gen·o·cide ˈjenəˌsīd/ noun — the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular genetic/ethnic group
There you have it. A definition of genocide. A term that is frequently used today to describes the horrors of the Jewish Holocaust and the Armenian genocide. But few will apply this word to a group of people who is slowly being exterminated from the face of the Earth on the basis of their genetic makeup: trisomy 21 or Down’s syndrome.
In a Western country if a baby has Down’s features on ultrasound, there is a high likelihood the baby will be aborted. That is very similar to eugenics practice which is an attempt to control which genotypes and characteristics get passed on to future generations.
In some countries, this has become extreme. It is reported that the Down’s abortion rate in the Netherlands is as high as 94%. In Denmark it is 98%, while in Iceland 100% of babies with Down’s syndrome are exterminated via abortion. High percentages have been assumed in the US as well, but in 2015 a major study puts the rate closer to 50%.
Imagine if babies were systematically aborted for other reasons like deafness, blindness, diabetes etc! Or worse yet, infants with Down’s syndrome were euthanized as soon as they are born! Abortion activists will say that is different because the baby is now born and living independently outside of her mom, as if passage through the birth canal is what gives the baby personhood or life. In fact, some abortion activists support postpartum abortion, the killing of infants after they are born. Let that sink in and send a chill down your spine.
If western society is so quick to systematically abort Down’s syndrome babies, what would happen if we had a prenatal test for type I diabetes? Or low IQ? Or psychiatric disorders? How many more children will not see the light of day?
A society that has lost respect for life will soon find itself dying a slow death. Oh wait, that already is happening in Western Europe where fertility rates are so low (around 1 child/mother in some places) that its population will decline precipitously in the next couple of generations.
Down’s genocide needs to be coined as a term and used in sociological circles in the hopes society will realize that many of these people can live rich, wonderful and fulfilling lives. We need to realize that our constitutional rights are not our most basic rights.
Our most basic right is the right to life.
Delight in Truth 
Another horrible aspect of this Down’s Syndrome “fear” are all the misdiagnosed cases, a percentage of which probably end in abortions, many times because of the pressure exercised on the parents by the doctors.
I know of more than a few parents who were told that their baby will have Down’s and they should consider abortion, in one case quite persistently so, only to end up having very healthy normal babies after all.
Abortion in all of it’s forms is (along with suicide, euthanasia and homosexuality) one of the weapons the Devil is using in his warfare against God’s creation…
Sadly, a once Christian Europe will in a few decades be majority Muslim because they are having a lot more kids than the rest of the European population.
Extermination is going on in some of the most “progressive” countries in the world. It is sickening.
I think I saw a story the other day about how Iceland has passed some sort of law mandating equal pay for equal work for women. How can they be so concerned about “fairness” in the workplace and then kill their own children?
Reblogged this on ARMONIA MAGAZINE – USA.
This is perhaps a bit peripheral to the most serious, central issue, but I remember this film from some years ago. Has anybody seen it? (The title is a bit unclear to me, though. Does it refer to the mother or the father?)
“The Memory Keeper’s Daughter”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Memory_Keeper%27s_Daughter
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0955298/
The actress who played the daughter with Down’s, she actually has Down’s and is an actress:
“Krystal Hope Nussbaum”
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2983999/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t4
I haven’t seen the movie, Marianne.
After reading the synopsis of the story, I can see why the movie was very popular at the time.
Thanks for sharing.
The film actually seemed a lot clearer than the synopsis in Wikipedia, which is rather involved (but that synopsis was of the book, apparently). At the end of the film, when the mother finally realises that her daughter is alive and where she is, she takes her son along and they both go and see the daughter and the woman who has cared for her. The young man talks to his sister quite naturally and with warmth and interest, and the sister, the girl with Down’s, likewise: she happily says “Would you like to come and see my room” or something like that, just like youngsters do. I thought the film was well made and quite engaging.
It sounds like a wonderful film, Marianne.
As the American author’s work, shared by Marianne, was made into a film in 2008, it is fairly recent. This makes me wonder about the paragraph in Delight’s post above:
“In some countries, this has become extreme. It is reported that the Down’s abortion rate in the Netherlands is as high as 94%. In Denmark it is 98%, while in Iceland 100% of babies with Down’s syndrome are exterminated via abortion. High percentages have been assumed in the US as well, but in 2015 a major study puts the rate closer to 50%.”
