they proved positive, she was going to have an abortion. The other woman was refusing tests preferring to have her baby, affected or not. Presented with just these two cases, viewers could understandably be left with the false impression that haemophilia is a life-threatening condition; that the birth of a haemophiliac child can only be viewed in terms of unhappiness and fear. My son is a severe haemophiliac; I am a carrier of haemophilia. I refused tests to detect the condition in my last pregnancy (since born unaffected), as I have only to look at my son, beautiful, lively, intelligent and with as much zest for life as any seven-year-old, to know that it would be sheer madness to kill a foetus with haemophilia. Let's get things in perspective by showing these children, who lead happy, normal, full and worthwhile lives, coping with treatment whenever the need arises. Too often disability looms overwhelmingly large ... the child is overlooked.
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I have a little four-year-old girl who was born with spina bifida. She is supposedly 'severely disabled' and we thank God that on the night she was born there was a surgeon who was willing to operate on such a 'badly handicapped' baby. It is doubtful she would have survived otherwise. I hope that because of this campaign the medical profession will re-examine their approach. During all three of my pregnancies I was made to feel irresponsible, stubborn and cruel, even stupid. I knew I was none of these things but I just wanted to keep my children no matter what (I have since had two more perfectly healthy children). The consultant came to see me after my first precious child and said, 'Perhaps you will have the tests next time.' It was as though he thought he had won a battle and proved his point because my child was disabled! Thank you from all the people like me who will benefit from people knowing more about disabilities and that they are to be accepted and loved, not feared and discarded.
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I am writing in defence of the handicapped, as the mother of a Down's Syndrome boy, Anthony, who we had the pleasure of having for twenty years until his death in 1984. My husband and I were devastated by his loss. He was the youngest of my six children. He was loving and compassionate. When he was ten years old, we were watching a programme about famine in Africa. On seeing the starving children he opened his bank box, gave me the money and said, 'Hot tea and pillow