remove any dependence on theories of ensoulment, probably as a reaction to scientific advances.

https://www.aei.org/op-eds/a-misconception-about-catholics-and-abortion/

 

[Taser Confetti]

The “you can’t abort downies” people are absolutely insane and choosing to make yourself a target online by speaking about it was a bad call.

They love to virtue signal about their pet tards and use them as political props for the entirety of their (usually short) lives. Anyone who calls Down Syndrome a “blessing” is insane and you should stay as far away from them as possible.

Nothing says pro-life like sending a grieving couple death threats though….

 

[jertzog]

I've always said that activists against abortion need to draw lines in two specific ways:
a) Prevent public tax dollars from funding abortion, making it no longer a burden on the public's conscience.
b) Target the massive overwhelming proportion of abortions that are elective, in other words, a slut's personal convenience. Not pregnancies to do with incest, rape, actual danger of death to the mother, and the winnowing of retards.

 

[Otterly]

So you would agree that both parents need genetic testing in order to discover who needs to castrated so that their genes cannot be passed down since they carry the gene for downs syndrome, right?

That’s not how downs works. It’s not a mutation, it’s a chromosome nondysjunction. You could abort every downs baby for a thousand years and you’d still have downs pregnancies. Humans for some reason are just not very good at separating chromosomes out and packaging them correctly. When this happens during egg or sperm production or very early in embryo development you get three copies of the chromosome.
There are multiple disorders of various trisomy (13,15,18,21 most common) but none are down to mutations per se (there is a very rare method downs can be inherited but it’s complicated and doesn’t happen much.)
All the trisomies are a different thing to mutations - and most people carry at least one potentially deleterious mutation.

 

[MisterListerTheBlister]

Sorry goyim, God wants you to raise the retard or else you're unforgivable and going to hell.

 

[Pokemon Conquistador]

I thought the couple made it public to try an d destigmatize aborting Downies, not for internet clout, but it's hard to tell. All I know is that it would be a painful decision, not just because the child might be severely impaired, but because said child might come out as well as a Downs Syndrome child could - have a job, relationships and everything, and then die of Alzheimers in its 40s. It would be terribly tragic to have a lovely, bubbly downs kid for years, then watch them deteriorate into a surly adult who can't remember where they are most of the time. It's hard when it happens to a non-downs person, -it has to be traumatic for a trusting, innocent downs person to be betrayed by their own brain.

 

[AssignedEva]

I had a cousin with Down's who died a couple of years ago. She was lovely, and very loved, but very difficult too and needed a lot of care. The Bart's test they used to use to screen was not all that accurate, and received wisdom was that more invasive tests increased your risk of miscarriage.

Losing a baby is very hard, I cannot imagine how much harder it is to choose to terminate a wanted pregnancy. But things are different now. Tests are more accurate, and also people with Down's live a lot longer. My cousin "died young" but she was pushing 40, which is a lot longer than people expected when she was born - the life expectancy now can reach 60-70. One of the cruellest things is a parent outliving their child, but in this circumstance I think it was a relief - because what was going to happen to her when they were gone?

I think about Colin Farrell, whose son has Angelman. It's worse than Down's and has a different aetiology, it's generally caused by a genetic deletion and it causes seizures and an inability to speam, but again gets stereotyped as a happy, joyful and loving. Colin Farrell clearly loves his son very much

He's a very wealthy actor and even then they couldn't find or source in home care and eventually had to put that boy in a home (but no doubt, a very nice one). If you don't come from means, and your child will outlive you and will need care, what can you possibly feel but dread? Where will this child end up, one who in many ways will always be a child?

We can judge these people for being influencers and doing a "LIVESTREAM: STORYTIME: WE FIND OUT IF WE'RE HAVING A BOY OR A GIRL" but I feel nothing but compassion for them having to find this out live and then ultimately make a very difficult decision.

 

[74164978231]

Keep in mind that you’re not likely to interact with the majority of downies that aren’t able to hold a job or volunteer or be in public by themselves.

I’ve met downies that bag groceries or take movie stubs at theaters too, but unless you’re a caseworker or social worker, you’re not going to be hanging out at group homes etc for the severely disabled ones with multiple health problems.

I don't think people realize that before the late 20th century life expectancy for down syndrome people was their mid 20s.

 

[General Patton]

I would have done the same thing, tbh. If a baby had Down Syndrome.