These are rhetorical questions but I’m curious. When did the kill rate mentioned above begin to reach such high percentages? Why are such “educated” countries making these horrid decisions? Netherlands’ education system ranks in the top 10 in the world in every study I looked at and Denmark ranked #11 in one such study. The U.S. comes in around #15 generally. What kind of “educated” culture kills the “weak” and “unproductive?”
When I think of genocide, I think of Hitler, Stalin, and Mao. I will have to add the Netherlands, Denmark, Iceland, and the U.S. to my list.
Is an education a good one if the student has no understanding of what constitutes a crime against humanity? I will attempt an answer at this one: No, it is a twisted education.
Unbelievable! I have translated in romanian, with small completions and published on our charity portal, Imparte.ro
Congratulations and have a nice day!
A piece of news on Norwegian tv2 this instant:
Today (or was it yesterday?) is “the worldwide Down’s day”. An organisation in Norway, working for better conditions and rights for people with Down’s (such as specially adapted work-places and schooling) and better understanding among the population here and abroad, is celebrating the day by putting socks (!) on the statues of Vigelandsanlegget in the Frogner park, odd socks, totally different, on either leg in order to emphasise the right to be different.
The Down’s organisation representative told the interviewer from tv2.no (I haven’t seen anything about it on their website as yet) about their work, and said that in many countries abroad there is still shame attached to having children with Down’s and they are packed into institutions. – She is right in saying that on this point Norway has become more sensible; in contradistinction to Norway’s madness with Barnevernet, children with handicaps usually take part in a lot of ordinary activities and are not hidden away. (My neighbours where I lived in Bergen had a son with Down’s; he was a sunny boy and was always included in whatever his parents and his sisters and brothers had on. He had a heart operation as a baby and got well. He was slow in acquiring speech but certainly understood more and more, and also started talking after a while.) A number of years ago, an organisation called “Dissimilis” was started for children with handicaps, and they gave performances in several countries where it was usual to hide away handicapped kids; people, especially parents of handicapped children, came in numbers to see the show.
http://www.dissimilis.no/index.php
http://www.dissimilis.no/index.php/om-oss/om-oss
http://www.dissimilis.no/index.php/alle-nyhetsartikler/493-magasinet-dissimilis-nr-1-2017-ute-na
It is actually forbidden to “do anything” to those statues in Forgnerparken, but this is of course quite harmless, in contradistinction to the way people sometimes spray them, even damage them by hacking away heads or limbs:
“The Frogner Park” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frogner_Park
(I know that Americans are terribly puritanically shocked about naked sculptures. This Web page from Wikipedia is, however, very demure, so don’t you worry. Statues in New Zealand museums always made me, used as I am at European art, smile; the fig leaves just seem comical to a European – – ) The statues in the park depict “Life”; it is a quite extraordinary collection and a must when visiting Oslo.
The Down’s organisation had of course included Sinnataggen (The angry tot) – https://www.yelp.com/biz/sinnataggen-oslo-2
https://www.tripadvisor.ca/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g190479-d9602729-i233504278-Vigelandsparken-Oslo_Eastern_Norway.html (shocked at this one?)
the most famous statue of all there – to be socked, and they were interviewed just there. Their representative said the “socking” idea originated in Bergen, and that they certainly thought Frognerparken was a best place of all in Oslo. Sinnataggen is placed on a longish bridge leading up to Monolitten, which portrays intertwined people struggling harshly to reach the top:
https://www.klm.com/destinations/gb/en/article/gustav-vigelands-bizarre-sculpture-park
NRK tv (the public, national broadcasting) had an interview too; it is on the news repeated at least for today 21 March at 09 am and 10 am. In a 10 minutes news-reel it came about 6:20 minutes into the programme.
The tv-guide says the news programmes are always available, it just doesn’t say whether that only applies in Norway or also world-wide. If it is possible for you to watch, it can be accessed here by clicking the right date:
https://tv.nrk.no/serie/nyheter/NNFA09032017/20-03-2017
They said it is the UN’s day for Down’s. The date has not been chosen arbitrarily; the 21st reflects that there are 3 instead of 2 copies on chromosome no 21.
Something more on the main news of nrk at 7 pm this evening too, and we see a little about some teaching especially geared to Down’s children’s needs:
https://tv.nrk.no/serie/dagsrevyen/NNFA19032117/21-03-2017
This particular part starts at about 32:40 minutes.
