The 'M' Word

[lefty goldblatt]

Haha..yeah..i get it, Stevie Wonder has had ZERO training in hair cutting.

His wife's Brazilian is evidence for this

 

[kaz7]

And posters calling you Dazdon, is that banter or bullying?

i nearly choked on my drink reading his post , coming from one of the group who bullied me, and getting bans for it it is hilarious

 

[threespires]

I'm glad this thread has been bumped because there is an issue that has been troubling me for a coule of weeks. Ever since I went to a lecture by a guy called Pär Joansson of Glada Hudik Theatre, which is a theatre group for people with learing difficulties.

People with Down's Syndrome need your help.

Since the introduction of the Non-Invasive Pre-Natal test (NIPT) in many countries the number of children being born with Down's Syndrome has plummeted. I find the situation sinister and frightening.

In Sweden (where I live) and the UK (where I'm from) 90% of foetuses that are identified as having Down's are aborted (slightly lower in Scotland than England and Wales, but the NIPT test has not been free for as long).

InIceland that figure has reached 100% - no children were born with Down's in Iceland this year.

In Denmark the figure for abortion is 95% and they are considering removing the right to child support from families that knowingly have a Down's child.

In much of the literature Down's is described as being close to being "eradicated", but 99% of Down's cases are random, non-heredetary cases, so you can never eradicare it. It will always occur in about 1 in 1000 pregnancies. The only way to stop children with Down's being born is to continue to abort foetuses for ever. It's not possible to tell how Down's will affect the developmet of a particular foetus and the effects can vary greatly from mild to very severe.

I can respond to this in two ways, the first slightly flippant and the second hopefully less so.

So firstly, based on living my entire life with an older brother who was born with Down Syndrome I can confidently say that whilst he can be a bit of a twat (he's a rag) his life has been immeasurably important not just to him but to plenty of other people and even if you wanted to get utilitarian about it (which I don't), his life has been way more valuable and productive than a large number of arseholes I've encountered in my life.

Less flippantly, this is a serious conversation that needs to be had. Judging people based on their cellular composition hasn't ever ended well historically and never will. I'm not crass enough to suggest there is no complexity here but that's exactly the reason it needs to be a proper societal discussion rather than just letting medical technology lead us to a place we never intended to go and that turns out to be one hell of a slippery slope.