{"id":241171,"date":"2021-03-07T09:21:59","date_gmt":"2021-03-07T15:21:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.liveaction.org\/news\/?p=241171"},"modified":"2021-03-04T17:04:24","modified_gmt":"2021-03-04T23:04:24","slug":"children-down-syndrome-pages-australian-portrait-book","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/children-down-syndrome-pages-australian-portrait-book\/","title":{"rendered":"Children with Down syndrome light up the pages of Australian portrait book"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A new portrait book featuring children with Down syndrome in Australia is aiming to smash stigma against the condition. Most parents choose to have an abortion after receiving a Down syndrome diagnosis, or are pressured to have one. But one mom decided to take action to try to change that.<\/p>\n

Stephanie Rodden, founder of Celebrate T21<\/a>, was told by doctors that she and her husband had “a decision to make” when their son Lincoln was believed to have Down syndrome. “[Our doctor] wasn’t about to connect us in with other families and all he had was the hard-fact medical terms and a negative spin on things,” Rodden told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation<\/a> (ABC).<\/p>\n

And with information learned from her work in the Down syndrome community, it became clear that Rodden wasn’t alone. “When they go to their obstetrician and paediatrician, they would get the medical facts and often families get quite a negative tone to their diagnosis with an apology at the beginning,” she said. “We’re trying to change that narrative to be more positive and a ‘congratulations’ because we’re having a baby and that should be celebrated.”<\/p>\n

READ:\u00a0Mom asks doctors why they think people with Down syndrome are \u2018less valuable\u2019<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

One of the ways she’s hoping to change things is through a portrait book, the third version of which is being displayed at a gallery in Wollongong. One of the moms who participated, Kylie Paskett, wanted to disprove the negative things she was told after receiving a prenatal diagnosis. “We had a terrible experience when we were told at 20 weeks,” she told ABC. Paskett explained she was told she would need to get the diagnosis confirmed immediately, so she could have an abortion\u00a0and was further told that her child would never be able to walk, talk, or feed himself \u2014\u00a0an outright lie that has no basis in fact.<\/p>\n

The video below shows Celebrate T21’s portrait book from one year ago, in 2020:<\/p>\n