To think you don't see many people with Down's syndrome anymore?

[Neonoen]

When I was a school there was a boy with downs syndome in my class. At secondary there was the first boy and then another one too.

I worked with a man with Downs syndrome at my first job (he taught me how to use the photocopier the first day after I wasted a whole reem of paper ). At the same time there was a woman who travelled on the same bus as me with Down syndrome and another who worked in McDonald's.

Yesterday on the TV they were interviewing that man who has the lead role in a new film (he has downs). DS asked why he spoke like that, I explained and then realised none of my children know what Down's syndrome is or have ever encountered anybody with it. There's no children with downs in their schools, no families with any members who have downs and no businesses that I can think of who employ anybody locally with Down's syndrome.

Other than the SN session at the local pool, I can't remember when I last encountered anybody with downs.

Is it just me? Is it a result of advanced ante natal testing?

In fact thinking of it I'm surprised at the lack of any experience my DC have of people with disabilities.

I really don't want to offend with this and hope I've used the correct terminology.

Gosh what a nasty comment.

I can't help but wonder whether people with Downs are less visible because of the improved support and independence some are experiencing. A minibus full of people day tripping from their care home are far more visible than one young woman on the bus.

agree with Money pit.
you dont see DS children because they are at school, like yours. they are blended into family lives.

You see gratefully, I see the posts shaming the women who have terminated their pregnancies as 'heinous' and the posts about 'killing babies' nasty.

How anyone can claim to be compassionate and state that an unwanted pregnancy be carried to term because - why - because you have a disabled child? is beyond me.

Although obviously there is the Triple P test, nuchal fold scan and amniocentesis available

' do those who have the tests and then abort really research what is available as far as care and support of those with downs and their families are concerned? I bet they don't'. Deciding to terminate a pregnancy is a big and very personal decision. It's is surely up to the woman to decide what they choose to research or not. I always thought that if I ever had to make this decision I would be able to openly discuss it but after reading these threads I would need to be selective who I opened up to as there is still a lot of judgement out there.

Sally Phillips is a very rich woman who jets around the world with her career and employs a full time nanny. her son is very high functioning.

Not really her place to dictate other women's choices to screen and abort.

I had an amino with dc4 and would have aborted in a heart beat for downs.

I know 2 adults who had downs siblings and they resent the fact that it monopolised their parents attention,in the past and now.

The parents are old now but still have 'adult children' to care for.

Every woman's personal choice here.

I live in a fairly deprived area and have seen several children with DS locally, all from ethnic minorities, which leads me to wonder whether there's an issue with access to screening / antenatal services.

I don't admit it because it isn't true and it's an exceptionally callous way of describing it.

Anyone with a grain of compassion, kindness, empathy and awareness would recognise that. The fact that you don't confirms to me that this pro disability stance has nothing to do with improving life for disabled children and everything to do with a smug sense of elevated importance.

It isn't a personal attack to call somebody on a horrible comment like that.

I have a DD that was born with a problem that needed a huge amount if care. Although, some, like DD do ok, , mainstream school etc most in her position don't. A long term study was undertaken and I believe it has changed medical practice to not resuscitate these babies at birth. I fully agree with this. Living with someone with extra needs is a toll not only on the parents but inevitably siblings.

You can't control for everything, but if you don't want to have a child with DS then you shouldn't feel guilty over that.

Sally Phillips is a very rich woman who jets around the world with her career and employs a full time nanny. her son is very high functioning.

I don't think the fact that her son is high functioning means that she can't have an opinion. You're implying that her opinion would be different if she didn't have lots of money and her son wasn't high functioning, which I think is unfair.

She has the opinion she has. You can't imply that she is naive or holds incorrect assumptions. Maybe she knows she's "lucky".

This is something me and dh discussed a few days ago.

There were several children in my school who had DS. There were several where we lived.

While there are children with wide ranging disabilities in my kids school there are no children with ds.

I guess the termination rate quoted earlier will account for that.

As for the Sally Phillips documentary, I actually think her pov is a bit off. It's a personal choice and down to autonomy.

