As it has happened to almost everyone seeing the despicable statements of journalist Arcadi Espada in Chester's program last Sunday, Ramon Pinna, father of a girl with Down syndrome and founding partner of the Achalay Spain Association, has not been able to shut up either.
He has published an open letter on his Linkedin profile, with blunt words defending the right of people with Down Syndrome and refuting Sword's argument that they are "an unassumable burden on the system".
The controversial words of Sword
Let's get in situation. On Sunday's program, the journalist was asked for an article titled 'A crime against humanity' in which the Catalan journalist defended abortion "of fetuses where future disability is detected", calling them "stupid, sick and worse children".
He also wrote what he thinks "an immorality" moving forward with the pregnancy of "a sick child", and that "if the public service has warned you that this person will be born with very serious deficiencies that will assume for society a cost that could have been avoided, you will have to first assume the moral responsibility of having brought a child into the world under these conditions. "After this, the presenter and program director expelled the guest from the set.
In Babies and more The precious gesture of a football referee supporting a child with Down syndrome that will thrill youThe complete letter from the father of a girl with Down syndrome to Sword
The next day, Ramon Pinna replied to the statements of the journalist in an open letter entitled "Mr. Arcadi Espada: How much do I have to pay for my daughter's life?". Start by confessing that he felt personally attacked.
"It seemed to me that you looked me in the eye when he told us that" the parents to whom the public health system had warned us of the serious damage with which a child of ours would be born, to move forward, we should assume our responsibility moral and of course our economic responsibility, and that if necessary, you would also legitimately understand that our children sued us at least in criminal proceedings, so in your opinion it is an immorality on our part.
"I am going to skip the considerations that your opinions deserve because, as thanks to God, you have more or less the same importance as me in our society and in our time, they will never surpass the category of low reach and very bad taste opinions.
"I am concerned, however, with numbers ... lest something be left in the substrate of collective consciousness, and state the idea that people with Down syndrome pose an unassuming burden for the "System".
"Let's see, Mr. Espada; currently in our country they live approximately 32,000 people with Down syndrome. All of them consume and pay their VAT in doing so, thousands of them work for others or (and some for their own account) and pay and contribute to the system, as I can do it myself, and I want to think that you.
"They pay in the subway, at the cinema, and if they want a whim ... well they pay it too. They pay, and they pay, and they pay again every thing that touches them, because it is the fate of the citizen of our time ... and they They are.
"As I understand that you will have understood the income chapter for the" System ", I am going to the expenses that are supposed to it, since it seems to me that it is the one that worries you most in order to prepare the “Social invoice”That you yourself - and I suspect that with pleasure - you will turn me at the end of my daughter's life, for the manifest irresponsibility of having let her be born.
"As you argue on the basis of my daughter's costs to society, we will begin by easing the burden on those items where she will never generate social cost ... if the way of being and acting of people with Down Syndrome is maintained for a few years.
In Babies and more they did not know that their baby came with Down syndrome, and the video of her birth thrills tens of thousands of people"Look, my daughter will never go to jail, because she will never be charged or convicted of crimes of corruption, falsehood, theft, theft, harassment, slander ... My daughter will not inflate budgets, nor will she misuse public funds; no will generate fake news, nor copy in an exam, let alone in a thesis, my daughter will never kill.
"My daughter will not leave the filthy streets after a bottle, nor will she ever burn a forest. The presence of a thousand like her on a soccer field will not make the game declared high risk. She will not surround the congress, nor throw bottles, lighters and stones to the representatives of the people, whatever they may be, will not cut traffic, will not harass anyone in the USSR, will not consume drugs, will not drive drinks, will not commit imprudence at the wheel, and will not lie to harm another.
"Come on, I make one last effort to see if I convince you. My daughter will live less time than the average of the Spaniards, much less. That will mean that you do not have to bear on your back as a contributor or your 20 years as a pensioner, nor all the expenses so linked to the dependence of our elders today.
"I do not believe that you are a bad person, Mr. Espada, nor do I have you for an idiot. I simply believe that you do not see beyond yourself, and that you lack sufficient intellectual capacity to understand the value that people with Down syndrome, and in general people with Intellectual Disability, contribute to our world. "
You can read the full letter here.
