Paralympian Tanni Grey-Thompson says she was stopped in street and asked ‘how did you get pregnant?

Athlete, who was born with spina bifida, became pregnant with daughter Carys in 2001

Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson has opened up about the discrimination she faced during her pregnancy.

The 11-time Paralympic gold medallist, who was born with spina bifida, became pregnant with her daughter Carys in 2001.

Spina bifida is caused when a baby’s spine and spinal cord do not develop properly in the womb, causing a gap in the spine and often resulting in problems such as weakness or total paralysis of the legs, incontinence, and loss of skin sensation in the legs, the NHS states.

Speaking on the BBC podcast “Stumps, Wheels and Wobblies”, the 50-year-old revealed that she received a number of bigoted comments from strangers and was even offered a termination at her first antenatal appointment.

“This woman stopped me and said: ‘How did you get pregnant?’” Grey-Thompson recalled.

“I remember screaming at her in the street: ‘I had sex. How do you think I got pregnant?’

“She was like: ‘Oh, that’s disgusting.’ And I said: ‘I think he’s quite good looking, actually.’”

The athlete added that this was not an isolated incident, explaining that many people struggled to understand how her body would adapt to pregnancy, including medical professionals.

“I lost count of the number of people who asked me how I got pregnant,” Grey-Thompson said.

“The first thing I was offered at my first scan was a termination because people were like: ‘You should not have children.’”

The Paralympian went on to say that she had a discussion with the medical staff about whether she was trying for a baby, and that the individual she spoke to had “some quite complicated views on disability”.

“[An attitude of] we might breed,” Grey-Thompson said.

“I had to answer lots of questions about what you do if it’s disabled.

“I said I would make sure they have a really cool chair, not like the horrible chair I had until I was 15!”

The Cardiff-born athlete has previously spoken about terminating a disabled baby, calling it a “complicated issue”.

Earlier this year, Grey-Thompson told BBC Radio Wales that she believes in a woman’s and a family’s “right to choose”, adding that she believes her parents would ”probably have ended the pregnancy“ had they known about her disability.

“When I was born there weren’t the diagnostics for spina bifida,” she said.

“My mum had a really open conversation with me even when I was quite young, and she said they probably would have terminated the pregnancy if they’d known.”