Our open letter to Richard Dawkins from our founder Mike Sullivan (pictured above with his daughter Rebecca).
Dear Richard Dawkins,
Yesterday you chose to publicly judge the worth of people with Down syndrome, tweeting:
“Abort it and try again. It would be immoral to bring it into the world if you have the choice”
It is immoral for you to pass judgement on the worth of others. Fellow human beings who have beautiful lives and are loved members of their families and communities. Our’s is a beautiful kind of love.
It is immoral for you to attempt to deny the humanity of others by labelling them as an “it”. People with Down syndrome are human beings, and have dignity simply by being human. We accept our children for who they are, and are proud to celebrate and enjoy their lives with them. Diversity is good. We love diversity.
Our families would not be complete without our children. We love them. Please don’t judge them.
Our babies are beautifully made and are amazing. An experience to be celebrated and a love to be embraced.
We are accepting and embracing of life. Our lives are enriched through the love of our children.
Life with our children is more beautiful than we could ever have hoped for. Can you see the love between Pip and Tara? Can you feel it? It’s a beautiful thing.
Our children are the finest. Our lives are enriched. A love without bounds.
And they have the same range of characters as all children. All children are worthy of love and acceptance for who they are.
Through our children we are graced with tolerance and patience. We learn the meaning of unconditional love. Love that has no conditions attached to it.
Unconditional love is the essence of morality and the foundation of family.
Joy and laughter opens our hearts to unconditional love.
Life is more beautiful than you could ever imagine.
When you claim it is immoral for us to have our children in our world you display your own immorality and incapacity for acceptance and unconditional love for others. I am sorry for that. We will move forward in love building an inclusive and accepting world, as our contribution to humanity.
We are sorry that you feel the need to judge our children. We are proud to stand with them: beautiful, openhearted, kind and pure people. The ones that make this world a better place.
Thank you for telling the world your views on the worth of others.
We will stay in the love if that is OK with you. It’s a pretty good place to be.
Tears in my eyes. Thank you x
Your welcome, our children deserve nothing less than love.
Thank you Hayley, and for your wonderful blog over @HP. Perfectly expressed with a heart wide open.
I was a teacher and taught many clever children but the pupil who stays in my memory is John, who had several disabilities including a low I.Q. and very poor vision, but I valued him for his determination to do his best; he never complained when I corrected his work, he just went back to his desk and started again and came up to have his work corrected many times. He never gave up, never grew discouraged, was always grateful for the time and attention I gave him. True, he did not gain any exam honours, never went to university but he continued to smile and be helpful, always offered to carry my books, held the door open for me. He never gave up trying to do his best; he did not envy those who reached heights in school so much higher than he was able to achieve. He made my day brighter and I remember him as a really worthwhile human being. I never heard him speak ill of anyone. When Richard Dawkins goes to his reward, will there be anyone who will be able to say the same of him? Remember, that none of the talents we have are ours for ever; at any moment, accident, disease and, eventually, old age will take our intelligence, our memory, our health from us and then we, too, shall become disabled like those who are born without the talents we boast of as if in some way we deserved to have them; they are GIFTS and who is to say that the gift of being loving and evoking love in others is not a greater gift than a high I.Q. Love lasts forever, even after we die, we shall be missed because of the love we gave.
Beautiful said!
Thank you Kristen, we enjoy sharing beauty.
Thank you Lochain for your beautiful and loving testimony.
Beautiful…Just beautiful….
Inspired by our beautiful children Tara. Thank you for standing with us.
what a beautiful (and hopefully enlightening) response <3
Thank you. We are delighted that our words have been so well embraced.
