Natalie Weaver is a disability advocate and also a mother. Her daughter, Sophia, has Rett syndrome and a facial deformity. Rett syndrome almost exclusively happens in females. It is a rare genetic neurological disorder that affects the way the brain develops and causes the muscles around the eye, mouth, and body to be impaired. But several months ago when Natalie found out that a photo of her daughter was circulating around Twitter to support abortion, her heart simply dropped.
During an interview with The Mighty, she said that after she saw the photo, she decided to block the account.
But months later, it was revealed that the account was still using Sophia’s picture and in fact, the tweet was pinned on the account’s profile.
Natalie told The Mighty: ‘I decided enough was enough. He is not using my daughter’s image in that hateful way.’
Twitter
Natalie Weaver is the co-founder of Advocates for Medically Fragile Kids NC, and she expressed outrage and concern after a photo of her 9-year-old daughter was used to support eugenic abortions.
TwitterThe post, which has since been deleted, read: ‘it is ok to think that every child matters, however, a lot of them do not hence the amnio test which should be a mandatory test and if it proves negative and the woman does not want to abort then all bills accrued after that is on her and the father.’
Twitter
The comment along with the picture of Sophia rightfully received a lot of hate and ire online. Initially, Twitter was a little apprehensive about banning the account.
Natalie and a bunch of her supporters decided to report the account to Twitter on Saturday. However, on Monday, Twitter came back and responded saying that the tweet did not violate its rules and regulations.
Twitter
Natalie tweeted in response: ‘just received an email that Twitter doesn’t think a person using my child’s image as the poster child to ABORT & to weed out all the ‘defectives’ in utero is a violation. Why? Bc, they won’t recognize hate toward ppl w/ disabilities in their regulations/reports. I would like Twitter to also add ‘hate towards people with disabilities to their violation reporting categories.’
TwitterBut after further review, Twitter decided to suspend the account that posted the photo and even issued an apology for their mistake.
ThoughtCo
Natalie tweeted: ‘thank you @TwitterSupport & @jack for listening! The account that was using my daughter’s image has been suspended! Thank you to the thousands of people who reported this & supported us! Thank you for taking a stand against hate!’
ThoughtCo
