If you took your perfectly healthy newborn child and cut off its legs so that it spent the rest of its life in a wheelchair for your own gratification, what would people say about you? They’d call you a monster.
What parent, after all, doesn’t want their child to be as healthy as possible? What parent would wish a lifetime of disability on a child, even if it made the parent feel “enriched”? If a disability is such a moral blessing, we’d all be crippling our children at birth and patting ourselves on the back for it.
Such a nightmare world full of torture-inflicting narcissists is the logical conclusion of the opportunistic attacks being levelled at Australian PM Scott Morrison after this week’s first election debate.
Senior Labor politicians have heavily criticised Prime Minister Scott Morrison for saying he was “blessed” not to have children who live with disability during the first leaders’ debate in Brisbane.
And…? If Morrison was “wrong” to say so, it logically follows that they think Morrison should have wished to have disabled children.
Both Mr Morrison and Labor leader Anthony Albanese were asked about the future of the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) by an undecided voter.
The woman, named Catherine, began her question by saying she had a four-year-old son who lives with autism […]
Mr Morrison began his answer by asking Catherine what her son’s name was, to which she replied Ethan.
“Jenny and I have been blessed, we’ve got two children that don’t — that haven’t had to go through that,” he said.
“And so, for parents with children who are disabled, I can only try and understand your aspirations for those children […]
After the debate, Mr Morrison was seen approaching Catherine to speak to her further about her son, Ethan, and their experiences with the NDIS.
Journalists in the room reported that Mr Morrison took a notebook and pen and was writing down details, before he took photos with other voters.
Who on earth would be “offended” by that?
None other, of course, than the usual gaggle of media darlings who automatically hate anything and everything Morrison says. Led, ironically enough, by one of Labor’s “Mean Girl” bullies.
Labor senator Katy Gallagher told Channel Seven that, as the parent of a daughter with autism, Mr Morrison’s comment upset her.
“I found it really offending and quite shocking […] Certainly my daughter enriches my life and my partner’s life every day.
Think about what Gallagher is saying, there. Does her daughter enrich her life because she is her daughter, or because she has autism? If the former, every normal parent will say the same about their children, but that doesn’t preclude wishing their child the best possible health. If that latter, that would be a stunningly narcissistic admission: that someone’s suffering — and let’s not lie that people with autism do not suffer a great deal — serves to enrich other people’s lives.
Greens senator Jordon Steele-John, who uses a wheelchair, was also critical of Mr Morrison’s comments.
“I am done with this government dismissing and disempowering disabled people,” he said.
Former Australian of the Year Grace Tame, who has autism, was also critical of Mr Morrison’s comments.
“Autism blesses those of us who have it with the ability to spot fakes from a mile off,” she wrote.
Current Australian of the Year Dylan Alcott also tweeted about the remarks.
“Woke up this morning feeling very blessed to be disabled — I reckon my parents are pretty happy about it too,” he said.
The inescapable corollary of such remarks is that disability is a moral good. If so, then surely we should inflict disability on the healthy? Some, in fact, do exactly that: deaf parents, for instance, who hope for and “celebrate” having deaf children. As someone who has experienced both perfect hearing and deafness, I can tell you, being deaf is nothing to be ashamed of, but it sure as hell is nothing to celebrate.
Liberal senator Hollie Hughes, who has a son with autism, said she did not think anything of Mr Morrison’s comments […]
“If you want to talk about the word ‘blessed’ as the biggest problem we’ve got facing us as parents and carers of those with a disability, this is why the disability community struggles to make constructive gains.”
Senator Hughes said there was an “almost permanent rage machine” lying underneath the disability community and, since the introduction of the NDIS, “they had to find somewhere else to direct their rage”.
ABC Australia
If the disability community are enraged at parents who simply hope for the best of health for their children, they need to take a long, hard look at themselves.
