I was going to say in response to this article that if we stopped using euphemisms, then this mother wouldn’t be forced to field terrible, offensive questions. Her son has Downs Syndrome, and other parents apparently have the audacity to ask: Why didn’t you get prenatal testing? Which is the same as asking Why didn’t you abort the fetus? Which is the same as asking Why didn’t you kill your child?
Now most of us feel that’s not the way we want our culture to go, but not, apparently everyone. Check the Globe’s comment section. The discussion quickly becomes one of the burden Downs children place on all of us, and how they would be better off dead. We all would be really, because the cost of treating them and educating them is high.
So this mother (and parents of children of varying abilities everywhere) need all the support they can get. Because she’ll be fielding the “why didn’t you kill your child?” question for some time to come.
(Filed under our “eugenics” category.)
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Patricia adds: My daughter is five years old and I still get the “did you know she had DS” question. It’s especially disheartening when it comes from a medical professional; I always wonder if what they’re really asking me is whether I want her treated or would I prefer that she go quietly into that good night?
The comments section of the Globe piece was similarly disheartening. Even assuming that people with Down Syndrome impose a higher cost on the public purse, I always thought that, as a society, we were supposed to care for the “weak”. Isn’t “helping widows and orphans” the irrebuttable argument in favour of taxation? Isn’t that what the public purse is for? I realize I have a vested interest in this point of view, but wouldn’t you rather your tax money go to speech therapy or a special education teacher for a child with Down Syndrome or autism than to any number of half-baked government schemes that it is routinely poured into by the bucketful?
But I’m not even prepared to concede “high cost to society” argument. My law school education was heavily subsidized and I’m not sure exactly what obvious benefit to society that provided. I suspect the same could be said of many other highly subsidized higher educations. My daughter won’t be draining the public purse for that purpose. She won’t be seeking a massive bail-out of her automobile company. Nor will she be seeking billions of dollars for wind-power development.
She is however highly functional and industrious, even at five. (You should see her scrub floors.) Everyone who meets her, loves her. (Admittedly, she’s five; not many five year olds aren’t likeable.) She turns the rough and tumble little boys in her class into gentle caregivers – when she’s not playing dragon with them. She says “hi” to the old man having coffee by himself at the next table at the local cafe. I’m guessing she brings some joy to the cashier at our local No Frills because that cashier always makes a point of coming over to talk to her. I don’t know what she’ll end up doing, but I suspect her net contribution to society will be far greater than that of most people so niggardly in their view of life that it would even occur to them to ask how she came to see the light of day.
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Véronique adds: Patricia, your post about the public purse and the potential of people with DS reminded me of a newspaper ad I cut out to show my bioethics students. It showed a boy with Down Syndrome and the caption was (paraphrasing): “He will probably never be Prime Minister or cure cancer. But neither will you.”








I think one of the best things we can do to combat the thinking that advises aborting those who are “less desirable”, those who are considered “less than perfect” is by telling people about those who have chosen life for their babies and the incredible power that has in their own lives to change and transform hearts.
One such story is
http://enjoyingthesmallthings.blogspot.com/2010/01/nella-cordelia-birth-story.html
An incredible story of a woman who gave birth to a Down Syndrome girl, she didn’t know in advance that her baby had Downs, and she relates all the roller-coaster emotions she went through. And in the end, love is what wins.
People need to hear that it is love that heals mothers as well as children, abortion heals nothing and no one.
When you add up all of the government subsidies for healthcare, education and custodial care that the State gives the parents of the retarded, how selfish that the pro life community, which obligates us all to pay these expenses thru our tax money, seeks to deny young girls and women in need of abortion, a modest support.
The pro life community are truly as clueless as their retarded offspring.
Life is unfair, you know. Some people have intellectual disabilities. Others have no heart. Not sure which one imposes a greater cost on society at large. Wouldn’t it be interesting to find out?
Reddog, abortion is highly funded by our govt. No one in Canada pays for her abortion. But we the public do with our taxes.
Crisis pregnancy centres and those who help women facing difficult pregnancies and wish to carry to term don’t charge their clients a cent. And many of them work for nothing.
So don’t you dare talk about pro-lifers begrudging money to help women in need of abortion, we give even when we wish we could refuse.
What do you give to help women come up with an alternate solution?
I am going to comment on th G&M site, but while I’m waiting for my registration to go through, I thought I’d add a different perspective here.
My little sister was born “perfect”, she was a healthy baby, the youngest of 3 girls. She was my best friend, we were very close in age. When she was 2 she contracted viral encephalitis, possibly from a mosquito bite. From that time on she was unable to speak, walk, control her movements, and has severe epilepsy.
She was still my best friend.
She endured countless operations on her hips, her spine, had a g-tube for feeding, and was hospitalized for months on end due to the failure of her epiglottis and subsequent chronic pneumonia. She was certainly a “drain” on the health care system.
No one asked us why we didn’t kill her once she became such a hardship on us, indeed people ended conversations about the Lahtimer (sp?) case when we were around.
She died when she was 22 after a very long stay in the hospital, never reaching that “quality of life” we deem necessary for Down’s Syndrome children, nor their average life expectancy. Everyone acted with a level of humanity, never asking if it would have been better for her not to be born, as if her “perfect” birth was a ticket into society’s heart and conscience.
As much as this mother loves her son, I loved my sister. God bless her.
I would not hold it against someone for aborting their child if it was more than likely afflicted with DS, even if there was a 10% chance. This is the merciful option, to choose to bring a child into this world healthy rather than have a child bear such a terrible burden? Would you bring a child into this world knowing it would have terminal cancer at birth? None of its limbs? DS?