Friday 28 July 2017

Down's Syndrome Termination Agenda

When I was a hospital porter I sometimes took a bus home after my early shift and I often ended up sitting next to a man called Martin I knew at the hospital who worked as a canteen server in Catering. He was a short and stocky man with a slightly hunched back. His eyes were slanted and close together and he had protruding lips and an oversized tongue which impaired his speech somewhat. Although he was a grown man he was clearly retarded and childlike; yet we used to have some great conversations. Like a child, he often had extraordinary insights that might escape somebody with higher intelligence who is more conditioned by conformity. He only worked part-time, but was a diligent employee. The other catering staff spoke highly of him. He lived with his mother and father who loved him dearly. Martin had Down's syndrome, a condition which affects some sixty thousand people in Britain. It is caused by an extra chromosome being produced in the genome at conception. Babies born with Down's syndrome suffer numerous mental and physical handicaps such as deformed hands and feet, problems with their heart, lungs and digestive system, and vision or hearing difficulties. The condition is incurable and there is no way to prevent it. It is not hereditary, in other words it doesn't run in families. It emerges in the same proportions across all racial and cultural groups. It strikes randomly and the only risk factor appears to be the age of the parents, especially the mother. A mother who bears a child at the end of her reproductive life, her late forties or early fifties, has a three percent chance of the baby being Down's; yet with a twenty year old mother that statistic is only 0.05%. Down's syndrome people have always existed and they always will. Despite their health problems, with the right care, people with Down's syndrome can have a good quality of life. They usually live until late middle age.

