Word: mongoloid
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...case of the Mongoloid child born with a physical defect that may be related to, but is separate from, the syndrome itself, is worth examining. (Down's Syndrome is the possession of an extra chromosome, usually on the twenty-first pair.) The physical defect can be corrected by surgery, but the Mongolism itself remains irreversible. Parental consent is, as usual, required for the corrective surgery...
...however, the issue of the state's extension of guardianship to the infant who is not "normal" becomes more complex, although the courts have consistently declined to explain their apprehension. Courts have handed down both positive and negative decisions with regard to guardianship where surgery is required for the Mongoloid infant to live. Until five years ago, most states declined to appoint a guardian for such a child. In more recent years, however, the courts have tended to reverse themselves, and most will now remove jurisdiction of the child from the natural parents...
...clear that the Mongoloid child is a burden on himself. In fact, most evidence suggests that such a child, whose IQ is usually far below the norm, is happy unto himself, for he remains unaware of his handicap. Therefore, if he is a burden on anyone, he may be on his parents and siblings...
Clearly, this is not precisely analogous to the case discussed here. As pointed out, the Mongoloid is not a danger of any sort to the people around him. He is an individual with a happy disposition, responsive to loving care. Nevertheless, the case is one in which people are driven to sacrifice life in the interest of the well-being of the survivors...
Mothers of mongoloid children, that is, children like Kathryn, can't really point to anything that caused the birth of this child. Medical science has so far only discovered a correlation between the age of the mother and the child's possession of the one extra chromosome that is characteristic of Mongolism: the older the mother is, the greater the chance of having a Mongoloid baby. So when a Mongoloid child is born, even the doctors do not really know what went wrong. They only know that that one little chromosome will make a Mongolian idiot out of a normal...