Max Lewis, "My Lovely Son"

Rick recently posted excerpts from a Washington op-ed by Patricia Bauer on the new prenatal testing recommendations.  Bauer asks why so many people would want to hunt out & abort babies with Down Syndrome:

Among the reasons, I believe, is a fundamental societal misperception that the lives of people with intellectual disabilities have no value -- that less able somehow equates to less worthy. Like the woman in the park, we're assigning one trait more importance than all the others and making critical decisions based on that judgment. . . . .Much of what people think they know about intellectual disabilities is inaccurate and remains rooted in stigma and opinions that were formed when institutionalization was routine.

Here's an absolutely lovely story by the mother of Max Lewis, the young actor with Down Syndrome who appears in the Golden Globe nominated movie "Notes on a Scandal" with Cate Blanchett and Judi Dench.  It's chock-full of obvious and not-so-obvious illustrations of the value of the life of one person with intellectual disabilities.

Lisa