The Unbearable Burden of Raising a Child with Down Syndrome
A couple weeks ago I read the supposition that newborns are “ morally irrelevant ” and children with conditions like Down syndrome can be an “ unbearable burden on the family and on society as a whole.” Shortly after that I read of a couple that sued a hospital for “wrongful birth,” saying that they would rather have aborted their baby if they would have known she had Down syndrome. So many things crossed my mind when considering these ideas and the people behind them, but I have come to the conclusion that it’s true, there is a nearly unbearable burden in having a child with Down syndrome. My son, the youngest of six, has Down syndrome, so I know about the burden. He has Trisomy-21, the most common form of Down syndrome, and the most common genetic disorder in the world. It means he has three copies, instead of the typical two, of the 21st gene set. Typical people have 23 pairs of chromosomes. Today is World Down Syndrome D...