Her name is Gillian Relf, and she’s a 69-year-old mother of
a 47-year-old son, Stephen. There’s only one problem: Stephen has Down’s
Syndrome. And that means that Gillian wishes she had killed him before he was
born. How do we know that? Because she’s now written an entire piece about it
in The Daily Mail (UK).[http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2803834/I-wish-d-aborted-son-ve-spent-47-years-caring-s-shocking-admission-read-judge.html]
The piece amounts to a heartbreaking, extraordinarily
lengthy description of the difficulty of dealing with a Down’s Syndrome child.
And Gillian’s care for her son is certainly heroic. But the notion that
inconvenience, difficulty, and strife justify murder is a morally sick one.
Relf explains:
So difficult has it been that I can honestly say I wish he
hadn't been born. I know this will shock many: this is my son, whom I've loved,
nurtured and defended for nearly half a century, but if I could go back in
time, I would abort him in an instant. I'm now 69 and Roy is 70, and we'll
celebrate our golden wedding anniversary next month.
Relf states that she loves her son, but her life would have
been happier without Stephen:
Perhaps you'd expect me to say that, over time, I grew to
accept my son's disability. That now, looking back on that day 47 years later,
none of us could imagine life without him, and that I'm grateful I was never
given the option to abort. However, you'd be wrong. Because, while I do love my
son, and am fiercely protective of him, I know our lives would have been
happier and far less complicated if he had never been born. I do wish I'd had
an abortion. I wish it every day. If he had not been born, I'd have probably
gone on to have another baby, we would have had a normal family life and Andrew
would have the comfort, rather than the responsibility, of a sibling, after
we're gone. Instead, Stephen - who struggles to speak and function in the
modern world - has brought a great deal of stress and heartache into our lives.
That is why I want to speak in support of the 92 per cent of women who choose
to abort their babies after discovering they have Down's Syndrome. Mothers like
Suzanne Treussard who bravely told her story in the Daily Mail two weeks ago.
Suzanne, who was offered a termination at 15 weeks, braved a backlash of
criticism and vitriol from some readers. But I'd challenge any one of them to
walk a mile in the shoes of mothers like me, saddled for life as I am, with a
needy, difficult, exasperating child who will never grow up, before they judge
us.
But we can judge actions. Hardship and difficulty should be
met with unending sympathy; we should care for those who suffer. But the
solution is not to end their lives. The same description Relf gives for her son
could be given for a wide variety of elderly parents whose children are simply
sick of taking care of them, or the families of the terminally ill. Should we
just kill those people as well? Once individual happiness trumps the worth of
individual lives, eugenics becomes moral.
Protecting lives like Stephen’s isn’t a matter of lack of
sympathy. It’s a matter of basic morality. What makes every life worthy isn’t
convenience or potential achievement. It’s the innate value of human life,
created in God’s image. We can all weep for Relf and still believe that
murdering Stephen would have been a great moral evil.
Meet Britain's most loving family, The Pattersons - who have
adopted nine children with Down's Syndrome.
Pam and Gerald Patterson had always known they wanted to
help children stuck in the care system - so they began what became a family
affair by adopting four kids with Down's - James, now 32, Alice, 28, Molly, 26
and Riley, 10.
They admit their lives are very different to those of their
friends, as they struggle to have as much time for themselves.
But Pam said they wouldn't change anything - and say their
children are what 'keeps them active' as their lives are "consumed with
taking them here and taking them there."
Incredibly, Pam's brother Roger Bull and his wife Leigh then
also adopted two kids with the chromosomal disorder, David and Timothy, who are
now 35 and 28, and also foster four-year-old Marie.
Then the latest addition to the ever-growing family is
six-year-old Isabel and twin three-year-olds George and Tomas, who also have
Down's and were adopted by Roger's daughter Jenny.
The Pattersons went to social services in the 1980s and
asked to only adopt children with the condition.
Both had volunteered with kids with Down's and knew that
most would-be adopters wouldn't look twice at those with a disability.
Pam, 60, said: "We knew straight away that we would
only adopt children with Down's Syndrome.
"It was what I'd always wanted to do.
"Having a family full of children with the condition
has made our lives so much richer.
"It's challenging, but it's the route we chose to take.
"We chose knowing that what we're taking on, we're
taking on forever."
And touchingly, her husband Gerald, 62, added: "I couldn't
have gone for any other disability.
"Straight away we loved them all so much."
The family's incredible link to adoption began in 1984 when
Pam's brother Roger, 65, and wife Leigh, 61, decided to adopt a child with
Down's.
They took on David at five months old and adopted him in
1984 through social services in Birmingham.
They then went on to have biological daughter Jenny, 33,
before adopting Timothy, who has the syndrome, at six-months old in 1990.
Their family was completed by another of their own
biological children, Matthew, 23, who is now a part-time carer for his two
brothers.
Inspired by her brother, Pam told Gerald she'd also like to
adopt a child with Down's and brought seven-month-old James home in 1985.
Then followed 12-week-old Alice in 1989, and Molly, then
aged almost three in 1996.
Incredibly - and despite being in their mid 50s - the couple
took on another child Riley, then almost three, in 2012.
Before adopting, the couple had their own children, Emma,
38, and Chris, 34, who love their somewhat unusual family set-up.
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/family-who-adopted-nine-children-13002659
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