YouTuber Jesse Ridgway speaks out after death threats over abortion
by The Washington Times AI News Desk · The Washington TimesJesse Ridgway, the YouTube personality known online as McJuggerNuggets, is speaking out after he and his wife, Ashley, revealed they terminated a pregnancy following a Down syndrome diagnosis — and faced a torrent of online harassment and death threats in response.
Mr. Ridgway, who has spent two decades building an audience and now counts more than 4.3 million subscribers on his main channel, said the couple had not planned to go public. They were in the middle of filming a gender reveal video when they noticed preliminary markers for Trisomy 21 — the chromosomal condition commonly known as Down syndrome — on the same prenatal report.
“We were filming and ready to celebrate with our audience and we were blindsided,” Mr. Ridgway told the Los Angeles Times in a phone call Thursday. “I reverted to being honest, and yes, that led us to the last 48 hours.”
Mrs. Ridgway underwent the abortion Monday. Her husband said he spent the early part of the week caring for her before posting a lengthy statement Wednesday disclosing the couple’s decision. She reposted the statement to her own Instagram account.
The announcement drew swift and severe backlash. Mr. Ridgway said on X that the couple had received comparisons to Adolf Hitler and “NON-STOP DEATH THREATS.” In a follow-up post, he wrote that he had “never seen such hate and vitriol for two people grieving the loss of their unborn child and making an impossible decision,” and criticized those using religion to justify the threats as “hypocritical.”
Conservative commentator Matt Walsh called the original statement “the most evil thing I’ve ever read on this platform,” according to Newsweek, while anti-abortion activist Abby Johnson called Mr. Ridgway a “monster of a man.” The post had been viewed more than 17.5 million times on X as of Thursday.
Mr. Ridgway pushed back on critics who said they would have kept or adopted the child. “So many saying they would’ve kept the child, put it up for adoption or are suddenly ready to adopt a Down syndrome child,” he wrote. “Many of the people throwing stones don’t even have children, let alone one with a condition.”
He said the couple’s direct messages had been flooded not only with threats but also with private confessions from strangers who had faced similar diagnoses. He said he hoped sharing the experience publicly would help reduce stigma.
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“I think if we share this, it will have a net positive for other people, and they can feel more comfortable and less shame confronting these things,” Mr. Ridgway said.
Trisomy 21 is caused by an extra copy of chromosome 21 and results in varying degrees of intellectual disability as well as an elevated risk of heart defects, hearing and vision problems, and other health complications. According to the National Institutes of Health, while many people with Down syndrome lead full lives with appropriate support, the condition carries significant and lifelong health challenges. Approximately 6,000 babies are born with the condition in the United States each year, affecting roughly 1 in every 700 births.
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