Word: mongoloid
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...result of the famous case several years ago where a mongoloid child with an intestinal obstruction was allowed to dehydrate and die instead of being operated on, Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore, Md., established a review board to advise its medical staff. The board, which meets regularly to attempt to develop ethical guidelines, consists of a surgeon, a psychiatrist, a clergyman and a lawyer...
...today seems to be moving toward the humanization of the institutionalizing process, technology seems to be veering in the opposite direction, toward a more dehumanizing goal. One thing that has emphatically not changed, however is professional attitudes towards retardation and especially towards Mongolism. And what this means is that Mongoloid children may be, in ever increasing numbers, the victims of a society that finds it easier to bury its problems than to deal with them...
...technological advance that affects the fate of Mongoloid children is the development of amniocentesis. This method of determining if a fetus has genetic defects by analyzing fluid drawn from the amniotic sac during pregnancy was developed during the early 1960s to detect blood type incompatability between the mother and her child...
Since then, doctors have found that with amniocentesis Mongolism can be detected in a fetus as early as the third month. With this knowledge, a doctor would be free (and legally justified) to advise the mother to abort. Since the incidence of Mongoloid children is higher in older women, some suggest that amniocentesis be routinely performed on pregnant women over 40. Others would like to see amniocentesis become a routine part of prenatal care for all women...
...vocabulary used by doctors to describe Mongoloids is frightening. Just the word Mongoloid itself conjurs up a race--labelling this child as someone not just handicapped, but practically outside of our own familiar species. In the best pregnancy counselling offered, the parents are told that the child will need "love and affection," but will never be "like other children." At worst, we learn that this child will be a burden on society. It is obvious that there is a fear of this handicap--a fear over and above that of other handicaps. A child born blind or paraplegic will obviously...