YouTuber Jesse Ridgway is doubling down on his decision to speak out about him and his wife Ashley deciding to have an abortion.
“A lot of the pro-life people are wishing death upon me and my wife, which is hypocritical,” Jesse, 33, said in a series of Instagram Stories videos on Wednesday, June 10. “A lot of them use God and Jesus as their weapon and their justification, but it doesn’t matter to me, because I’m not religious. I don’t believe in God. I don’t believe in the bible.”
Jesse said he and Ashley, 31, have received numerous death threats since sharing the news earlier this month that they decided to terminate their pregnancy after discovering their baby had been diagnosed with fetal Down syndrome.
The YouTube star — who goes by the moniker McJuggerNuggets — said that he doesn’t “judge people for believing in” religion but, “When you start to use it as a weapon, then it becomes problematic.”
Jesse said, “People saying, ‘Go to hell,’ it doesn’t matter because I can’t go there, I don’t believe in it. Even for the religious folks, don’t we believe in forgiveness? We’ve all sinned, right? I’m gonna keep pushing, guys. I would encourage more conversation about this topic.”
“I’m sure a lot of people that would even judge me are going to be confronting this potential situation or other chromosomal abnormalities. It happens. I did not think it would happen to me, and here I am,” he continued. “Never in a million years did I expect to be a poster child for abortion, because as a dude, it’s not really something you confront.”
He summed up the backlash, saying, “It’s absolutely crazy.”
Jesse first shared the news that he and Ashley had decided to terminate their pregnancy in a June 3 Instagram Stories post.
“This week, my wife and I made the very difficult decision to terminate the pregnancy due to Trisomy 21,” he wrote. “The choice was not made lightly. We really appreciate all of the personal stories that you guys shared with us, especially the unconditional support we receive from fans with no matter what we decided.”
“I know some of you may be very disappointed to hear this news. We are devastated,” Jesse added. “This has been extremely traumatic for both of us, especially Ashley.”
The couple shared that their baby had fetal Down syndrome in April.
“The same genetic testing that told us our baby would be a boy revealed to us that he had a 95% chance to be born with Down Syndrome,” Jesse wrote in a candid Instagram post at the time.
Jesse said he and Ashley were “rocked by the results.”
“Down Syndrome carries a very HIGH risk of miscarriage and usually comes with heart defects, structural abnormalities, developmental issues, shorter lifespan, etc.,” he wrote. “As excited as we are to become parents, this was a gut-punch…We want the best for our first kid…and even putting Ashley at risk…so many questions and concerns.”
