Dani Czernuszka-Watt told the BBC that when she went for an abortion during her fourth pregnancy, she was visibly upset. Not only did she not want the abortion, but the staff seemed incapable of properly caring for her because she uses a wheelchair. She is calling out the abortion industry for discrimination — but discrimination against Dani started long before she entered the abortion business.
“I was sobbing as I was put to sleep,” she said, “and I was sobbing when I woke up.”
In 2017, Dani was the mother of two born children when she became paralyzed from the waist down while playing rugby. Following the accident, she and her husband welcomed a third child, but when she became pregnant for the fourth time, doctors told her she had to have an abortion even though she was “over the moon” to be pregnant.
“We always spoke about having a big family,” she said.
However, after the birth of her third child, Dani had been diagnosed with pelvic congestion syndrome, which causes chronic pain in the pelvis. In 2023, she suffered a severe episode and was admitted to the hospital. That’s when she learned she was pregnant. Doctors said that complications from her condition meant she had to have an abortion. But that advice portayed Dani’s child as the ‘complication’ — not the health condition.
Additional blood flow during pregnancy, along with hormones, can increase symptoms of pelvic congestion syndrome, which is caused by enlarged veins in the pelvic area. However, according to Cedars-Sinai, treatments are available to help, and most women will feel relief from their symptoms once the baby is born. It is not a life-threatening condition and can be managed during pregnancy with rest, elevation, compression stockings, and medications. In severe cases, endovascular procedures are performed to block or shrink the affected veins. But the fact that Dani uses a wheelchair may have been a factor in the doctor’s decision to advise abortion.
Dani felt “utter guilt and shame” at the idea of having an abortion, yet, because of the doctor’s advice, she contacted the British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), the UK’s largest abortion organization.
“I was told by the clinic manager that they’d never had anyone in a wheelchair before, and that they were unsure whether I could be accommodated,” said Dani. To enter the building, she had to use a lift that was meant for deliveries, not people. Her husband was not allowed in the room with her to help her get from her wheelchair to the abortion table, and Dani feels that she would have been treated differently if not for the wheelchair.
“To me, it was like they were seeing my wheelchair and not the person on it,” she said.
The abortion industry has a history of treating women as “cattle” to be herded through appointments rather than as persons. And, of course, abortionists completely dehumanize preborn children, treating them as disposable property instead of as living human beings.
The discrimination Dani felt didn’t begin at the abortion facility, but at the hospital where doctors told her she should abort her preborn baby. No one along Dani’s path to abortion seemed to treat her as a woman or mother, but as a disability, convincing her that abortion was a solution rather than finding ways to help her and her child through the months ahead to a healthy delivery.
Her baby was also discriminated against, treated as a complication rather than as a human being, and killed because it was easier for the doctors, regardless of Dani’s feelings about her baby.
Doctors could have assisted Dani and her baby by first treating them both as human beings and persons deserving of respect and dignity. They could have found ways to alleviate pain as much as possible for Dani while keeping her baby healthy as well. And if complications arose, doctors could have delivered the baby prematurely to ensure both mother and child remained safe.
Instead, doctors seem to have determined that since Dani uses a wheelchair and has a chronic health condition, she and her much-wanted baby were not worth fighting for.
