Perhaps the question to ask is: Why do we have children at all? Most parents would agree that it is not only so that they can replicate a conventional arc of a successful middle-class life: college, marriage, real estate, grandchildren. And researchers note that those parents feel pride in their children. Nonetheless, hopes and dreams of perfection might be a strong motive for parents to choose abortion.Īfter the initial phase of grief, however, parents of children with Down syndrome tend to leave behind concerns about perfection, and embrace a new outlook that values acceptance, empathy and unconditional love of their children. In fact, some people with Down syndrome do accomplish those things. They feel a sense of loss because they no longer dream that their child will get married, go to college or start a family of their own one day - in other words, that they will not meet the conventional expectations for the perfect middle-class life. So why is there such reluctance to have children with Down syndrome? One explanation shows up repeatedly when parents recount the early days after receiving their child’s diagnosis. For this to happen, we don’t need new laws we just need more people to choose to have such children. Nonetheless, I wish more people would include children with Down syndrome in their families. My wife and I are pro-choice and oppose placing limits like these on abortion. This has become a front in the American abortion-rights debate, and bills have been passed in North Dakota, Ohio, Indiana and Louisiana (and introduced in Utah) that make it illegal for a doctor to perform an abortion because of a positive prenatal test for Down syndrome. In Canada, the rate could be even higher, though there aren’t any reliable studies on it.
In the United States, an estimated 67 percent of fetuses with prenatally diagnosed Down syndrome are aborted. If he could grow up to be anything, he would probably be a veterinarian. He is passionate about hockey (we’re Canadian after all) and about animals. Today, almost nine years later, Aaron is an affectionate boy with blond hair and a crooked smile. By the time Aaron was born, it was a joyous occasion. But we soon came to accept that Aaron would have Down syndrome, and to accept him as a member of our family.
We thought about our son’s future, and our future. The first days after the diagnosis were hard. We were given the option of abortion, but my wife, Jan, already regarded him as our baby, and a few months later Aaron was born.
BABY ARE YOU DOWN DOWN DOWN DOWN DOOOWN SERIES
A series of tests confirmed that our son indeed had Down syndrome. My wife’s ultrasound turned up something abnormal in the baby’s heart - an otherwise innocuous feature that correlates with genetic conditions such as Down syndrome.
0 kommentar(er)
