Down syndrome Genocide

Down syndrome Genocide

Tomorrow is Down syndrome awareness day (March 21^st symbolizes three 21^st chromosomes found in people with Down syndrome). To bring light to issues people with Down syndrome and their families face my current event topic is about a local couple who sued Legacy Health for wrongful birth after their child was born with Down syndrome. An Oregon couple receives three million dollars because they say that they would have aborted the pregnancy if they would have been accurately informed of their child’s Down syndrome diagnosis, that their daughter was therefore wrongfully born and now they have to pay “for the extra life-time costs of caring for her” (Oregon Live, 2012). How can a child be wrongfully born is my question?

Let me start off by noting a few points up front. This issue for me is not an abortion debate so lets put that aside because I am pro-choice. However, it is about something I call Down syndrome genocide. Genocide is the systematic elimination of a specific population of people and that is just what prenatal tests and negative societal scripts and attitudes about Down syndrome is doing to the future population of people with Down syndrome.   

This family, like many other families, opted for prenatal testing to detect abnormality in their unborn child. Eugenics has lead our society to believe that a child born with any type of disability is defective. Sorry folks, but there is no perfect race and no perfect offspring. There is such a negative outlook on the lives of people with Down syndrome that 89 percent of women pregnant with a child who has Down syndrome has an abortion. The reality is that society tells us people with Down syndrome have lives that aren’t worth living. The other reality is that doctors deliver a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome along with the option to abort not an option to connect with a local Down syndrome organization or with a family who has a child with Down syndrome so that they can become informed before they make a decision to keep the pregnancy or not.  

The Oregon couple wanted a normal, healthy child. The couple wanted nothing to worry about. The couple wanted another child like their sons who are strong and bright. What this couple needs in my opinion is to stop buying in to the negative scripts and attitudes about people with Down syndrome. I have a daughter with Down syndrome and she is as normal and healthy as her peers without Down syndrome. I have a daughter with Down syndrome and a daughter without Down syndrome and I worry about them both because they are my kids. I have a daughter with Down syndrome and a daughter without Down syndrome and they are both strong and bright. My daughter with Down syndrome has been raised as a person not a definition of her diagnosis or society’s definition of someone with Down syndrome.

This family worries about medical problems, was told that their daughter would never be independent as an adult and worry more about who will care for her when they die. Seriously? Don’t all parents worry their child could have a medical problem, or that they may need to support their kids through adulthood if that is how things turn out, or that if they die their child will need someone to help them out. Don’t they have the same concerns for their other children? If not, then there is a serious case of altered parenting taking place here. These parents should not be raising or treating their daughter with Down syndrome any different than their sons without Down syndrome. If they don’t want their daughter to be disabled they shouldn’t raise her in a disabling environment and should raise their expectations for her. This family has further demeaned and devalued the life of people with Down syndrome.

How do I tell my daughter with Down syndrome who can read that society thinks she shouldn’t be born? How can I explain to her that people with Down syndrome are being eradicated from this earth because of myths? How will she ever feel value as a human being if people with Down syndrome are not valued enough to live? I could never put a price on my daughter’s life or sue for a dollar amount that could amount to her life.  

It would have been nice to see this family use this publicity to better the lives of people with Down syndrome. Yes the hospital made a mistake in their screening results but the family should realize four years later that they made a mistake in their assumptions of wrongful birth. If they love their daughter as much as they are reported to then how in the world could they sue for her being born? Imagine raising a child you think should have never been born. That is not a healthy environment at all for any child.

There are thousands of families who want to adopt children with Down syndrome not because they pity them, not because they have no future, and not because they are weak and helpless. People who love someone with Down syndrome know that people with Down syndrome can have no limitations, can have endless potential, and can be empowered and independent. High expectations raise the bar for any child, including children with Down syndrome. My daughter with Down syndrome has enriched my life not ruined it. The reality is that prenatal testing and negative societal attitudes are causing Down syndrome genocide.