I think of it as your body if working correctly would miscarry these DS foetuses. So you are intervening to aid your body working correctly.

Up to others if they want to carry one with DS. Women's choice I think.

gratefully

Did I say SP wasn't entitled to an opinion? Of course she is.

However she has no right to have a opinion on other people's lives or experiences.

Just like you

I disagree. I think you can have an opinion on the choices of others, without wanting to dictate to them what they should do.

Caveat - I haven't seen SP's programme, so I'm talking more generally about opinions I think.

She might be the most odious person ever, I don't know.

The reason why very few people are seen with DS in the community is because many die before, during or after birth due to massive heart defects. Others die in childhood and early adulthood due to these defects.

That's just not true these days. Most babies with DS have OHS in the first year and come through it amazingly well, my own DD included. She was out of hospital within a week, and that's seems to be the norm. And most never look back once their heart's fixed. Tragically, a few tinies develop complications, like pulmonary hypertension, and don't make it, but they really are the minority.

plasticbertrand - I don't know what the situation with testing is like in France, but here I get the impression that termination is considered less acceptable among certain ethnic or religious minorities than in the rest of the population.

I live in a country with very strict abortion laws and I don't know anyone under 30 with DS. There is one man, an old playmate of DH in the village with DS but high functioning, he's about 40. When I lived in big cities in this country, the UK and a couple of other countries I would see as many people with DS as I had always seen. When I lived in rural areas I saw far few or none. So probably the more people you see, the more likely you are to see or know someone with DS.

In the past I worked with children with DS, one couple I worked with were both professionals in healthcare and education. Their son had DS. They wanted him to be mainstreamed schooled as their experience of DS was positive, as had mine been up to that point. It was extremely sad when they finally started listening and realising that their son was not high functioning and did not have the life chances they imagined.

I'm pro choice, I think every woman needs to make a decision. Personally I wouldn't be able to go through an abortion and never gave it much thought until it was no longer legally a choice I had, then I started to see it differently.

Not completely unrelated, but I have a disability. If screening existed and my mum had terminated me, wouldn't have bothered me as I wouldn't be here to know the difference. It is completely different to saying I shouldn't be here/my life isn't worth living/judging on what it is now.
If it was possible to screen for my disability in pregnancy, or during IVF I would pick embryos who wouldn't get it and would terminate a pregnancy with my disability. It's again not saying I shouldn't be alive, it's saying I love my children enough for them not to suffer what I go through.
Once you have a child with a disability of course your thought process is completely different, as to you any screening/thoughts of terminating equates to you thinking you are saying you don't love your child/don't want them to exist/want them to die. Its completely different.

If my disbility was gone from the face of the planet and no one else suffered like I do, I would see that as something to celebrate. Not as some perfect human genome thing.

Well you can have an opinion sure but if that opinion includes telling women they have'killed their babiesif they choose to abort a foetus for any reason, which is onion their own private business, then you should keep those opinions to yourself.

I saw the SP documentary and although she's likable she has absolutkry no bloody right seeking to deny women a non invasive test to check for downs.

She wants to continue the practice of invasive tests which in themselves can cause MC because she doesn't want adult women to be able to make quick and safe choices concerning a pregnancy.

That's heinous.

EDIT: most babies with DS and a heart defect have OHS in their first year.

Just keep your nose out of other women's pregnancies then Vladimir.

If if is 93% now, is that figure expected to rise?

And if it reaches 100%, how would people feel about that?

I see some poo poohing on here of the 100% rate in Iceland as the population is so small. As if it's over dramatic to point to it. But would it be different if it was in a country the size of the UK?

I think if every single woman carrying a child with Down's decides to continue with her pregnancy, she can.

I think if every single woman carrying a child with Down's decides to terminate her pregnancy, she can.

I'm certainly not going to make life more difficult for women carrying a Down's pregnancy in the hope some of them will decide NOT to terminate, which is what SP seems to want.

What do statistics matter?

What if the figure reaches 100% or not?

Pregnant women should have full access to any information about their pregnancy and act according to their wishes.

Noones business but hers.