to think that if those care workers had done what they did to NT kids rather than learning disabled adults the sentences would have been more severe?

[Greensleeves]

I watched the documentary about Winterbourne View and it was one of the saddest things I have ever seen. I think the sentences are a joke. Wayne Rogers in particular delighted in torturing powerless people who couldn't defend themselves.

I can't help wondering whether the sense of public outrage, and the severity of the sentences, would have been greater if the victims had not been SN adults?

and

YANBU. If this had been in, say, a children's hospital there would be an even bigger media and public outcry, and the Home Secretary would probably have stepped in and a way would be found to increase sentencing.

Re the other point:

I am absolutely unequivocably pro-choice re abortion. But I see the point cailin is making: the fact that every single woman who becomes pg is offered tests and the choice to terminate on the grounds of DS does illustrate that we as a society view a person with DS as less important.

Equivalent to a statutory 13-week screening of pg women to make sure they could afford a baby - with an implicit understanding that if the woman couldn't really afford it an abortion would automatically be the answer.

Which goes against all our instincts, as a (wanted) pregnancy is a positive thing to be celebrated - until it turns out the baby is not perfect.

I don't think I've explained this very well!

But where I disagree though is that it does not logically follow that a woman who chooses to abort for these (or any other reasons) does not (or has no 'right' to) care about abuse. Cupidstunt put it well with the analogy about caring about poor people.

I am not sure that screening is "encouraged". my experience of 2 pregnancies in different parts of the country is that it is simply assumed that you will have it. Querying the necessity for it is generally met by blank looks suggesting the mental files are being searched and no information is being found.
It is disingenuous to suggest that screening is offered purely to inform women. termination is the backdrop and is often explicitly discussed. Whether this is right or wrong, it has an influence on how people with disabilities are viewed. it also creates unrealisitic expectations - hence you get people saying "I couldn;t cope with a disabled child". mostly, you don't get the choice. saying you can't cope with a disabled child is bascially saying you can't cope with a child, because any child may develop or acquire a disability at any time and it is wholly beyond your control.

I don't think it's really about whether people couldn't, or think they couldn't, cope. It's about the thought that they might not be having a 'perfect' baby.

Tbh I don't think I do cope very well with having a disabled child. But I have no choice.

I'm sure you cope well enough, and that is all any of us can ask of ourselves.
I also find the obsession with DS bizarre. consider that 1 in 100, roughly, are on the autism spectrum. if you had those odds for DS, the professionals would be inviting you to "consider your options" (and we all know what that means).

Karlos I quit the last research job I had, which was studying the genetics of autism, when the head honcho guy made it clear that one of the aims of the research was to identify autism in utero so that parents could be "spared" the "ordeal" of having a child with autism. There was no way I wanted to be a part of that.

I don't think it's really about whether people couldn't, or think they couldn't, cope. It's about the thought that they might not be having a 'perfect' baby.

I don't think that's fair at all. There are so many factors; money, family support, societal support, ill health of the parents.

Yes, I found it very depressing a little while ago when there was talk of an in utero test for ASD, and public debate immediately turned to the possibility of termination.
I'm not saying that having a child with ASD is a picnic; but having one in a world which automatically assumes that offing them before birth is the best option makes it all infinitely worse, I'm afraid.

Scary, i cannot conceive of DD just never having been born

Yes, the sentences were too lenient by far. I'm amazed the parents didn't say anything afterwards.

We are a long way to go until we (society) treat disability discrimination in the same way as other sorts of discrimination. People have been legally protected on grounds of race since 1965 yet disabled people have only had protective legislation since 1995.

But the stigma and the 'fear' are the same thing - fear of the unknown, mainly. I think we're saying the same thing.

The point is, why? What scares people so much? And we have to look at society for that answer.

And that horrific example that pagwatch gave earlier of those fuckers in her ds's school are a good illustration of that

I'm not sure if I think stigma and fear are the same. For some people, perhaps. I have a genetic condition that I have a 1 in 4 chance of passing on. I have it mildly. I will fear for future children; fear that they won't receive good medical care because it's such a rare condition, fear that it will make their lives harder when life is hard enough already, fear that they'll be really poorly with it.

It is so awful. I hope the prosecution appeal. Just watching it on the news again.

I don't understand why there are no public voices saying it's not enough.

I think it is possible to agree to allow screening and to deplore this.

Yes, that's why the derailing into the abortion debate is so offensive - because it's insulting to everyone, whatever their views on abortion, to suggest that they care less or more for the rights of people who are disabled as a result of those views.

And it's also bizarre to focus exclusively on Down's. There are lots of other disabilities - do you think they escape prejudice because they aren't subject to ante-natal tests?

In my day job I have helped, in a tiny way, to expose discrimination and cruelty towards people with disabilities. I have friends, family and colleagues with various disabilities. (FWIW I've also seen the extremely patronising 'care' meted out to a relative of mine by people whose religion is opposed to abortion.) Yet somehow I'm as bad as those abusive care workers because I happen to believe women are full human beings who have the right to decide what happens to their own bodies?

As it happens, for me, my belief in the dignity of human beings is exactly why patronising, poor or cruel treatment of people with disabilities is so offensive. Other people may have different reasons for objecting to discrimination. Whatever your views on abortion, surely on this issue the real dividing line is between people who have negative attitudes towards other people who have disabilities and those who do not.

Yes edam you are absolutely right about this being about people who are cunts to disabled people, and people who are not.

Not sure I agree, though, that the other issue is derailing - it is connected. I took the first post about this issue to be that if society generally offers termination specifically because of disabilities diagnosed pre-natally, it suggests that society as a whole considers the wellbeing of disabled people as less important than that of the non-disabled.

Yes Edam.

"My belief in the dignity of human beings is exactly why patronising, poor or cruel treatment of people with disabilities is so offensive."

I really think this was prolonged premeditated torture. They should have been sent down for a bloody long time and I hope the prosecution appeal.