YouTuber Jesse Ridgway posted an offensive skit mocking Down syndrome years before he and his wife aborted her pregnancy to avoid having a baby with the condition.
The internet personality made a 45-minute video in 2017 in which he played a character with Down syndrome, using a stereotypical voice and mannerisms often used to mock developmentally disabled people.
In the footage, shot while filming the series “The Devil Inside,” he slurs “I have Down syndrome” before adding “I want to go to Chuck E. Cheese.”
Ridgway did the tone-deaf impression while filming a scene in which his character snaps and becomes someone with the genetic condition.
Ridgway defended the video as art, saying he was playing the role of someone whose brain was “fried.”
”I play a character named Isaac Kalder who has hijacked Jesse Ridgway’s life. My family is pissed so they hold me at gunpoint and force me to switch chars rapidly. The identity switches happen too fast and it fries my brain,”Ridgway told TMZ.
People with Down Syndrome don’t have damaged brains, rather, the structure of their brains is altered by an extra copy of chromosome 21.
On Wednesday, Ridgway faced backlash after revealing on Instagram: “This week, my wife and I made the very difficult decision to terminate the pregnancy due to Trisomy 21.
“The choice was not made lightly. We are devastated. This has been extremely traumatic for both of us, especially Ashley.”
Trisomy 21 is also known as Down syndrome, “a genetic condition where a person is born with an extra chromosome,” per the CDC.
One in every 640 babies in the US is born with Down syndrome.
Anti-abortion campaigners said that up to 90% of pregnancies where Trisomy 21 is detected end in termination.
