I posted much earlier in this thread and I am sadly unsurprised to see that one poster who said, in effect, in her view, that disabled children’s lives are not worth as much as other children/people has since joined the sludge of comments.
If this comment gets deleted I don’t care but this is a thought straight out of the Nazi worldview - “work makes you free”.. right?
What is especially surprising is that she mentioned Down’s Syndrome being detectable and therefore a mother’s “choice” to bring said child into the world implying criticism of that, her words, “free choice”.
She’d certainly have something to say if she met my daughter then…
There was a different thread a while ago in which a few people advocated institutional care for disabled children- allegedly to save money (oh how we laughed) based on yet another poster’s (misleading) assertion that “complex cases” in her local council costed hundreds of thousands of pounds per year and then several people told me that because my daughter is severely disabled that is what she costs.
My daughter, while very severely disabled, does not cost anything remotely like that (not even “thousands”) .
That rhetoric is probably what a lot of people believe, even if they don’t say it.
What the misleading claim (that I mention above) was referring to, as they well knew, was “looked after children” by the State ie children who will undoubtedly have had horrible experiences and childhoods beyond what we can ordinarily tolerate to imagine- are put into care - often voluntarily - by their parents (I know because my husband works in care homes with these children).
Those parents made “free choices” to rape, disfigure, beat, lock up, humiliate, malnourish and terrorise their children.
The parents of disabled children, who very often adore their children and try to find employment around their children, to actively be involved in their community and to contribute to the country and spend hours on calls and in appointments with and for their children are expected to “suck it up” with a loss of a whole salary often (as in my case) and a lifetime of sleeplessness because a child can’t sleep or needs to be moved/given care in the night, who cannot access a full “life” because of the lack of facilities (like hoisted changing places (even in hospitals!)) and then perhaps lose access to Motability if a certain party gets into power - just to force life into a even darker little box.
I sometimes have to remind myself that all I did and all any parent having a disabled child - who grows into a disabled adult - did “wrong” was wanting to have a child, just like anyone else who wants to does. That’s it.
The “but the purse is empty” refrain is a nauseating and cheap get out and I wonder how the smug rhetorical posters who use that phrase will feel if their child or grandchild is born disabled. I’d love to see them look into my daughter’s eyes and tell her she doesn’t deserve to be alive. Mind you, she’d probably laugh as she’s the happiest person I know.
It’s easy to target those on the floor.
The purse wouldn’t be so empty if the utter cunts at the top of the banking world didn’t cause an economic crash in 2008, if people had enough foresight to see through the lies about Brexit, if Tories hadn’t fucked the country in so many ways and with the little PPE contracts and tax measures that kept the divide so great for so long.
The OP has long disappeared because this is just a shit-stirring, let’s rile the anxiety-liars up post. I despise disingenuous people at the best of times but this is one of a series of “let’s poke people” posts that has the world’s great thinkers out in force - if eugenics doesn’t work as a good suggestion, let’s try suggesting that the government just provides aids and adaptations as specified for a need as opposed to risking a modicum of INDEPENDENCE for a disabled person.
Live with a disabled person for 48 hours. I’d like that to be mandatory. I’d love to see them saying DLA is too expensive for my 8 year old who is like a baby in every respect just because it gives her incontinence pads or a chance of getting a wheelchair she needs.
Of course most sane people, in a moment of reflection, could imagine their high scoring 6 foot son, or themselves even, could be in an accident that left them unable to talk or walk. That’d be worthy of support I suppose because it wasn’t a “free choice” (even though getting in a car has those risks and constitutes a free choice).
Anyone would think people went put plucking out severe disability and pain from a hedgerow just to live a life of near poverty..,
If the purse is empty for those who did not choose to be born or rendered disabled then it should be empty for those who choose to work fewer hours to be around for their children, who have children and claim child benefit, who access free school or childcare or healthcare for those children.