Oh FFS I am shaking... has there been a thread yet about Minette Marin's unbelievable column on babies with Down's syndrome?

[emkana]

words fail me

mz you really see nothing wrong with children with downs being referred to as "damaged"? really?

Presumably if you or your husband or one of your children were to become disabled through illness or injury you would be happy to go from a normal family to a "damaged family" then?

you know what it doesn't take disability to damage a family.

You only have to look at the news and at the happenings in the world to see that there are a lot of damaged families out there who probably don't even know the meaning of disability.

I am apawled that there are still people out there who hold the view that a disabled child is a damaged one, and who believe that it is perfectly ok to print this view publically.

"MorrisZapp, read the thread - we are criticising MM's article, not women who decided to terminate"

really - I have certainly sensed some criticism towards people who would abort. Are you reading the same thread?

I think MM's attitude just makes things harder for people who are in the world with a disability/caring for people with a disability.

I worry that it somehow de-legitimises the claims people can make on the state and society.

eg. well, you had the chance of an abortion, it's your (personal) problem now, rathr than, what can we do as a society to make you welcome?

Disability comes in all shapes and forms. Disabled people are not necessarily unable to contribute to society/families in many and various ways, including giving and receiving love.

Love India Knight's response.

And i think termination was a hard-won right and I support it.

I just think we should do more as a society to not demonise disability.

Babies taken away, "probably rightly"

B8tch

Its no wonder the statistics are what they are when you have articles like this which do nothing to educate or elucidate people about the realities of living with Down's syndrome. I truly believe there are worse things than being born with DS in a modern, wealthy country, which is more than capable of caring and understanding. There are far worse disabilities, whether there at birth or acquired through accident, neglect of misfortune. And what of all those healthy children around the world who suffer, and may not survive, poverty, war and torture. I would imagine that they have less of a chance of leading a happy, fufilled, beautiful life that a child with DS born in the UK today.

beanieb - pick out those posts for me where a poster has criticised an individual woman for terminating a pregnancy?

hear hear zena

good posts

"To refer to damaged children is insensitive, but imo does not warrant this outcry. My friend will attest to the damage that caring for a disabled child
can do to families." does your friend's name start with a j?

"You may argue that all kids are hard work and I agree - but should we then criticise all women who terminate their pregnancies, becuase those who did carry
their pregnancies to term managed to struggle through and wouldn't wish their children away?" I don't criticize the people who have the terminations, I criticize a society that continues to perpetuate the view that a dead baby is better than a disabled one.

Maybe if the information given to expectant parents was more realistic and gave the full facts rather than just the negative ones, less women would feel that they have no choice but to terminate what is presented to them by the so-called experts as a damaged child.

I am pretty certain that the experts in Hospital do not refer to foetuses with disability as 'damaged' Wannabe.

I don't understand how it is 'generalising' for me to refer to my friend's experience, but not 'generalising' for people with disabled children to refer to their own experiences and say that this represents the wider picture?

Surely all of our experiences are equally valid?

And it is totally spurious to suggest that the attitude we'd have if one of our loved ones became disabled should be the same as the attitude we should have about a baby that is unborn and within the legal cut off for termination.

Again, why not just say that all termination is wrong becuase kids that are already here are lovely and wanted.

good post MorrisZapp.

I do wonder under what circumstances most posters here think abortion is ok, if any?

"Minette has a special interest in learning disabilities and was a trustee of The Home Farm Trust (which provides services for people with learning disabilities) from 1996 to 2005. She was also, until May 2006, a member of the Ethics Committee of the Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists."

clicky

Well I know a family (mine mwah hah hah) which has been improved by having a severely disabled child (hard work though it is). So I'm not sure what the relevance of 'some families are damaged' is. Some are improved.

The people in hospitals are far from experts in bringing up children with disabilities. Especially learning disabilities. Most don't have the faintest idea. And of course they see the foetuses as damaged. Otherwise they wouldn't be allowing termination up to birth.

I presume Minette Marrin was involved with the Home Farm Trust in order to further her own ambitions. Personally if she tried to come near by 'damaged' child I'd ask her to leave.

Worth browsing her website though. She is extraordinarily right wing.

beanieb
FWIW I don't criticise people who choose to abort.

I do however feel thatthere is a climate of huge misunderstanding and misconception about people with Downs syndrome and ASD and LDs etc etc.
I think people are often very fearful of what life must be like with one of these types of conditions.
I think it behoves people like me - who have first hand experience to try and convey the reality of my life.

It is like any other first experience.
my experience of life with a child with SN is remarkably similar to my experience of having my first child.
It is one of those things that is incredibly difficult to comprehend until you actually personally do it.

But it is very hard to have our childrens lives endlessly talked about in very negative terms. Which is why both sets of posters get emotional about it.

I think it is telling that most people who have a child with SN are less anxious about the chances of another one and often report how genuinely life enhancingthe experience is. I personally get very grumpy about people assuming that an SN sibling is always a negative experience too when my NT children have gained much more than they have ever lost because of their brother.

Just because some of us are trying to express how valuable our children are and how hard it is for others to see their lives as not 'birth worthy' that does not me we have any negativity towards any individual mother making the best decision she can.
I hope that makes sense

If you're talking about me, I have no issue with people choosing termination under the circs that eg. my sister was in, or indeed any other circumstances that the law allows. What I do object to is the assumption that termination is the only or the most sensible way forward, and that induced labour at 24 weeks is always a better solution than giving birth to a disabled baby.

Exactly frogs.

"And it is totally spurious to suggest that the attitude we'd have if one of our loved ones became disabled should be the same as the attitude we should have about a baby that is unborn and within the legal cut off for termination."

Why is it spurious, MorrisZapp?

DS3 has autism - what difference would/should it have made to DH and me if there had been a pre-natal test for autism?

What a terrible article - what needs to be done is give support to families - everybody should have the equal right to life.