Informative Speech: Down Syndrome

I, as well, was part of the problem. About 7 years ago, I remember playing “go fish” on the bench with kids from the neighborhood. My sister came over walking and lumbering. They all started making fun of her. And…I joined. She always wanted to play hide and seek with me, but as we grew older, hide and seek got boring. The only thing that connected us was already gone. Most of the time I wouldn’t know how to communicate with her. After messing up so many times, I got scared I’d say something offensive. But now I know how wrong I was for seeing her as someone abnormal. Even if she didn’t have Down syndrome, making fun of anyone, especially your own sister, does nothing but harm.
I’m not here today to talk about bullying. I’m here to discuss

Every cell in the human body has a nucleus, where genetic material is stored in genes. Genes carry codes responsible for our inherited traits. Typically, the nucleus of each cell contains 23 pairs of chromosomes. Down syndrome occurs when an individual has a full or partial extra copy of chromosome 21. I could continue talking about this, but since this isn’t science class, thank God, and I’m obviously not a science teacher, I’m just going to leave it here. Instead, I’ll try something a little bit different. Imagine having small, abnormally shaped ears, slanted eyes, broad hands with short fingers, a small flattened nose, a different shaped mouth with a slightly longer tongue and extra space between the big toe and the second toe. Now imagine walking along the street. Do you see them? All the eyes staring at you for looking different, for having some genetic “disorder” that no one understands. All those people that know nothing about you, about who you are as a person, they just can’t stop staring, because you’re not the type of “normal” they’re used to seeing. Did you see it? You did? Okay, but do you feel it?

Instead of being placed in group homes, those affected with Down Syndrome are raised by their parents, who help them discover their talents. However, with today’s technology, a baby with Down syndrome is lucky to be born at all thanks to ‘prenatal diagnosis’ – a new technology that lets you determine the medical condition of a fetus before it is born. Unfortunately, hardly any country in the world – including Bulgaria - has statistics about this “insignificant” problem. However, a study published in the American Journal of Medical Genetics shows us that from 2008 to 2012, 53% of fetuses diagnosed with Down syndrome were aborted. Abortion after prenatal diagnosis has reduced the population of individuals living with Down syndrome in the United States by approximately 30%. Killing the baby just because of the possibility of it having a certain disorder... Are people heartless? No, of course not, it’s just the easiest choice to make, because apparently they’re thinking of how hard it’s going to be for them to take care of someone different. But just because something is easy doesn’t mean it’s