They were a typical conservative couple.

He was a middle school vice principal, a young and well respected educator. She, a stay at home mother,and anti-abortion activist, radical enough, in fact, to be a member of Missionaries to the Preborn, a VERY radical organization (this will bear relevance later). They were also friends of ours.

Shortly after the birth of their second daughter, they were hit with some news that they took hard. The daughter had a rare genetic disorder that inhibited her growth and would later hinder her intellectual development. In short, if she functioned at the age level of an early elementary school child, she would be considered high functioning.

What surprised me was their response.

The father recounted feeling destroyed, and was devastated at the diagnosis. He felt that somehow he was at fault,it being genetic.

Years of her crusading against abortion and his working to be an educator had not even prepared them to face the fact that they might one day be faced with a developmentally disabled child. Not THEM, the perfect middle class couple. Their hypocrisy was quickly self evident,as they had for years railed against women who had chosen to have abortions to spare their children the future that would lay ahead of them when in utero testing proved the abnormalities that were there. They had not considered that these parents may have chosen, rightly or wrongly, out of LOVE for their prospective children, rather than the opposite.

And,they had not considered the obvious: that nothing in any of the teachings they followed ever guaranteed them against having a child who was somehow deficient. In fact, philosophically speaking, their beliefs should have prepared them FOR it. I am thinking, in contrast, of a family who adopted a young girl with cerebral palsy and serious hearing impairment because the child had been rejected by her initial adoptive family.

Children with developmental disabilities are always going to be a part of our society. Accepting them is just another part of the "diversity" we claim to cherish, and no parent should feel diminished because a child with such deficiencies is born to them, especially if that parent has ANY religious outlook whatsoever. Add to that the fact that, statistically speaking,half of all children are below average, and you get the PROBABILITY that you may have a child that is not quite as gifted, not as sharp as their peers. But as a parent, you shouldnever be inclined to love them less.