"Airbrushing Diversity": Parents of Down Syndrome Children Tell of Abortion Pressures

LifeSiteNews ^ | 3/3/08 | John Jalsevac

[wagglebee]

OTTAWA, March 3, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Yesterday's Ottawa Citizen featured a two page spread detailing the moving experiences of three separate families with Down Syndrome children.

In the articles three sets of parents candidly speak of their struggles to care for children with special needs, their deep appreciation for the beauty and the enrichment that their children have brought to their lives, and of Canada's pervasive anti-disability mindset and the pressure to abort those with disabilities.

One father, Michael Shaw, told the Citizen that it is thanks only to the negligence of a doctor - who did not communicate to Shaw and his wife the results of a neonatal test that came back positive for Down Syndrome - that his daughter Sydney was born. "I know there would be no Sydney, and that tears me apart now," says Shaw. "She's a wonderful, joyous child."

Shaw and his wife Leslie say that they had both desired the perfect child - healthy, intelligent, talented. "We got Sydney," relates Shaw, continuing, "She has enriched my life to a degree I didn't think was possible. She changed my whole focus on life, on what has value and what doesn't have value, and what we consider valuable. We don't all get to be Wayne Gretzky, and there's nothing wrong with that."

Shaw told the Citizen that is worried that society is "airbrushing" away true diversity, by choosing to kill those who are deemed not worthy of life.

"We often talk about embracing diversity in Canada, but we mean cultural diversity," says Shaw. "People of different abilities should be part of the Canadian fabric. True diversity in the broadest sense, that's missing."

Shaw points out that the only thing that separates his daughter from other children is a single chromosome, which is the same difference between a male and a female. "But we don't tell parents, 'Oh, we've identified your fetus as a female. She's more likely to be predisposed to breast cancer, she's more likely to be sexually assaulted and she's more likely to have a lower paying job."

"Yet, when the single chromosome is for Down syndrome the medical profession chooses to give a litany of what can go wrong when there's so much that can go right."

Dr. Lise Poirier-Groulx, the subject of another of the three articles, is a medical doctor and a mother of a Down Syndrome child. She relates how when it was discovered that she was pregnant with a Down child, the doctors with whom she dealt strongly pressured her to abort the child. "It was assumed that you were going to terminate," recounts Poirier-Groulx. "Everywhere I went it was assumed."

"I got mostly cold stares and silences - Is this doctor for real? What is she doing? - that kind of attitude. We had to constantly state it: No, we don't want to terminate. There was none of this talk - the pros and cons, positives and negatives of having a handicapped child. We never got that. It was just negative, when do you want to do it (the termination) type of thing."

According to the Citizen, some 80-90% of mothers who are found to be pregnant with Down Syndrome children in Canada ultimately decide to abort, the result being that in the past number of decades thousands of children have been "screened" out of existence for the sole reason that they have not been genetically ideal. The means of screening out "undesirable" children is neonatal genetic testing, which is being increasingly pushed by the obstetrical and gynecological community in Canada.

Krista Flint, the executive director of the Canada Down Syndrome Society (CDSS) says that there is a strong eugenic mindset in Canada. "There's certainly a social construct around the existence of disability that says people with disabilities are less valuable than those without disabilities," says Flint, pointing out that, in her experience, most parents who find out they are pregnant with a child with a disability are only given one side of the story. "The central message they receive is 'Don't have this baby, it could ruin your life."

Nevertheless, despite the horror stories given by the medical community, each of the three families insists - without sugar-coating their experiences - that the positives have far outweighed the negatives.

"It quite an adventure to live with him," recounts Poriier-Groulx, about her son Christian. 

"I don't want to butter it up like this is a fairy tale because it isn't," she points out. "We still have a lot of medical issues…It's a lot more work than a regular child, with his physiotherapy, speech therapy and occupational therapy."

Nevertheless, she says, "He has changed my whole perspective. When I looked at people who lived with a handicap, I would think poor them, like they were an object of pity. But now, because I live with my son, I see them as a little bit like prophets because they have such a strong message to bring about humanity, about the strength of the human spirit."

