Let my right hand not know what the left is doing. Moreover, it does the opposite. That it is one thing to say and quite another to do. And there is not always a track long enough to land from words to deeds. From this difficulty, which sometimes becomes an impossibility, grows the universe that separates what we say from what we do. What we would like to be and what we actually are.
The whole of Spain has been congratulated on the minutes of the deputy in Corts Valencianes de Mar Galcerán. A story of personal improvement that we like to brag about as a collective because we all feel like participants and protagonists in it. Galcerán is the first Spanish citizen with Down syndrome to sit in a parliament. And there is almost no one left who did not congratulate himself. big party An example of inclusion, of personal struggle, of not throwing in the towel. The protagonist also experiences her political vicissitudes, of course she does!, like the cyclist who crowns a special category port. "I ask them to work, not to give anything up because they can achieve what they set their mind to. At first it's hard, but you have to overcome yourself, set goals and objectives, because in the end, no matter what it costs, with perseverance you always succeed".
Galcerán as an example of inclusion. The political battering ram of a society that does not point out the different born, but simply warns him of the full potential of the human. This is the story for which we rejoice these days. More or less as we do year after year more routinely, when the calendar marks the day dedicated to Down syndrome. We are equal, we are the same, we call each other. Mar Galcerán is the indelible proof that certifies it. Inclusion is a given. Let's raise our glasses. Health!
So far the adventures of my right hand. Let's go with the left now.
Fewer and fewer children are born with Down syndrome. And not because nature has decided to behave in a different way, but because since the techniques to detect it in the fetus are more effective, the decision to remove it is more common. Eugenics is a reality. The projections of the entities that work in this area indicate that up to 95% of pregnancies in which it is known that the baby will be born with Down syndrome end in abortion. If born today, Mar Galcerán, the brand-new deputy, would have much less chance of becoming one in future elections. Not because there were no parties willing to include her in the lists, but because it would be frankly difficult for her to be born. Spain, like other countries, is walking determinedly towards a society free of Down syndrome. Only that at the same time it celebrates the achievements of people born with this syndrome. A beautiful farewell.
We could call this contradiction the paradox of equality. The celebration of an anecdote of great symbolic value - an act of deputy in the hands of a person with Down syndrome - as an act of recognition of the effective equality and inclusion of a group, at the same time as for the path of the more fundamental facts becomes more aggressive and visible than ever the discrimination against these same people, preventing the birth of their equals.
It is not a debate about abortion, although it may seem so at first glance. It is rather about the extent to which we accept as truth, beyond what we proclaim, that a person with Down syndrome has the same dignity as anyone else and that their genetic particularities do not in any way affect the way we look at them. she And having reached this point, the truth is that we do not pass the cotton test. Through the decisions we recognize them less right to live than the rest. For this reason, most laws extend the terms in which abortion can be performed, taking into account the disability criterion that accompanies people with Down syndrome.
The mirror of Mar Galcerán gives us back the most graceful reflection of ourselves. We see in their public recognition what we want to be. And we like each other. Only the reality that runs parallel to this self-satisfaction is of a very different nature. It is enough to be aware of it. Not to suffocate ourselves with moral judgments - in this everyone should take care of themselves - but not to forget that we live with two hands. And that many times they act in the opposite, opposite direction. Down syndrome is one of them.
