{"id":84289,"date":"2016-01-06T09:31:52","date_gmt":"2016-01-06T14:31:52","guid":{"rendered":"\/news\/?p=84289"},"modified":"2016-01-06T09:34:25","modified_gmt":"2016-01-06T14:34:25","slug":"mom-son-syndrome-joy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.liveaction.org\/news\/mom-son-syndrome-joy\/","title":{"rendered":"Mom of son with Down syndrome: He is “a joy”"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I have never, ever regretted that he was born with an extra chromosome. He\u2019s exactly the way he is.\u00a0If I could wave a wand and make Conner different, I would not even consider it.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Those are the words of Shelley Moore,\u00a0a\u00a0loving mother of a son with Down syndrome who was recently featured in a Texas newspaper. Moore said she shared her son’s\u00a0story with the Fort Worth Star-Telegram because she wanted “to help other parents, single or not, to be encouraged about the job you have been given and the reward that comes with that job.”<\/p>\n

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Women who are told their preborn child has Down syndrome are often pressured into an abortion, something disability advocates call a horrible and violent form of discrimination. A 2012 academic review <\/a> of published literature on abortion\u00a0after\u00a0a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome in the United States found that more than half\u00a0of preborn children with Down syndrome are aborted. Nine hospital-based studies showed the rate of abortion to be as high as\u00a085% when a preborn child is diagnosed with Down syndrome.<\/p>\n

“Whatever the statistical realities may be, the number of those who choose abortion after a prenatal diagnosis is far too high,” wrote\u00a0Mark Bradford<\/a>, president of the J\u00e9r\u00f4me Lejeune Foundation USA, in a report for the Charlotte Lozier Institute.\u00a0“It should be none. To paraphrase the recently deceased disabilities rights activist, Dr. Adrienne Asch, the only thing prenatal diagnosis can provide is a first impression of who a child will be. Making such a radical decision as to end the life of a child based upon a first impression is a most horrible and violent form of discrimination. It has no place in an American society that is committed to ending discrimination in any form and that has intensified that effort for persons with disabilities over the last 25 years since the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act in July 1990.”<\/p>\n