What kind of society do you want to live in?

Standing in line at a check-out, a pre-schooler was in line ahead of me with her mother. The youngster looked at me and smiled. When she continued smiling for a full minute I decided to say hello. Immediately she replied with the most unexpected response, blurting out, “I love your dress, and your bracelet, and your necklace, and your earrings!”

“And I like you,” I laughed, as the girl kept right on smiling.

The incident jogged my memory regarding another toddler’s contagious smile that captured people’s hearts. His mom was excited when her Down syndrome son was chosen to model a particular brand of child’s apparel, and believes the publicizing of his image could have the power to shift people’s thinking and help eliminate discrimination.

In another publication I read a headline which asked, “What kind of society do you want to live in?” The heading was followed by these words: inside the country where Down syndrome is disappearing.

If you stopped reading at that point you may have assumed the country mentioned had developed an innovative treatment for the disorder. This assumption would be further reinforced as the article begins by saying that few countries have come as close to eradicating Down syndrome births as Iceland has.

However, as I continued to read, I discovered the introduction of prenatal screening tests in Iceland in the early 2000s has resulted in close to 100 percent of women who received a positive test for Down syndrome, terminating their pregnancy. The article made selective abortion sound like a technological innovation.

A geneticist, who has conducted extensive studies of the Icelandic population, observed that the country has almost eradicated Down syndrome from their society. He acknowledges that there’s nothing wrong with aspiring to have healthy children, but at the same time asks a valid question: how far should we go in seeking those goals?

What’s contributing to the high termination rates? The previously mentioned geneticist attributes heavy-handed genetic counseling as a contributing factor, while the head of a pre-natal diagnosis unit claims they try to offer as neutral counseling as possible.

Countries, such as France, are reporting similarly high termination rates. In fact, the French government forbid the airing of an advertisement featuring Down syndrome children talking about their happy lives. The government reasoned that seeing these happy children would upset women who had chosen termination.

What kind of a culture encourages a mindset in which nearly every mother of a Down syndrome child chooses to abort? What kind of culture takes for granted that selective abortion is somehow an actual health-care solution? What kind of society seems dedicated to eliminating abnormality by any means necessary?

Meanwhile, the mother of the toddler who is beginning his modeling career, says she just wants him to be able to live in a world where he has full inclusion and is accepted for who he is, not for his diagnosis.

It seems ironic that within a culture that fully endorses the words “inclusion” and “acceptance”, a pre-natal counselor rationalizes Down syndrome terminations by saying
they’re ending a possible life that may have had a huge complication.

So … what kind of society do “you” want to live in? Should the smiling Down syndrome toddler featured in the clothing advertisement feel privileged just because he’ll be able to answer that question?

I’m simply asking questions; each one of you provide answers that help shape the society we live in.