Is Down Syndrome An Accident?

A few weeks back, I wrote on Motherlode about our decisions not to screen the baby I’m carrying for Down syndrome. I also wrote about what is, and what isn’t, hard about having a child with Down syndrome. Hundreds of comments came in, both in support of our decisions and with skepticism or even disdain of the path our family has taken.

I was prepared for many of the responses. But one of the themes that emerged surprised me. People who wanted to defend the existence of children with disabilities time and again compared the birth of a child with Down syndrome to an older child in a car accident. The analogy was meant to support our decisions. Just as we care for the children and adults among us after tragedy occurs, be that through the loss of physical or mental function, so too we should care for the infants in our midst.

And yet something about the comparison struck me as off. Was it really as if Penny had been hit by a car when that extra chromosome became a part of her genetic material, present in every cell of her body?

Read more here: Is Down Syndrome An Accident? – Thin Places.