I think my memory of speaking with Martin added to the disquiet I felt at the weekend when I spoke to a fellow delegate at the Bases at the Black Swan conference (See here for details: http://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.co.uk/2017/07/programme-243-podcast-miles-johnston.html). She and her partner have a daughter who is aged about seven and has Down's syndrome. They showed me some photos of her. She is a blonde-haired little girl who was smiling broadly for the camera. The mother clearly loves her daughter, yet she told me that if her doctor had had his way her little girl would never even have been born. There is no cure for Down's syndrome, as I said, but mothers can have tests during pregnancy that can diagnose the condition. However, if the test comes out positive the only way to prevent the mother giving birth to a Down's baby is to terminate the pregnancy. Therefore these tests are only usually taken by couples for whom termination is an option. The mother can have blood tests in the second trimester of pregnancy that can give a statistical probability of the risk of the baby being Down's, but cannot tell for sure. A mother whose result is high probability is then offered a second, far more positive but far more invasive form of screening via procedures called amniocentesis or chorionic villus sampling; however this involves sticking a needle into the uterus and it carries a 0.5 to one percent change of miscarriage from the test alone. This official government webpage gives details: http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/pages/screening-amniocentesis-downs-syndrome.aspx. The fellow delegate told me that she had been called into the clinic by her obstetrician and told that the results for her quadruple test indicated a high risk of Down's syndrome. What surprised her was that at no point was she told by her midwife that she was even being given the quadruple test in the first place. The midwife had take blood samples from the delegate, but she never once asked if the delegate consented to the quadruple test. Interestingly, the midwife in the video on the government webpage above says that secondary tests, the amniocentesis and CVS, would be done after "counselling and proper consent". Does this mean that primary testing does not require proper consent? The obstetrician said as much to the fellow delegate. He told her that all patients in NHS maternity services are automatically screened for Down's syndrome hormonal markers as a matter of routine. This is not what the above webpage says; in fact it states: "You do not need to have this screening test; it is your choice whether or not to have it. Some people want to find out the chance of their baby having these conditions, and some do not." The doctor then went on to recommend amniocentesis or CVS to the fellow delegate and told her that if it came out positive then she would be offered a termination. The doctor suggested this immediately, while his patient was still reeling from the worrying news of the test result. He never gave her the opportunity to recover and think it over. The fellow delegate was not happy about this yet the doctor persisted. Pretty soon it became clear that the words "recommend" and "offered" were to be interpreted in their broadest possible sense. The more she argued the more insistent the doctor became. He started warning her about the difficulties of raising a Down's syndrome child, the health problems the child would inevitably suffer, the stress that being a mother to the child would have on her own mental health and the risk of her marriage breaking up as a result etc. This was obviously a tactic to make her feel guilty. Strangely she was never asked if she would be willing to give birth to the baby and have it adopted out; this used to be an option when I started out in portering. My fellow delegate was not persuaded and began to resent the doctor's tone. She told him she wanted to go home, but the doctor replied that he wished to "continue the consultation." It was literally almost a foot-in-the-door situation. He kept talking to her on the way out, becoming almost manic in his resolve. Luckily the fellow delegate was made of stern enough stuff to resist him. This brought back a memory of a conversation I had with a patient once during the early years when I served in maternity. I've often found patients will confide in porters in a way they will not with their doctors and nurses; therefore a hospital porter often picks up some amazing stories. This post-natal patient and her husband had been in a very similar situation to my fellow delegate, although this was in the early 1990's. She had given the baby up for adoption and her sister and brother-in-law, who could not have children of their own, were now the baby's legal parents. However her midwives and obstetrician were "not happy" with her decision and tried to talk her out of it in the same way they had my fellow delegate. Again there was this pressure goading and cajoling her into having a termination. The NHS webpage above says nothing about this kind of practice.
It makes me wonder if the British government has a covert agenda that is similar to "Aktion T4". This was a programme that ran in Germany from 1938 to 1941 in which people in sanatoria who were deemed "incurably sick" were given what the Nazi regime called Gnadentod. German is a difficult language to translate into English, but this basically means "mercy killing". Over seventy thousand people were murdered, mostly children, on official orders from the governmental "Committee for the Scientific Registering of Serious Hereditary and Congenital Illnesses". This was done in secret to prevent mass resistance, but at the same time Joseph Goebbels' propaganda ministry released messages in the media to try and alter public opinion. The above poster says: "60,000 Reichsmarks is what this person suffering from a hereditary defect costs the people's community during his lifetime. Fellow citizen, that is your money too!" Some of these extermination centres still exist today and are preserved as museums. They have cellars where people would be locked inside and made to breathe poison gas... Of course we're far more civilized in modern Britain; the programme is refined, clinical and carried out in NHS hospitals by fatherly doctors and smiling nurses. This is a part of what is known as "eugenics", see background links below for more detail. Although, as I said, Down's syndrome is not hereditary; it is an inevitable part of human reproduction. So why is there this imperative from the authorities to eliminate people with it? Some readers might not have a problem with the screening process if you accept that abortion can be ethical. I do not; I am staunchly pro-life, see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/keep-eighth.html; but even if you disagree with me about abortion in general, I'd be surprised if you are not also disturbed by the formula of subjecting pregnant mothers, who are already vulnerable and malleable due to the shock of the test results, to indoctrination like this. If what we are witnessing here is a covert extermination agenda, it might be because Down's syndrome people have an effect on society that is detrimental, from the point of view of the elite. Down's people can be very amiable and loving. They are doting towards their parents, other family members and pets etc. As I found out from my discussions on the bus with Martin, they can be very perceptive and wise. A married couple who are both Down's recently celebrated their twenty-second wedding anniversary, see: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/down-syndrome-couple-maryanne-tommy-pilling-essex-22-years-marriage-celebrate-a7597146.html. This Down's man, Robby Hail, is an ace American football player whose career mirrors Adam Sandler's character in the comedy film The Waterboy: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/water-boy-down-syndrome-touchdown-mother-cancer-robby-heil-video-a7319782.html. I'm not a fan of the sport, but I still respect his achievement. Many Down's people have jobs and are highly productive. They go to special colleges and learn skills. There are even actors and musicians who have Down's syndrome. These stories warm people's hearts in a very special way. Could Down's youths be "star children" of the kind Mary Rodwell talks about, see: http://hpanwo-radio.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/programme-222-podcast-mary-rodwell.html? Maybe it is this very positive energy that Down's people can bring to the world that is such a threat to the future society envisaged by the malevolent elite. They need to weed them out as soon as they pop up. I find the notion that people with Down's syndrome are somehow unworthy of life utterly obscene. However, that is the direction the healthcare system appears to be moving in. How long will it be before the antenatal tests for Down's will be compulsory, as will termination in the event of a positive test? Down's will just be the start. My mother had rubella when she was carrying me and the doctor's told her I might be retarded. Luckily I wasn't, but would I be killed before birth if I had been conceived in this new eugenic utopia? We need to put a stop to the Down's syndrome termination agenda now.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey mate nearly crying readin that to tell the truth mate. Very moving and your right as always pal. I mean your downs people are the nicest you could meat. People want perfection these days they see havin kids as like having the latest telly or desiner clothes. As you keep saying mate abortion is a form of murder whoever it is. I reckon your British who are properly from this country should be having a lot more kids to be honest mate. They reckon were gonna be outbreeded from your muslims and are race will totally dye out in about 30 years. So yeah I mean all life is sacred mate. Gods will and all that mate. OK cheers mate. Baz

Ste said...

Interesting point you make about Down's Syndrome being like Star Children. My step-brother has Down's. He finds pleasure in the simple things like meal times and watching football or Corrie. One benefit you cannot avoid is that no matter how much the world gets you down he shows you happiness in the routine of things and you have to feel shame at ever getting miserable about trifles.
Unfortunately you have also reinforced my already poor view of our medical establishment. I have had occasion to be thankful for orthopaedic surgeons but beyond that have never experienced anything coming close to empathy or compassion. I suggest everyone starts looking into alternative treatments before you need them. You might learn something folks.
Cheers

Ben Emlyn-Jones said...

Thanks for your comments, Baz and Ste.