By Amy Julia Becker in the Philadelphia Inquirer‘s Sunday Currents section:

Becker says medicine’s “evidence-based standards of care” are skewed in favor of eliminating children with Down syndrome like her daughter Penny, with many women terminating pregnancies based on probabilities, fear and misinformation. Now expecting another child, Becker says she wishes obstetricians would update their ten-year-old brochures and

… include the fact that the life expectancy of people with Down syndrome has doubled in the past 25 years, or that the average IQ of a person with Down syndrome has doubled over the course of the 20th century, or that many physical “defects” can be corrected relatively easily because of advances in medical care. (Penny had a hole in her heart, for instance, that may well have killed her a few decades ago. Now, it didn’t even warrant an overnight stay in the hospital.)

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From American Baby magazine, a Q&A with the mother of 2-year-old Mark Radel, of West Winfield, New York. Mark has Down syndrome, and his mom says he is “within the milestone range for a normal child.”

Mary shares some of the details of their lives. Here’s a sample:

Q. Is there any misinformation about kids with Down syndrome that you want to clear up?
A. When we first found out that Mark had Down syndrome, I read online that children with it don’t walk until age 3, and that’s just not true. Because of a lack of research money, up-to-date information is hard to come by. What you read may be outdated and not apply to what your child will accomplish with the services that are now available. Plus, every child is unique, and you cannot paint a whole group of kids with the same brush just because they all have Down syndrome

Q. What would you like to tell moms-to-be who are having a baby with Down syndrome?
A. It’s a whole new world, but it’s not the end of the world. Love the baby, get to know the child, and don’t worry about his or her diagnosis. There’s a 30-year-old woman with Down syndrome in our support group, and she has a driver’s license and a college degree. When you’re speaking with her, you have to remind yourself that she has a disability. That’s such an inspiration for my husband and me, because we dream that Mark will be that way one day.

As Britain’s Missing Top Model debuts, one of the judges writes on the BBC website about her hopes for the show. Lara Masters is a writer, model and actor who uses an electric wheelchair.

The fact is that fashion is a business and it is us, the consumers, who keep it thriving. Is it any wonder the industry sticks to a winning formula and largely shuns the idea of using bigger, more representational female models, let alone disabled models whose physical forms will be even more difficult to sell as aspirational?

Yet maybe the BBC’s reality show will make a difference. After all, fashionistas are always looking for something new, and disabled models are perfect to create intrigue and attract attention.

With video.

More about Lara Masters on BBC’s Ouch website.

From the [Melbourne, Australia] Herald Sun, New Zealand Herald, [New South Wales] Daily Telegraph:

Australian newscaster Tracey Spicer (left) says she considered suffocating her mother in 1999 as an “act of mercy” to end her “immense pain and suffering” from pancreatic cancer. The revelation, in an opinion piece, stirred new controversy in a nation that is deeply divided over the recent convictions of two women in the death of a man with Alzheimer’s disease.

Spicer said her intention was to prompt a public discussion, not to persuade Australians either way about whether euthanasia should be legalized. In her commentary, she said, “I knew it was the right thing to do. But as I looked down at the woman who gave me life, I knew that I could not take hers.” Her mother died a few hours later.

(Herald Sun photo.)

Blogging on the New York Times site, television personality Dick Cavett describes his recent trip home to Nebraska to talk about his experiences with depression. To his surprise, he got a lot of laughs.

I was able to say to them, I know that everyone here knows that feeling when people say to you, “Hey, shape up! Stop thinking only about your troubles. What’s to be depressed about? Go swimming or play tennis and you’ll feel a lot better. Pull up your socks!” And how you, hearing this, would like nothing more than to remove one of those socks and choke them to death with it. (Laughter mixed with some minor cheering.)

… (Such inane advice of the “socks up” variety, by the way, can only be excused by the fact that if you’ve never had it you can never begin to imagine the depth of the ailment’s black despair. Another tip: Do not ask the victim what he has “to be depressed about.” The malady doesn’t care if you’re broke and alone or successful and surrounded by a loving family. It does its democratic dirty work to your brain chemistry regardless of your “position.”)

(New York Times photo)

Cover story in the July edition of Reader’s Digest in Canada (not yet available online):

Krystal Nausbaum starred in the popular television movie “The Memory Keeper’s Daughter,” and now her mother, Madeleine Greey, has written an essay about her daughter’s adventures in the world of show business.

Krystal, who has Down syndrome, was thrilled to meet actors Emily Watson and Hugh Thompson. Her mother was equally happy that her 19-year-old daughter improved her reading and memorization skills and found a career she loves.

An excerpt:

If anyone had said when my daughter was born that she’d star in a made-for-TV movie, I would’ve laughed the words away. Doctors said she might not learn to walk, let alone get out of diapers or feed herself. But I’ve learned that doctors don’t always know best, that people with Down syndrome generally are able to do more than anyone imagined, and that dreams are worth dreaming.

Just one thing we wish Madeleine had explained: Why did the movie’s director have to put Krystal in that homely wig?

(Reader’s Digest photo)

Allen Shawn’s twin sister Mary has lived in an institution since she was 9, and for more than half a century visited her family each year for a ritual birthday lunch with an unchanging menu. (Shawn’s mother had feared that a change in the the menu or location of the lunch would upset Mary.)

Writing in the New York Times magazine, Shawn describes the last of the birthday lunches, shortly before his mother’s death. Mary adapts cheerfully to changes in the menu and location of the meal, causing Shawn to reexamine what he thought he knew about his sister and the meaning of her life.

These days children with the degree of autism, mental retardation and elements of schizophrenia from which she suffers are more likely to live in a group home than to be institutionalized. Indeed, even the notion of “suffering” that I just suggested has come to look a bit suspect, since it implies that it is “best” for a person not to have certain “deficits.” And I am no longer certain that she suffers more than others, only that (more…)