Posted on 09/08/2007 2:09:21 PM PDT by rhema
Every year we look forward to Doug volunteering at family retreats that we hold for disabled children and their moms and dads. He is young and athletic, a senior in college, handsome, articulate, and intelligent. The kids love him (and so do a few girl volunteers). When he first began volunteering, we assigned Doug to a little boy with Down syndrome. The two hit it off wonderfully. This energetic young man possessed a knack for relating to the boy; from that year onward, he always asked to be assigned to children with Down syndrome and their parents.
Recently Doug said, "Joni, when I get married, I hope that my wife and I will have a child with Down syndrome." I was startled, but chalked it up to youthful idealism. Since then, I have come to see that Doug meant what he said. He observed a special joy in children and adults with Down syndrome, as well as a godliness that strengthened his faith. He could also tell these children blessed the lives of the moms and dads to whom he administered over the years.
I thought of Doug earlier this year when the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists began recommending broader prenatal testing for Down syndrome among younger pregnant women. Up until this year, they recommended that only older women who were pregnant be tested. But now, all mothers-to-be are routinely tested. The results? Over 90 percent of pregnant women who are given a Down syndrome diagnosis choose to have an abortion.
This breaks my heart. And it translates into a strange future for the kids Doug loves. It's going to be a lonely world for them—they will have far fewer friends with Down syndrome in the future. There are 5,500 children born with Down syndrome each year; they incur from mild to moderate mental retardation. These young people will now have fewer community programs, as well as reduced funds for medical research.
This is why there are growing numbers of parents crisscrossing the continent speaking to the blessings—even advantages—of raising a Down syndrome child. These parents are sharing their stories and explaining how a Down syndrome child can bless his siblings and draw a family closer together. They say that young women who are considering abortion don't understand, nor do they realize the benefits a Down syndrome baby brings to a family. Unfortunately, the only counsel these women are receiving from their obstetrician is often a brochure.
I am deeply concerned about this trend. Abortion is now used as a "disability prevention measure." The effort to eliminate Down syndrome translates into the worst kind of social engineering: the annihilation of an entire group of people who are precious. Our alternative: Accept the love and the God-blessed joys of raising a child—a life—that God has given. Jesus says, "Bless the little children, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." Even children with Down syndrome.
A person with Down syndrome may never understand how to keep up with the Joneses or how to get over his head in debt. He or she may never be clever enough to sneak behind his spouse's back and look for an illicit affair (yes, men and women with Down syndrome do marry, and some of those marriages are honest-to-goodness models to neighbors and friends). They won't be cunning enough to know how to cheat, weave lies, or how to stab a friend in the back. People with Down syndrome may not have driver's licenses, but then again, neither do I—and I get around quite well for a quadriplegic.
That new ruling by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists is a sad reflection of the growing premise in our society that a person is "better off dead than disabled." Human beings are no longer being treated as people, but as things that can be dispensed with, altered, aborted, or euthanized. The medically fragile—whether the elderly, the unborn, or the children Doug serves—are left exposed and vulnerable in a society that has lost its moral bearings, its heart.
—Joni Eareckson Tada is founder and CEO of Joni and Friends International Disability Center
My favorite brother-in-law, Harvey Adams, died just over two years ago at the age of 69...almost historical for Down Syndrome. Wifey and I still miss his gentleness and good humor.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1378747/posts?page=1
WELCOME TO HOLLAND
by Emily Perl Kingsley
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 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 out and buy new guidebooks. 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... and 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 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.
ping
When times are tough, keep in mind that you still, at any time you wish, can walk into your child's bedroom and look at him, touch him, talk to him.
We are dealing with the death of one of our children. Whenever you think you have been perhaps robbed of a healthy child, or a normal child, consider yourself so blessed that you still have him.
Again, both of your posts were very beautiful. I'm glad your children were conceived by you two instead of some enlightened pro-choice freak who would have eliminated your precious children in the name of "it's best for the child".
I envy both of you more than you know.
Ping to my 42...and bless you.
It’s a horrible form of eugenics, and it is sad the ideas of Margaret Sanger are living on today. To think that a society such as ours would kill a fellow human being because they aren’t “perfect” breaks my heart. People with down syndrome deserve to live, as do people with other health issues.
You havbe my heartfelt sympathy for your unfathomable loss. May you find healing in the memories you shared with your precious child.
You are so sweet. I did not write that beautiful piece, “Welcome to Holland”. It was written by Emily Perl Kingsley in 1987, if memory serves me right. I try to post it on every thread about children with Down’s Syndrome, because it touched my heart deeply.
As the parent of a beautiful girl who has Turner
Syndrome ... the “Holland” metaphor is perfect!
Thank you! To me, that metaphor was written for every parent who has a child with a ‘disability’. Actually, I don’t like that word. It should be ‘abilities that may be different than yours or mine’. Disability? No way.
I was completely intimidated by the things that I saw, and just about overwhelmed by the incredible care facility, and the Doctors and Nurses who work there.
The folks who are advocates of abortion and other murderous procedures that ultimately give us a bunch of dead babies ought to be thrown in the klink when they maneuver to actually physically enhance their agendas.
Post #36 was written to represent a pre-aborted
child’s point of view.
The world is programmed for instant gratification.
We’re told we can “have it your way”, “because I’m
worth it”. So, when God says, “no it’s going to be
Yehweh or no way”, we throw it all away.
After a pity party, we “fix” things not realizing God
was planning something incredible - a blessing.
Yup. The abortion industry is a whole lot of evil.
My two year old daughter doesn’t have DS but she does have hypotonia, a neuromuscular disorder that’s common in DS children. She can’t walk. She can’t even crawl. She’s in PT three times a week, but things are moving very slowly. She also can’t talk, except for “this” “that” “mama” “dada”. The sound she makes for almost everything is “da.” She also may have a metabolic disorder, which we’re investigating now. I, too, had dreams of what life would be like with my little girl. Those dreams may still be realized some day, but if they are not, that would not change how I feel about my little girl: I would not give her up for all the money in the world. She is such a sweet and affectionate soul, and God chose my husband and me to be her parents for a reason. For that I’m so grateful. I feel sorry for the mothers and fathers who aborted their DS babies because they were too ignorant to understand the precious gift God was trying to bestow on them.
I read it differently. I read it as an imputed point of view of a baby whose future is in the balance -- it may be life, it may be murder*, but the decision is not yet made and carried out. Well done!
(* A perspective I have not always held, I am ashamed to say.)
You don’t f*ck around with God’s creations. These kids are angels sent from above with more love in their heart than most people.
I don't regret having my son and we love him very much. He is a great kid, but why would anybody ever wish to have a child that would have to face all that.
Very moving, Jo. Thanks for sharing.
As an aside, a 'normal, healthy' couple at our church had a baby w/ Downs with no tests that came back positive. She was 26 when she had him and was totally shocked. He's three and amazing little boy.
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