Amber wants to show the world that her baby boy Derek is valuable even though he has severe facial deformities and a brain disorder.
But recently the Australian mom and her son became the target of cruel comments on the social media platform TikTok, where she shares her family’s story.
The Mirror reports some commenters suggested Derek should have been aborted, and others called him an “it.” One even accused Amber of incest.
“Put him out of his misery,” a commenter responded to a recent video of her waking up Derek in the morning.
Another suggested she should have aborted him, writing: “You wouldn’t put an animal through this so why a tiny helpless baby. Must have shown on scans,” according to the report.
Derek was born with holoprosencephaly, a rare brain disorder, and facial deformities, his mother said. Though she considered abortion, Amber said she is glad that she chose life for her son.
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After noting the nasty comments, she said she decided to make a second video defending her son’s life.
“Do some research or look on my account, try to figure out why,” Amber responded. “Don’t just assume it was something I did. Don’t just assume it was because I had sex with my cousin or something like that. How messed up are you to even think of those things?”
Amber said she learned about the details of her son’s condition when she was eight months pregnant, and she and her partner did consider an abortion. She said her doctors told them that Derek likely would die shortly before or after he was born anyway.
But the young mother chose life – and was made to feel selfish for doing so.
“We were ready to say goodbye and if it’s selfish to want to meet him before that, then yeah we’re selfish parents,” she said. “But I’m so glad that we did because he lived. He wasn’t dying. He wasn’t suffering. He was fighting to stay alive.”
Amber said she wants to help people see that children like her son are valuable, no matter what they look like or their abilities are.
“I’m doing this to show that babies like him can live and can be happy and not suffer,” she said.
Discrimination against people with disabilities begins before birth. Many parents face immense pressure to abort their unborn babies after a disability diagnosis. But parents like Amber are working to end this discrimination and help society recognize that every child’s life is valuable.