Each of the families tells of how much those who meet their children enjoy having them around. Elaine Willcock, another of the parents, told the Citizen that she frequently brings her daughter Jamie into work. "Jamie has her job, she sharpens all the pencils and everybody loves her. What kind of world would we live in if we didn't have people with special needs? It becomes a world where the bar is constantly rising, and it gets kind of like Nineteen Eighty-Four."

Read these three powerful stories in the Ottawa Citizen:

Airbrushing away diversity
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=7ef9c...

'He's brought so much'
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/story.html?id=3697e...

[wagglebee]

Shaw told the Citizen that is worried that society is "airbrushing" away true diversity, by choosing to kill those who are deemed not worthy of life.

That is EXACTLY what they are doing.

[wagglebee]

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[metmom]

Diversity if fine as long as it’s the kind the liberals approve of.

[timsbella]

Bravo Dr. Groulx! My first pregnancy tested positive for Downs. My son is healthy and beautiful - I would have taken him any way he came out because that was how he was intended.

[ought-six]

Hitler did pretty much the same thing in Germany in the 1930s when he had Down Syndrome men, women and children, among other “undesirables,” euthanized by gassing (they were taken to a building and were locked in and the building sealed, and then auto exhaust was piped in). Their only crime was that they did not meet the “standards” of what a German was expected to be. Looks like Canada has a similar mindset about dealing with those who don’t fit what Canadians are expected to be.

God has welcomed those innocents into His loving arms, and is showing them the love and happiness they were denied on earth. I wonder how He will receive the eager practitioners of this abomination.

[Emmett McCarthy]

We cannot know the mind or the ways of God. When we accept what we never thought we could accept, we cooperate with Him for our own ultimate good. Most people think happiness is having what we want, but,in fact, happiness is wanting what we have. I deeply respect and admire these people.

[dan1123]

Diversity if fine as long as it’s the kind the liberals approve of.

A black Marxist, a woman Code-Pinker, and a gay hippie at a rage against the machine concert?

[zipper]

Margaret Sanger would have been SO proud of Canadian socialism.

[informavoracious]

If only the parents of special children could have a window into the future to see the joy and meaning their child will bring to them and everyone who meets their child, they would always choose LIFE.

[Mercat]

Two of my three children were/are special needs. I didn’t know it when he was born, when she was adopted. And the third is a professional banjo player. LOL But I believe that I hit the lottery. I have learned so much, grown so much.

[BBell]

What will George Will say about this?

[wagglebee]

Without exception, EVERYONE I know with a special needs child says that the joys they experience far outweigh the difficulties.

[MaryFromMichigan]

It took a few minutes, but this reminded me of a beautiful article I came across a few years ago, “Welcome to Holland”.

I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It’s like this...

When you’re going to have a baby, it’s like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It’s all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, “Welcome To Holland”.

“Holland?!?” you say, “What do you mean “Holland”??? I signed up for Italy! I’m supposed to be in Italy. All my life I’ve dreamed of going to Italy”

But there’s been a change in the flight plan. They’ve landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven’t taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It’s just a different place.

So you must go and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It’s just a different place. It’s slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you’ve been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills...Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy...and they’re all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say “Yes that’s where I was supposed to go. That’s what I had planned”.

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away...because the loss of that dream is a very significant loss.

But...if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn’t get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things...about Holland.

[tbw2]

My daughter was born with clubbed feet, corrected before age 18 months. When I took my newborn daughter out and they saw her in the corrective casts, it was heart breaking for me. And the questions of “did you know? Oh, you knew the risk, why’d you keep her?” didn’t help.

[wagglebee]

Arguably the top female soccer player ever, one the top figure skaters and one of the NFLs all-time great quarterbacks were born with club feet and look how they turned out.
http://www.clubfeet.net/celebs.php

It is an abomination toward God to murder His handiwork.

[tbw2]

My daughter was my first born, and the “what’s wrong with your baby?” then “is it your fault?” and then “why’d you keep her?” line was the most jarring. No one is really ready for those kinds of questions, much less how on Earth you answer it.
My daughter is a happy, active 5 year old who keeps up with all the other kids now.

[Mercat]

One of my heros is a judge at the courthouse where I work. He has severely clubbed feet and hands. He’s one of the happiest people I know.

[tbw2]

I’m familiar with the feet side. I didn’t know it could happen to the hands as well.