Writing in the [UK Times], columnist Melanie Reid responds to recent criticism of British Prime Minister Gordon Brown for the misspellings in a letter of condolence he sent to the mother of a fallen soldier. Reid says personal attacks leveled against Brown amount to public bullying of a man whose impaired vision impedes his ability to read and write. Brown is blind in one eye and has impaired vision in the other.

It is impossibly ironic, isn’t it? That while such callous treatment of an ordinary person would create outrage, Gordon Brown the Prime Minister – a co-founder of modern, inclusive Britain, one that aims to treat all disabilities, faiths, sexual inclinations and skin colours alike – is under fire for the sin of not being able to see properly.

A disabled man, in other words, being humiliated for his handicap. Nice. Really nice.

From the [UK] Guardian:

In response to a survey by a UK disability charity, 9 percent of respondents with disabilities reported that they have been the victim of a hate crime. The charity, Leonard Cheshire Disability, asked respondents whether they had faced a crime which they felt was motivated by their disability.

The charity said it decided to add the question after high-profile incidents in which disabled people had been targeted, most notably the case of Fiona Pilkington and her 18-year-old daughter, Francecca. Pilkington killed herself and her daughter after enduring years of abuse at the hands of local toughs. An inquest jury in September criticized local law enforcement authorities for failing to respond to her repeated pleas for help.

Some 42 percent of respondents also said they believed they had been turned down for a job because of their disability, a rise of seven percentage points from 2008, while more than half felt they had been discriminated against in a place of work. The data was based on responses from 1,253 people.

From the [UK] Times, [UK] Telegraph, Reuters, [UK] Daily Mail, [UK] Guardian:

A study in the current issue of the British Medical Journal says the number of reported Down syndrome pregnancies in England and Wales has increased more than 70 percent  over the past twenty years as women postpone childbearing.

But the number of births of infants with the condition has dropped by one percent over the same time period because more than 90 percent of such pregnancies diagnosed prenatally were terminated, researchers found.

Lead researcher Joan Morris, professor of medical statistics at Queen Mary, University of London, said more research was needed to find out why about 30 per cent of older women decide not to be tested. “It is important to ascertain whether the decision is an informed one and, if not, to address the lack of information,” she said.

Frank Buckley, chief executive of Down Syndrome Education International, called the findings “a wake-up call to policy-makers to focus more effort on improving education, healthcare and adult support for the rapidly growing population of citizens who have Down syndrome.”

Related post: Article: Will babies with Down syndrome slowly disappear?

See also:

Women’s choices on Down syndrome screening must be informed ones — By Carol Boys, [UK] Times. Boys urges that families undergoing the screening process be given non-directive counseling and accurate, up-to-date information about Down syndrome.

Actually, having a child with Down syndrome is no big deal — By Simon Barnes, [UK] Times

Belinda Benton: I had healthy baby despite Down’s syndrome risk – [UK] Telegraph

‘Down’s is still stigmatized’ — BBC (video). Natasha and Eddie Batha, whose daughter has Down syndrome, say parents need up-to-date and accurate information upon diagnosis to counter the powerful public stigma against the condition. A partial transcript is here:

He said: “You’re led to believe that it’s the worst thing that could possibly ever happen to you.
“And then you realize it’s just another human being who happens to be a little bit different.

“She just takes a bit more effort and she is a bit slower to pick up on things.”

His wife agreed that many people were misinformed about Down’s syndrome and she thinks this has contributed to the high abortion rate.

She said: “Because you have a test [during pregnancy] you think that it must be a terrible thing if it happened.

“There’s no qualifying information and I think that would be really useful to get that and it might affect a lot of people’s decision as to whether they could live with that.”

‘Most women’ end Down’s pregnancy — interview on BBC Radio 4 with Joan Morris, professor of medical statistics at Queen Mary university in London, who compiled the research, and Jane Fisher, chief executive of Antenatal Results and Choices (ARC).

From the [UK] Guardian:

Advocacy organizations say people with autism can be highly competent workers, but the vast majority remain unemployed. They say negative attitudes and stigma remain enormous barriers to hiring, and call on employers to consider the potential benefits of hiring people with disabilities.

Goldman Sachs has actively offered internships to people with autism since 2003, with good results. “Overall, I think we have been surprised at how easy it has been and how well it has gone,” said William Elliott, a managing director at the company.

Related post here.

From the Irish Times:

Irish disability advocates yesterday attacked a government plan to cut home services for people with intellectual disabilities, saying it will actually cost more than leaving services intact.

Inclusion Ireland, the national association for people with an intellectual disability, said maintaining home and educational supports would allow the government to avoid spending the €80,000 a year (about $120,000) per person that it costs to provide long-term residential care.

“We are facing difficult times. People with disabilities, their parents and families, through no fault of their own, are going to have to pay for it,” [Inclusion Ireland chief executive, Deirdre Carroll] added.

… In the case of autism, which costs the State an average of nearly €5 million ($7.5 million) in the lifetime of a person with the illness, it is a case of “early and cheap or late and expensive”, Irish Autism Action board member Brian Murnane said.

From BBC, [UK] Independent:

A report by the National Autistic Society accuses the British government of underserving adults with autism, condemning them to lives of poverty. Of the 300,000 adults with autism, the report said, only one in six are employed full time even though most want to work. A third live without job or benefits.

The report said that almost 80 percent of adult with autism who were receiving government assistance wanted a job. Among the barriers to work, the report concluded, were lack of understanding of the condition among employers and a dearth of specialist employment advisers. The report also found that the process of applying for government assistance was confusing and difficult for many.

(more…)

From the BBC:

Advocates say the estimated 13 million people with disabilities in Russia face daily abuse and prejudice, while access problems and threats of violence leave them isolated and vulnerable. Tens of thousands of children with disabilities get no education.

“The situation for people with disabilities here is now worse than in Soviet times, it’s like an undeclared war against us,” said Vadim Voevodin, who has not been able to leave his Moscow apartment for the past ten years because the building will not accommodate his wheelchair.

Voevodin says acute prejudice within Russian society marginalizes people with disabilities and leaves them without basic medical care. Authorities dispute Voevodin’s claims, and say they are spending $300 million to improve facilities in the city for people with disabilities.