Defining the value of life

Parent decision in the birth of Down syndrome son becomes worldwide news

For most families, the birth of a child is a day of great celebration. For Samuel Forrest and his wife Ruzan Badalyan, the birth of their son Leo quickly sparked international news. People around the world have taken sides with one parent or the other as they debate a mother’s responsibility to her child and how children with special needs, specifically Down syndrome, are being treated. It seems to me, however, that the world is focusing on the wrong issue entirely.

Leo was born Jan. 21 in Armenia, according to the Mirror. Within minutes of his birth, doctors informed his parents that he had been born with Down syndrome.

According to ABC News, Forrest claimed he took Leo in to see Badalyan, who promptly gave him a choice — her or their son.

“I got the ultimatum right then,” Forrest said. “She told me if I kept him, then we would get a divorce.”

Badalyan confirmed to ABC News that she had indeed separated from her husband and, after a great deal of backlash on the Internet, finally wrote out her own version of the story on Facebook.

“I had to make the most ruthless decision in my life within several hours,” Badalyan wrote. “The first thing that came to my mind after the diagnosis was that I don’t want my child to live in a country where certain stereotypes dominate the lives of people with (Down syndrome).”

Badalyan came to the conclusion that moving to another country with a higher opinion of Down syndrome would allow her son to live the life he deserved. She claimed she discussed the issue with her husband, who then informed her a few hours later that he was taking their son back to Forrest’s native New
Zealand and she had no say in the matter.

With both versions of the story all over the Internet, there is no way of knowing exactly which parent is telling the truth. Some people have chosen to paint Forrest as a saintly father and Badalyan as a heartless woman who spurned her own child. Others say Badalyan is the true hero, making the heart-breaking choice to give up her son so he could have a better life, while Forrest is a self-centered opportunist who used his son’s condition for his own publicity.

I believe the world has gotten so bogged down in the parent versus parent debate that we have overlooked the real issue here.

Virtually every article I have read on the story had in the headline the clarification that Leo was born with Down syndrome. The implication here is that it is Leo’s condition rather than the love of his parents that truly makes the story.

If Leo had been born without Down syndrome, it seems doubtful that his mother would have even considered giving him up.

“(Jan. 21) was the happiest day for me as I finally gave birth to my long-awaited son,” Badalyan wrote in her Facebook post.

Regardless of whether or not she gave up her son out of disgust or out of a genuine love, the fact remains that there is real discrimination against people with special needs, including Down syndrome. In fact, if Leo had been born without Down syndrome, it is highly doubtful the story would have ever made it past the local news. But the added element of Leo’s Down syndrome turns this story from mildly sad into international news.

Down syndrome is a genetic condition over which a person has no control. Discriminating against it makes no more sense than discriminating against someone because they are short or blue-eyed or female. I fail to understand people who look down on those living with Down syndrome.

Notice I said “living with” instead of “suffering from.” According to a paper released by the Charlotte Lozier Institute, 99 percent of people with Down syndrome are happy with their lives. The paper also showed that people with Down syndrome tend to increase the amount of joy in the lives of those around them.

But according to Life News, 90 percent of babies diagnosed prenatally with Down syndrome are aborted. One of the most commonly cited reasons for these abortions is that it will be best for the child. Yet this statement is in direct conflict with the data, which shows that the majority of people with Down syndrome lead extremely happy lives. It seems to be that the real reason children with Down syndrome are aborted is because it will be easier for the parent.

“I just couldn’t do it, couldn’t be that kind of mother who accepts everything, loves her kid no matter what,” one mother who aborted her child with Down syndrome said in a Life News article. “… Maybe it’s selfish, I don’t know. But I just didn’t want all those problems in my life.”

I believe this is the real reason people have made such a big deal out of Leo’s story — not because a father fought for his son as any good parent should, but rather because he accepted his child born with Down syndrome. People view Forrest as a hero because he took on the “burden” of raising a child who was not considered normal. People are praising him for making the “sacrifice” of giving up his life to care for a child whose birth country, Armenia, would have discarded him without a second thought. Somehow the fact that Leo has Down syndrome takes Forrest from a father performing his parental duty to a saint on some angelic mission.

I will be honest — this side of our society makes me sick. We place so little value on the lives of those with special needs that we view the idea of raising a child with them as a terrible burden. In reality, it does not matter whether or not a child has special needs. If parents bring a child into the world, they have the responsibility to love and care for that child.

Regardless of financial and emotional strain, those with special needs are still people. Those who live with Down syndrome are still people, and they deserve to be treated as such.

It would have been so easy to give up Leo. But Forrest chose to remain in his son’s life. He is a hero if for no other reason than because he refused to walk away when the rest of the world would have been happy to let him. He chose his son. Not “his son with Down syndrome.”

Just “his son.”

It is time for our society to stop arguing over which parent has the more accurate story here and instead take a page out of Forrest’s playbook. Down syndrome is not a person’s defining characteristic.

Acceptance of our fellow man should be an everyday occurrence, not a novelty worthy of international headlines. That, I believe, is the lesson we should truly be taking from Leo’s story.

Brownd is a copy editor.