Interesting comments all the way around, Marianne.
After the figures given in Delight’s post here, the U.S. is Jekyll and Hydish when it comes to Down’s. Children with Down’s, depending on the severity, are allowed to go to public schools where most attend special education classes along with regular classes. I have met more than a few with Down’s and they are like everyone else when it comes to temperament. Some are generally happy and some have awful attitudes. How anyone can deny a child with this syndrome an opportunity at life is beyond me no matter what kind of personality they have.
It is surprising what you’ve shared here about Norway’s support of children with Down’s. I wouldn’t expect the country to be so openly supportive when there is such a strange philosophy about biological parenting in the NCWS.
If I were to offer a guess at Norwegian statistics on abortions due to the Down’s, however, I would put it at least as high as the U.S. I hope I am very wrong.
My comment on Frogner Park: “yucky!”
It’s not so much the nakedness, Marianne, though that is a bit over the top in my view. The positions of the statues and reliefs and the combinations of “characters” are very odd to me. It all seems so strange. I don’t question that Vigeland had to have talent to create the statues but my reaction is a grimace. I definitely have a reaction to them if not a positive one. I don’t know the artist well enough to know if this was his intention. If so, he was successful in my case.
Tell you what, Marianne, if my wife and I ever get to Norway and you are up to it, I’ll skip the park and spend the entrance fee on a nice meal out at your favorite eatery.
It’s interesting that you mention Frognerparken in this context, Marianne, because I seem to remember that at least one of the statues is of a girl with Down’s, and is located somewhere near the monolith. I think it may actually be the girl on the left of the Monolith photo in the KLM link that you posted. If my memory is correct, that means that Norwegian society, or at least Vigeland, was acknowledging that Down’s was a part of Life back in the 1920’s-40’s. As you said, this is quite a distinction to other aspects of Norwegian social culture where there is huge pressure to conform to the group concept of “normal”.
Chris – the park is free entry and I think really is intended to be a celebration of life. However, everyone has different artistic tastes and that is ultimately what this is about.
What constitutes art is certainly different for each individual, Julian. I’m a Norman Rockwell fan myself. His museum is in Massachusetts, so I’ll probably never see that in person either.
The link Marianne shared with a picture of the sculpture of the naked baby who looks like it is having a tantrum had a price of $37.48 next to it. I thought maybe that was the entrance fee to the park. After another look, it is the cost of a sightseeing tour.
Free? Few things in life are free these days. I just came from the natural springs where I live and filled up several gallons of hot, spring water. It is also free and is a very healthy water source filled with all kinds of good minerals. People come from all over to visit Hot Springs, Arkansas to bathe in the water. Most take home a few jugs of the water. Taking a bath at one of the Bath houses is expensive but the water fountains are free! (I’ve never had a bath in the wonderful stuff.)
Thanks for the information.
Three of the major medias in Norway: Nrk, VG and Dagbladet join forces to “fight false news” as they call it. The strange thing is that none of them have mentioned the lastest barnevern case about Tonje, a 20 year old Norwegian mother who is a barnevern refugee in Sweden.
Tv2 on the other hand made this case and Natasha and Erik’s case well known, and if they push further I’m hoping that “the best country in the world to live in” soon can invite to a democratic debate and votings on subjects like: “has non-perfect people the right to live (not aborting fetuses with down syndrome e.g. and lure lightly retarded individuals to sterilize and/ or take their children), and do not-perfect people (most of us) have the right to have children and be parents” in Norway (human rights)?
I’m inviting everybody on this blog to start push PM Solberg on these questions, as well as Horne (Child/ barnevern minister), because Tv2 news said yesterday, these two plus the health minister had no comments 😦
http://www.tv2.no/nyheter/9010696/
I have just found this story as well.
Completely ridiculous to think that the child’s best interest is that her/his human rights for her/his family and for due process are to be severely violated.
Public authorities in the Stalinist regimes dared to try such a reasoning… as they have known they are not going to be held accountable.
It is crystal clear that such an assessment on the child’s best interest is false.
The problem with accepting a false statement as factual is the way how logic works. False implies anything and then public authorities can cherry-pick the outcome they liked, deriving it easily… That is the death of rule of law and the death of democracy.