31 for 21, Day 15- It's all about Awareness!

If you missed the post for Day 14 you can find it on our family blog HERE on why I'm glad I have a child with Down syndrome! :)

A great article was posted at LifeNews.com just two days ago and I want to share it with my readers.

http://www.lifenews.com/2011/10/13/down-syndrome-awareness-helps-stop-abortions-on-special-kids/

Now I will note here that I have not been one to be adamantly pro-life.  While I could never myself go through having an abortion, I don't feel it is my place to tell another woman that she can't.  It is her right to choose, and her life-changing decision she will have to live with throughout the rest of her life here on earth.

That being said, it makes me sick to my stomach thinking about how 9 out of 10 women who receive a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome feel they have no choice but to abort their babies.  I believe a huge factor in these awful statistics is the physician's delivery of this diagnosis.  Many doctors to this day still encourage parents to terminate when they receive a Down syndrome diagnosis.  I want to walk into these doctor's offices with Evan in tow, and wake them up to reality!  I am willing to bet a large amount of money that these doctors' lives have never been touched by someone with Down syndrome.  I am willing to bet they have never had any kind of social interaction with a person who has Down syndrome.  Before they are given the power to guide someone's future, they should be fully educated.  Perhaps go back to school and earn a degree in the knowledge of Down syndrome and what life is REALLY like.  Hmmmm... maybe I should start a class right here in my house!  Down syndrome 101 ;)  I will have to work on that syllabus....

The article above best states these concerns here:

Certainly some are, but study after study has found that up to half of all women accepting prenatal testing did so without making an informed decision, and that half did not expect they would have to decide whether to abort following a prenatal diagnosis. To his credit, Caplan recognizes that prenatal testing can result in uninformed and unexpected decisions to terminate, due to medical professionals and general society often having “nothing good at all to say” about DS. Indeed, one study has found that almost a quarter of physicians actively urge abortion, or emphasize the negatives about DS in order to encourage it. Even for those committed to non-directive counseling, a majority of physicians and genetic counselors have said that they would abort following a prenatal diagnosis for DS, which no doubt affects how a diagnosis is presented. Other recent studies also have found that a significant percentage of adults, youths, and physicians still hold outdated views about DS and would prefer that children with DS were segregated from, rather than included in, the community and typical classrooms. Therefore, those who choose to abort often are seeking to avoid an inaccurate, uninformed, and overly negative view of a life with DS, which is not supported by the current research.


And I have found these out-dated stereotypes still exist even in my children's elementary school.  I've had a few conversations about Evan with one of the teachers who has an adult brother with DS.  She was super excited when I first told her about Evan's birth, and was very positive about the whole diagnosis thing, sharing how her brother holds a job in a neighboring town.  Yet the past couple times I have seen her, she has questioned me about where he will attend school... and she always seems surprised when I say he will attend right here in the "regular" elementary school.  This really caught me off-guard since #1- her obvious connection to DS with her brother, and #2- there is at least one other student in the school with Down syndrome.  I guess she is just thinking of her brother's educational experiences over 20 years ago... I don't know.  But hopefully it won't come as a shock when Evan is sitting in her class a few years down the road!


It's all about spreading awareness.... Down syndrome isn't the end of the world.  It was merely the beginning of mine.... <3