Jesse Ridgway, a famous YouTuber with almost 2.5 billion views, had a viral post on X recently in which he announced that he and his wife had recently faced a “difficult decision” after learning that his wife was pregnant with a baby with Down syndrome. The decision was whether to abort the child. After serious consideration, they decided in favor of abortion. The decision, he said, left them devastated, and his wife “emotionally drained.” As he explains their reasoning, it becomes clear their tragic choice was made on bad information.First, Ridgway’s statistics are a bit off. He states that the birth incidence of Down syndrome is 1 in 1,000. According to the CDC’s latest statistics, the live birth prevalence is less rare at 1 in 640 in the U.S. In parts of Europe where abortion is more prevalent, the live birth incidence drops to around 1 in 990, but Ridgway doesn’t live in Europe.
Down syndrome does have real consequences. The extra copy of chromosome 21 causes the body to produce higher levels of many proteins, and those effects ripple throughout the body over the course of a lifetime.
Some vision and hearing loss is common, and autoimmune conditions are possible, too. The cognitive challenges of people with Down syndrome are well known, but they typically fall within the mild to moderate range of intellectual disability.
