Columnist: ‘Sadly, most people with a learning disability should not have children’
November 22nd, 2009
Minette Marrin, writing in the [UK] Sunday Times, reacts to a BBC2 documentary about a couple with Down syndrome who are deciding whether to marry. Marrin’s sister has an intellectual disability. An excerpt:
It is hard enough to be an adequate parent with supposedly normal intelligence. For someone of very low intelligence it is even harder. That is presumably why so many — 50%-60% — of babies born to parents with learning disabilities are taken away by social workers, a horrifying thing but arguably, in many cases, the least worst thing to do.
… I hate to be someone who thinks social workers may be right, sometimes, in removing a child from parents with learning disabilities. I hate to be someone who thinks it is unwise and unfair to encourage people with LDs to have babies and I certainly wouldn’t attempt to stop anyone. But wishful thinking is sometimes at odds with a sense of responsibility, as I think Emma and Ben came to feel. There are some things in life that all the love you have cannot change and cannot make better.
Related post: Pregnant woman with learning disabilities flees to keep baby
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on Sunday, November 22nd, 2009 at 10:29 pm and is filed under commentary, intellectual/developmental disabilities, learning disabilities, marriage.
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November 23rd, 2009 at 12:11 pm
……..something tells me it’s not just the english who feel this way. i’m sure most people feel that way towards people with LDs.
November 23rd, 2009 at 10:37 am
Boy, the English are stacking up to prove that they really are cold. To suggest that most people with learning disabilities shouldn’t even marry is really a sorry state of affairs. Does she know how many learning disabilities are out there? She has lumped them all into one category and her opinion seems to be that none should even marry (and certainly shouldn’t have children).
Also, I am aware of several couples with Down syndrome that have married and with the help of their families are doing great. They say that it would be no different if they were single as to the amount of help they would need. Since loneliness is often a cruel side effect of a disability in our society, having a permanent mate sounds wonderful, just as it is wonderful for me (a typical person).
Finally, it seems the English are giving us food for thought about government run health care. They deny lots of treatments and care based on the cost to the government. I’m a Democrat and think we definitely need to revamp our health care, but I do think we have to be very careful and discuss the pros and cons of different provisions until we know them so well, we are sick of talking about them. (I don’t care which side of the aisle good ideas and good analyses come from.)