 

[stuuupid_idiot]

I think there's a decent chance this whole thing is fake and I'm surprised how little this is being discussed.

Jesse's entire Internet career has revolved around fake, slop content.



His "wife" does not appear to have been 21 weeks pregnant, at a glance.

 

[WENDY DENG 2020]

Hopefully, both of them go to Planned Parenthood. And do what their whore mothers should have done.

 

[Dumbledore's Onlyfans]

They should have just said she had a miscarriage. Nobody would have questioned it.

Unless they WANTED a bunch of internet drama and attention. in that case, they did the right thing.

 

[Haramburger]

Was curious why this is being treated as if it's some sort of new thing when it's obviously not?

Testing for Downs didn't start until the 70's, and arguably wasn't offered to everyone depending on race/income/other factors really until the later 80's & 90's. Gen X'ers and Millenials just kind of got stuck with them where testing wasn't done, but services were booming, so it was a sort of baby boom for Downies. Now, testing is way more common and accurate, and people are seeing how the healthiest Downs have turned out in what has been their optimal care conditions in human history. Now the generations today have to grapple with hard facts and soft feelings, and the discourse isn't pretty.

There's all sorts of edge cases too, like twins where one's healthy but the other is Downs. They're still going to happen no matter what. If we must do the basic human dignity thing, I'd rather services go to our white national tards than jeet and Muslim imports, who are arguably dumber and smellier.

 

[Raven of the Burning God]

Pro choice people will be more then happy to abort a healthy baby as is just a clump of cells and it's empowering

They don't want you spending their donation money on stupid pointless shit like future generations of your family.

but as soon as you do it because of quality of life then suddenly you are hitler incarnate.

They don't want you killing their future donors, voters, and/or useful idiots.

I've always said that activists against abortion need to draw lines in two specific ways:
a) Prevent public tax dollars from funding abortion, making it no longer a burden on the public's conscience.
b) Target the massive overwhelming proportion of abortions that are elective, in other words, a slut's personal convenience. Not pregnancies to do with incest, rape, actual danger of death to the mother, and the winnowing of retards.

This debate has been going on for 50 years, jefe.
a) Been done. First there was the argument that public tax dollars can still be given to organizations that fund abortion provided they maintained records showing the public funding went to non-abortion services and never funded abortion. Then there was the argument that money is fungible, so requiring abortion-providers to track where the public funding goes was an undue burden. If you notice that the second argument rebuts the first, you get an abortion a cookie!
b) Been done. Exceptions for incest, rape, etc. were argued to be Equal Protection violations, used to get the whole statute thrown out. Thus why current statutes tend not to contain these exceptions. So when you hear a horrifying story about a rape victim being forced to gestate and birth a rapist child, remember to give thanks to the the "Pro-Choice" people for opposing reproductive rights.

 

[Eeey Valerie]

I think there's a decent chance this whole thing is fake and I'm surprised how little this is being discussed.

Looking into him a bit more, it seems his original claim to fame was a series of videos where he pretended to have murdered his father and fled to Switzerland. On the other hand it seems a little late for a "loljk we were just raising awareness" and the real headcases would never believe it anyway.

They don't want you killing their future donors, voters, and/or useful idiots.

What they don't want is normal people having healthy children.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

They don't want you killing their future donors, voters, and/or useful idiots.

I think it's just classic doublethink. In a culture that celebrates victimization, killing someone for their victim status is a sin.

 

[Snack Cracker]

I think there's a decent chance this whole thing is fake and I'm surprised how little this is being discussed.

Jesse's entire Internet career has revolved around fake, slop content.

Ver archivo adjunto 9114559

His "wife" does not appear to have been 21 weeks pregnant, at a glance.

Ver archivo adjunto 9114557

Women are less likely to “show” if it’s their first pregnancy, plus at 21 weeks the baby is roughly the size of a carrot or a banana.

 

[Kugelsak Kastengrus 6th]

I definitely feel that pregnancies and anything that comes with the territory should not be a topic for content creators, especially if something were to go wrong or certain decisions need to be made.

As far as aborting a down syndrome fetus is concerned, you really can't blame the parent. Taking care of such a child will take a lot of time, resources, care, and patience. Some parents are clearly not cut out to raise such a child. As for those pro-lifers who are hollering over the issue, maybe they should step up to adopt and raise the child.