I do wish this response hadn’t been filled with SO many grammatical errors; I think that’s adding fuel to the fire. (People, before you make some grand, global announcement it might behoove you to have someone literate proofread your press release.) That said, the content is beautiful and the pictures communicate everything. I will say this: you’re talking about/to Richard Dawkins, here. He’s practically a nihilist. If you knew anything at all about him, you might not have bothered. He’s committed his life to the concept of genetic evolution. You couldn’t have imagined he’d feel any other way. You aren’t shaming him, because he won’t feel ashamed. I suppose your response served a purpose: to re-unite the DS community, share some lovely photographs, and vent your anger. Beyond that, perhaps you got a lot of people to hate Dawkins, and maybe that was more the goal? I am fully with you on your point of view. I just thought that instead of playing the role of one more sycophant, I’d inject a little hard truth, as well. Blessings. ♡
We are sorry if there were grammatical errors. I know there is one ? missing, so I will go fix that. The rest is in New Zealand English and seems fairly correct. We are volunteers and don’t have resources for high quality processes, we do the best we can. Our letter is not about Dawkins, it is about our children. In terms of hard truths, our blog has dozens of articles that soundly rebut his position. Today is about us responding with love.
I think kspark that you are mistaken that these comments are aimed principally at Richard Dawkins; I do not think for a minute that he is even aware of our comments. This discussion is to encourage us, to remind us of our principles and beliefs. I for one do not hate Prof. Dawkins; I am sorry for him because he is missing so much that is worthwhile in life. He never looks very happy in all the photographs I’ve seen, except one of him as a boy when he looked a most attractive child. Oscar Wilde once said, ” By the time you reach the age of forty, you deserve the face you’ve got.” I think it was C.S. Lewis who, perhaps commenting on this observation of Wilde’s who said ( I’m paraphrasing now) that the soul, being immortal, is stronger than mortal flesh and so stamps itself on the face and so our character is revealed. That, of course, does not apply to teachers because they have to be stern so much of the time!!
Lochain, I must correct you. This piece is entitled, “Our Letter to Richard Dawkins”, and begins, “Dear Richard Dawkins…”. So, yeah, I think YOU are mistaken that *I* am mistaken that “these comments are [NOT] aimed at Richard Dawkins”. Also, I wasn’t actually addressing you; I was speaking to the author of this letter, for whom you likely have no authority to speak. Beyond that, and to the rest of your comment, I am utterly unconcerned with the state of Mr. Dawkins’ happiness. As I said before, I vehemently do not agree with him, but we must allow people their points of view, while, yes, holding them accountable for those views.
Thank you for your comments Lochain. Our comments serve both purposes, a loving rebuttal of Dawkins’ hate, and as a celebration and reminder of truth in face of the hatred.
Downs’ Syndrome… the compassion mutation
As a woman who made the decision NOT to terminate my child knowing that he had the extra chromosome that is called Trisomy 21 , Downs Syndrome, I never judge anyone. It was a very tough decision when lots of people around me had a different opinion than mine. Alas I could not ‘just try again’ as my husband died of heart disease when I was 8 weeks along before we knew about the extra little bit that changed so much. My son is 13, a joy… a trial, He makes me a better person and for this I am grateful.
Thank you for your message Melissa. We are sorry that dad passed before meeting your wonderful son.
Sad to hear about your husband. It does, however, undermine the stupidity of Dawkins’ assumption that people can just “try again”. (Also, what if the next child has Down’s too? Or something much worse like a seriously life-limiting condition? Or if the woman can never get pregnant again – maybe she had IVF or was just about to become menopausal or a whole host of other things.)
Excellent piece. My son is 16 and the light of my life. Through him I’ve learn’t so much about what real love is. I couldn’t imagine life without him x
Thank you Kat. The love is a beautiful thing for sure.
Beautifully written Mike. The images say
it all ♥
They are pretty wonderful pictures, it must be said. Thank you for your message.
Having a disorder myself, I felt really insulted by Richard Dawkins because I consider Down’s Syndrome to be similar to my Asperger Syndrome. I’m a lot happier being the way I am. I always get excited if I meet someone with Down’s because I love being around them.