Thursday, January 27, 2011

No More "Mental Retardation." So?

No More "Mental Retardation." So? is my now-famous essay reprinted in National Right to Life News with charming photos of my girls.

2 comments:

Cecilia said...

It has been learned that IQ is not a stationary condition. IQ goes up and down in the life of any one individual. Things like nutrition, health, exercise, and intake of different substances impact what your IQ will be at any one time. Certain activities and stimulation can increase IQ. Classical music has even been shown to increase the intelligence of infants.

If we spent a lot of time, money, and research on it, I'm sure we could find a way to increase each person's IQ. What is now called "intellectual disability" would be a thing of the past, not because we went on a murderous rampage killing them in the womb, but because we learned how to give these children the intelligence. There would still be Down's Syndrome kids, lots of them. But they'd be in regular schools, regular classes, and making the honor roll. Straight A students.

But alas. We are a society that doesn't want to put resources into these things. We'd rather go on search and destroy missions. We have too many hate mongers in our society, who see anyone different as human garbage (I'm vulnerable to the hate mongers myself, because I have ADHD). Why waste resources helping those who start off with a disability, when you can just kill them off?

This doesn't even take into account what they can teach us about love and kindness. Hate mongers don't value those qualities anyway.

Leticia said...

Beautifully and powerfully stated, Ceclia, I couldn't agree more!