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Down Dilemma
If you were pregnant with a baby with Down syndrome, what would you do?
According to this story in the New York Times, 90 percent of women decide to terminate these pregnancies. Parents of Down syndrome kids who are concerned that there will be few people like their children left in the world are becoming high-profile activists to counter this trend. 
They are talking to parents who found out through prenatal genetic testing that they are having a Down syndrome baby and encouraging them to ask questions, spend a day with them, and learn the joys and challenges of raising a special-needs child. They don't pretend it's easy, but they say their children have brought them much happiness.
What especially interested me is these parents say they are not anti-abortion. They are just afraid that if there are few people like their children out in the world, there will be fewer programs to integrate them into society and limited patience for people who are imperfect.
Gretchen Day-Bryant has a son in high school and a daughter in middle school. She’s lived to tell about the struggles of juggling little kids and work...
Joy Oglesby has an infant daughter and a sister 13 years her junior, whom she babies to the now-adult...
Cindy Kent Fort Lauderdale mother of three. Her kids span in ages from teenager to 20s...
Rafael Olmeda and his wife welcomed their first son in Feb. 2009, and he's helping raise two teenage stepdaughters...
Lois Solomon lives in Boca Raton with her husband and three daughters...
Anne Vasquez is the Online Editor in charge of overseeing SunSentinel.com. She is the mother of a 5-year-old boy and a newborn daughter.
Georgia East is the parent of a five-year-old girl, who came into the world weighing 1 pound, 13 ounces...
Brittany Wallman is the mother of Creed, 13, and Lily, 6, and is married...
Chris Tiedje is the Social Media Coordinator, and father of two boys and a girl all under the age of seven.
Comments
NINTEY PERCENT??? WOW, that is staggering, and heart wrenching. To say that becuase your child in imperfect, it deserves death just absolutely astounds me. This is so so so sad, these precious babies have every right to life that "socially perfect" babies do. I wonder if you could find a single mother who is raising her downs baby that says she wishes she had killed the child in utero? However; I bet you would find countless women who regret not allowing their child a chance at life.
I don't understand what the world has done to our children, murder is happening to the most innocent of innocent,day after day, and we all turn a blind eye...becuase they can not be seen, we pretend they do not exist.
Posted by: Shawneen | February 27, 2009 2:07 PM