Columnist asks readers to see Lucy ‘through loving eyes’
September 21st, 2009
Beverly Beckham writes in the Boston Globe that her granddaughter, Lucy, who has Down syndrome, “is part of a class of people that is quietly being eliminated in my country.”
She says Lucy certainly has challenges caused by Down syndrome, but she also has her own unique skills and abilities.
Of course, parents want healthy kids. And some get them. But children get sick. They get in accidents. They lose limbs. They suddenly stop talking one day.
Children in wheelchairs, on ventilators and crutches? Children hooked up to IVs getting chemotherapy? People on waiting lists for transplants? People with chronic diseases. Soldiers changed by war. Civilians changed by an accident.
They weren’t born this way. But if there were a test that showed their future — that showed diabetes and cancer and autism and muscular dystrophy and mental illness and depression and alcoholism — would women take it? And seeing what would be, would they choose to abort?
(Boston Globe photo)
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September 21st, 2009 at 7:17 pm
Very well said Beverly.
But, why are your grandchildren listening to John Denver?
September 21st, 2009 at 12:59 pm
Great piece by Beverly Beckham that summarizes the situation well. I found it ironic that she would quote a lyric from a play about a Jewish man. We need more doctors and media types who will tell the story of the abilities and of the joy that comes from the journey.