Thread by @EstherOfReilly

Earlier today I shared a remarkable comment from under my Dawkins piece, but some of the other comments I'm seeing just make my blood run cold. My God.

"Ask yourself if you would knowingly buy a piece of equipment that is known to have faults that will make it a constant drain on your pocket and still not do the job you bought it for....and you are stuck with it, you cannot get rid of it and get another better one."

Different guy: "Maybe Dawkins was right, maybe he was wrong - or most likely he was neither, or somewhere in between. All the same, I'd rather live in his world where prospective parents have the choice to not spend the rest of their lives caring for a functional infant..."

"...than the world of many commentators where random genetic flukes can utterly, irreparably and irrevocably torpedo the lives of parents with not a damn thing they can do about it..."

"...This is the rest of two human lives we are talking about. Every waking moment. They will never be free of caring for this person. To wish to deny them an out is abhorrent."

Someone else agreeing: "Quite. Having a child like that just ruins lives. Other siblings will eventually will feel invisible as the downsyndrome child hoovers up all the attention and family budget."

Bloke one again: "Until recently...many African tribes killed disabled babies because they were not willing to support someone who would not contribute to the tribe. The world seems to be collecting more and more people who need full time care from birth, is this a good thing?"

An ex-pat from Egypt weighs in: "Let's be honest, no one would choose this situation. When I lived in Egypt, any child born with an obvious disability would be discreetly knocked over the head or otherwise left to die, which was presumably the same here until recent times."

More: "Seeing some noise that Dawkins is a lunatic. On the contrary. Just stating a fact that less and less Downs syndrome children will be born, probably to the point where it is 0 in advanced medicine economies...Why would you not eradicate Downs like smallpox if you could?"

Alright, that'll do. Now for a cleanser: "We are left with the abiding impression that, to paraphrase Dr. Peterson, we behave as if God exists. I have written many eulogies, including those of people who have lived with Downs..."

"As I said at one funeral, 'how many parents would have traded the suffering and anguish of a child whose challenges were not so apparent at birth for the joy this beautiful lady brought into the lives of those she loved so well.' Existence is not merely utility."

END

Poetic P. S., thanks to another comment: John Stallworthy, "The Almond Tree":

poetryarchive.org/poem/almond-tr…

(I am reading this poem for the first time right now, it is a revelation.)

Crossing (at sixty) Magdalen Bridge
Let it be a son, a son, said
the man in the driving mirror,
Let it be a son. The tower
held up its hand: the college
bells shook their blessings on his head.

Under the sheet
wave after wave, wave
after wave beat
on the bone coast,
bringing ashore - whom?
New-
minted, my bright farthing!
Coined by our love, stamped
With our images, how you
Enrich us! Both
you make one. Welcome
to your white sheet,
my best poem.

That link is missing a stanza Stallworthy later took out. He may have been torn over it, but I find it a worthy conclusion.

I have learnt more from your lips
than you will from mine, perhaps.
I have learnt that to live is to suffer,
to suffer is to live.

davidsuttonpoetry.com/tag/jon-stallw…

@JMWSPT

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