WHY THE PM HAS IT WRONG. AND NOT JUST A POOR CHOICE OF WORDS.
The worst things you can say to a person grieving the loss of an unborn but desperately wanted child is that it wasn’t meant to be or it was nature’s way, and the WORST of all is that it’s God’s Way.
During the first leader’s debate, an event this time held by the right-wing media, the caretaker Prime Minister of Australia was asked a question regarding assistance through the National Disability Insurance Scheme by an undecided voter with an autistic son. The caretaker Prime Minister, in an attempt to sound human, asked the questioner’s son’s name and then made the ableist statement that he and his wife had been blessed not to have disabled children. This is a statement that should send shivers through the spines of all people in Australia!
While I accept that people who want to become parents, and even some who give their children up for adoption, want what’s best for their children, it is not a blessing to have children who are not disabled. Why? Well, let’s consider a few things.
When you sign on to parenthood, you sign on that you will accept your child for who and what they are, and that means if you have a boy, you have a boy, if you have a girl, you have a girl, if you have a child who is intersex, you have a child who is intersex, and you accept what you are given. I would have loved it if my brother and sister-in-law had given birth to an autistic child so that I could have a connection, but it wasn’t to be.
I went to school with a kid who had spina bifida, who was told by the school guidance counsellor that he wouldn’t amount to anything. Don’t get me wrong, I liked this kid, and one thing I will give him credit for is this. When we had our high school work experience, we were told that obviously, you won’t get to interview a lawyer’s clients or examine a doctor’s patients, but we were also told that dissatisfaction with the work situation would not be accepted as a reason for absenteeism. A girl in my class wanted to be a pharmacist and had work experience in a pharmacy, but she expected that she would be able to move into dispensing scripts straightaway. Now, obviously, a pharmacist is not going to say to the work experience student, “Here’s a script, can you go around there and find it for me. Oh, and type the instructions on the label.” A pharmacist needs to be registered to be able to do that. The guy with spina bifida went to a bank branch for his work experience and stuck out the week, even though he was basically coffee and tea maker and go for.
Yes, the spina bifida kid wasn’t able to run around and do things like that (we didn’t have enough disabled kids to form sporting wheelies teams) and he possibly was unhappy about that, but he still brought joy to people’s lives.
I know that there are many parents who hoped for a healthy child, but when their child with Down Syndrome, spina bifida or whatever else was born, said, “So what? We’ll love him or her just as much as if they were non-disabled.” That’s how it should be and that’s what every child deserves.
No responsible parent doesn’t make a sacrifice for their child or children. Parents of disabled children, however, are not martyrs, heroes, inspiration porn or anything else. They are parents who love their children unconditionally and take their role seriously. Disability is not a burden, a hindrance a thief of time, it is a part of the diversity of humanity. Disabled people are not inspiration porn, heroes, martyrs or pin-up people, we are people who live our lives and live amongst the community. We do not want to be pitied or mourned (sorry to the horrible kid who said he felt sorry for my father for having me, my father wouldn’t swap me for a neurotypical) we just want what everyone else does, acceptance.