Emmerdale's Laurel Thomas and Jai Sharma are to discover they are expecting a baby, only to later face the heart-breaking decision to terminate the pregnancy.
Emmerdale's Laurel and Jai
The characters - played by Charlotte Bellamy and Chris Bisson - will discover in the coming weeks that Laurel is pregnant and will look forward to cementing their blended family, but after a concerning scan the pair will undergo a CVS (chorionic villus sampling) test which will tell them their baby has Down’s syndrome.
After some extremely tough and emotional conversations, Laurel and Jai will eventually come to the difficult decision to terminate their pregnancy.
Charlotte said: "Terminating a pregnancy is an emotive subject, but I think as a programme what 'Emmerdale' does brilliantly is portray difficult stories that are important to tell.
"The statistics tell us that a majority of people faced with similar news resulting from a diagnostic test, do take this decision.
"So I hope Laurel and Jai's story will take the audience on the journey of them coming to this conclusion and having some understanding why they do.
"There are some very powerfully-written scenes that I hope will give a fair portrayal of their situation.
"When I embarked on this storyline I was well aware of the responsibility of the subject matter, but the scripts have been so well written and I think the story is told fairly."
'Emmerdale' have teamed up with Antenatal Results and Choices (ARC) to ensure the plot is played out sensitively.
Series Producer Laura Shaw added: "Right from the moment the idea was first mooted for this storyline, we knew it was one that if we went ahead with, it had to be fully researched, which involved us speaking to medical professionals, charities and parents with lived experience. Listening to women and men telling us their stories, hearing what brought them to make the difficult decision to terminate their pregnancies, cemented for us that this was a topic rarely shown on soap, but a really important one to highlight.
"Translating what we had learnt into 'Emmerdale' scripts led to what was arguably the most challenging and difficult writing our writing team had ever been tasked with.
"What we have produced and Charlotte and Chris have both brilliantly brought to life, is some of the most heart-breaking and emotional episodes of 'Emmerdale' viewers will have ever seen."
Tagged in Charlotte Bellamy Chris Bisson