Laura Echevarria

George Will’s latest column is about is son Jon, who was born with Down syndrome 40 years ago on May 4th. It is a wonderful tribute to his son and to others with disabilities. Living with and loving someone with a significant developmental disability teaches you about unconditional love–not just giving it but also receiving it. And as our society has embraced people with disabilities, we reject them as well.

Will writes,

The day after Jon was born, a doctor told Jon’s parents that the first question for them was whether they intended to take Jon home from the hospital. Nonplussed, they said they thought that is what parents do with newborns. Not doing so was, however, still considered an acceptable choice for parents who might prefer to institutionalize or put up for adoption children thought to have necessarily bleak futures.

…

Now they are called American citizens, about 400,000 of them, and their life expectancy is 60. Much has improved. There has, however, been moral regression as well.

…

…[T]oday science enables what the ethos ratifies, the choice of killing children with Down syndrome before birth. That is what happens to 90 percent of those whose parents receive a Down syndrome diagnosis through prenatal testing.

Wesley J. Smith notes in his blog, Secondhand Smoke,

We should ponder that as our society conducts a search and destroy mission to wipe people like Jon Will off the face of the earth.  And it won’t end with eugenic abortion.  The odor of infanticide is on the wind too.  Not only that, but people…who become developmentally or cognitively disabled after birth could well also be targeted one day for mercy killing or refused necessary medical treatment toward the end that they die sooner rather than later.  It has happened in history before. And with people like Terri Schiavo, it is happening here and now.

As many of you know, my sons are on the autism spectrum. My youngest is doing very well and will likely go on to college and be successful. He struggles academically with some concepts but he is very bright and social. His older brother, who is extremely intelligent but with limited communication skills, will likely always need an aide or a sibling to watch out for him after my husband and I are gone. I worry about his care and treatment at the hands of others and I wish it were possible for people to see what I see in my son. People who meet him and spend time with him are blessed by knowing him. I have been given a gift in watching him grow and develop into a loving human being.

George Will writes about his son, “Judging by Jon, the world would be improved by more people with Down syndrome, who are quite nice, as humans go.”

Of course, the people making comments about Will’s column at the Washington Post website could learn something from Jon. Many are in support of abortion or they are self-proclaimed liberals who, by-and-large, do not have children with disabilities. They denigrate Will’s authority as the father of a child with a disability by arguing Will’s wealth and influence gave Jon the the life advantages he has (of course, Will didn’t have the same wealth and influence in 1972 that he has now). Or that, because Jon was born before Roe v. Wade legalized abortion, the Will’s might have made a different decision if he had been born afterward. One woman argued that society wouldn’t have institutionalized Jon in 1972, instead “maybe a 100 years ago.”

Anyone ever hear of Willowbrook? It didn’t close it’s doors until 1987.

Ahh, ignorance is bliss.

 

 

 

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