Three stories that couldn't be more different. One abortion. One orphan denied a family. And one grandmother who shares the gift of her granddaughter. And yet in each case, the child in question has Down syndrome.

The first came from Babble, a parenting website. (I will include the link here, but I don't recommend reading it.)

It's called "Wanted: A Healthy Baby," and it is supposed to be a "success story:" a mother recounts two pregnancies that ended prematurely, but it all turns out great with the birth of her daughter.  In describing her first pregnancy, she writes:

"It didn't take more than a couple of months for me to get pregnant, but because I was over 35, my doctor advised me to have an amniocentesis test for chromosomal abnormalities in the fetus. I took the test at 16 weeks into my pregnancy, and seven weeks later, my doctor called with the results: "I'm sorry, but we can't let you have this baby." Our unborn child had Down syndrome.

"Chris and I both agreed to end the pregnancy. My doctor told me to eat and drink whatever I wanted and to take Valium if I thought it would help. Three days later, I checked into the hospital where they injected me with prostaglandin to induce labor and after many hours I pushed out a dead baby boy. "Don't look," the nurse said, but how could I not look? Even without my contact lenses I could see that he had ears, fingers, arms and toes. The doctor showed him to my husband to demonstrate that the baby had what's known as a palmar crease, a single unbroken line in the palm of the baby's hand that confirmed he had Down's."

The author expresses no remorse and goes on to talk to her doctor about getting pregnant again, this time hoping for a "healthy" baby. Although this incident took place decades ago (the article isn't clear about exactly when), it nevertheless demonstrates a attitude toward people with Down syndrome that automatically assumes they are sick and undesirable. Perhaps her views have changed with time. If so, she makes no mention of the change.

Yesterday I read a very different essay, "Right Planet, Right Child," by Beverly Beckham, who has a granddaughter with Down syndrome. I recommend reading her essay in full, but I'll give you a taste:

"In the world she was meant for, even strangers look at Lucy and think, "I wish I had a little girl just like her,'' because she epitomizes childhood.

But by some geographical glitch, she landed on earth instead, in the hinterlands of evolution, where innocence is meant to be grown out of and where the tongue does all the talking, not the heart..."

Beckham describes some of Lucy's struggles as well as her triumphs, and she concludes her essay with these words:

"Lucy cries when someone else cries. A child she doesn't know starts bawling on the playground and Lucy's lips quiver and the next thing you know she is crying, too. But soundlessly. This is Lucy's heart talking.

"Was she sent here by mistake? Is she on the wrong planet? Or did she one day gaze out at the universe and see us here, on this flawed, messed up earth, and think: That's where I want to be. That's where I choose to be, with that family. With this mother and that father. In that little room with the tilted ceiling. Because that's where I am wanted. Because that's where I'll be loved."

The Babble article gives us a clinical view of Down syndrome as a defective child to be discarded. Beckham's piece gives a picture of a child deserving to be loved and to give love in return.

A final story from the blog for the Orphan Justice Center. This essay describes a four-year old boy with Down syndrome who is an orphan in Eastern Europe. His name is Kirill. A family from Alabama was ready to adopt him. They flew over to bring their son home, which meant they stood before a judge who would rule on whether they could indeed adopt this child. "But when the ruling was read, the judge said, "Your application to adopt is rejected." The basis given was that Kirill was "not socially adaptable" due to his "medical condition" and he was better off in an institution than in a home with a family. We were told we could adopt another child, and the judge would approve it, but not this child. Why? The only reason? Because he has Down Syndrome."