{"id":180241,"date":"2018-03-13T07:15:51","date_gmt":"2018-03-13T11:15:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=180241"},"modified":"2018-03-14T15:01:19","modified_gmt":"2018-03-14T19:01:19","slug":"discriminating-son-down-syndrome-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/discriminating-son-down-syndrome-end\/","title":{"rendered":"Discriminating against people like my son, with Down syndrome, must end"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>

I have a child with Down syndrome. Wyatt will be six years old this year. He goes to school and has family and friends that love him. He fights with his brother and sisters, really loves “Little Einsteins,” and has virtually no health problems. But when I received the diagnosis of Down syndrome, while I was 16 weeks pregnant with him, I grieved. I cried and I mourned and I was scared of what the future would bring. Now, in retrospect, I have no idea why I was so fearful and so sad. Wyatt is a little boy. He’s not a burden or someone who is suffering. So why was I scared?<\/p>\n

\"down

Wyatt<\/p><\/div>\n

Well, because of people like Ruth Marcus.<\/p>\n

Marcus wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post<\/a> in which she explained why she opposed the growing laws banning abortion<\/a> due to reasons of race, gender, or disability — like Down syndrome. Marcus explained that, in her pregnancies, she had an amniocentesis performed due to her age, which gave her an increased risk of having a baby with Down syndrome. Had the test come back positive, she said, she would have had an abortion. “I respect \u2014 I admire \u2014 families that knowingly welcome a baby with Down syndrome into their lives,” she claimed. “Certainly, to be a parent is to take the risks that accompany parenting; you love your child for who she is, not what you want her to be.”\u00a0She then added:<\/p>\n

But accepting that essential truth is different from compelling a woman to give birth to a child whose intellectual capacity will be impaired, whose life choices will be limited, whose health may be compromised. Most children with Down syndrome have mild to moderate cognitive impairment, meaning an IQ between 55 and 70 (mild) or between 35 and 55 (moderate). This means limited capacity for independent living and financial security; Down syndrome is life-altering for the entire family.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m going to be blunt here: That was not the child I wanted. That was not the choice I would have made. You can call me selfish, or worse, but I am in good company. The evidence is clear that most women confronted with the same unhappy alternative would make the same decision.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I didn’t welcome Wyatt into our family because I wanted respect or admiration. I did so because of the exact point she made: I love him for who he is, not who I want him to be. That’s what parenting is all about. No one is promised a perfect child, after all, and choosing to take the life of your child because they don’t fit a preconceived notion of what kind of child you want is not just selfish — it’s ableist. And it’s a harmful attitude to have.<\/p>\n

\"down

Wyatt and his brother<\/p><\/div>\n

Marcus seems to understand how this kind of thinking can lead to ethical problems, writing, “Technological advances in prenatal testing pose difficult moral choices about what, if any, genetic anomaly or defect justifies an abortion. Nearsightedness? Being short? There are creepy, eugenic aspects of the new technology that call for vigorous public debate.”<\/p>\n

But even with those ethical pitfalls, Marcus refuses to back down, still reaffirming her belief that women should have the “right” to abort babies with Down syndrome. On Twitter, she pointed out that 67 percent of women in the United States choose to do so.<\/p>\n

\n

And a reminder: 67 percent of US women who discover their fetus has Down syndrome choose to terminate their pregnancies. They\u2019re not monsters. They\u2019re grieving women making an agonizing choice<\/p>\n

\u2014 Ruth Marcus (@RuthMarcus) March 10, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n