6:39pm July 18, 2014

“An African-American welfare-dependent mother of three told me this story about the birth of her son with Down syndrome. She had been planning to put the newborn up for adoption, a decision she had reached shortly before his birth, due to the domestic stress and violence with which she was living. When the baby was born and diagnosed, a white social worker came to see her about placing the child. The mother asked what would become of her baby and was told, ‘We’ll probably find a rural farm family to take him.’ ‘Then what?’ she queried. ‘He’ll grow up outside, knowing about crops and animals,’ was the reply. ‘Then what,’ the mother repeated. ‘Maybe he’ll even grow up to work on that farm,’ the social worker replied. ‘Sounds like slavery to me,’ answered the mother, who decided to take her baby home. This imagery and its legacy contrast strongly with the stories many white mothers tell, in which they fantasize a peaceful, rural life ‘in nature’ as the perfect placement for their children with Down syndrome.”

in Testing Women, Testing the Fetus: The Social Impact of Amniocentesis in America by Rayna Rapp, p. 271. 

This paragraph like, knocked the wind out of me. 

(via this-reading-by-lightning)

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