Parents Consider Plastic Surgery for Two-Year-Old with Down’s Syndrome.
Why, you might ask? Because they believe it will help her “fit in better” with others if she looks more like her non-disabled peers.
Ophelia Kirwan is a beguiling toddler with wide eyes and a mop of blonde hair. At the age of two, she’s too young to know that she has Down’s syndrome, or to understand why this makes her different from other little girls.…..
At the weekend, her parents - a world-renowned plastic surgeon and his surgically-enhanced wife - admitted they are considering altering their daughter’s appearance with surgery in the future to help her become more ‘accepted’ by society.
Laurence Kirwan insisted that he would make that decision if Ophelia - who is two this month - reached the age of 18 and was being unfairly judged on how she looked.
The procedure, he explained in the blunt words of a surgeon, would correct “eyes slightly wide apart, flat nasal bridge, thin lips, tongue that sticks out, thick neck”.
But would the decision to erase these tell-tale features of Down’s syndrome be made with their daughter’s happiness in mind? Or would it simply be an attempt to mould a child into a society which cares more about looks than vulnerable children?
Her mother Chelsea said: “It just isn’t right that Ophelia and others like her should be judged on how they look - particularly if they are turned down for a good job that they could handle.
“It’s a matter of self-esteem: if you’re not happy with yourself then why shouldn’t you fix something? All I want is for Ophelia to be happy.”
I get the impression from her words and from the picture that accompanies the story that Mom is much more hung up on appearance than many people are, and Ophelia will ever be. The fact that she herself has gone under the knife for vanity only reinforces my suspicions.
At least one other couple have already gone ahead with radical and painful cosmetic surgery to alter their daughter’s Down’s syndrome “appearance” to help her “fit in” with her peers.
By the time Georgia Bussey was five, her parents Kim and David, from Pimlico, South-West London, had put her through the ordeal of surgery three times.
In the first procedure at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, her tongue was reduced to stop it protruding. Then, folds of skin were removed from the inner corners of her eyes to take away the “slantiness” characteristic of Down’s syndrome. Finally, she had surgery to stop her ears sticking out.
The couple - who deliberated for a year before arranging for their daughter’s face to be surgically altered - claimed, like the Kirwans, that they were simply motivated by love for their child.
I don’t call subjecting a child to multiple painful and potentially deadly surgeries to take away the appearance of a disability “love”. The disability itself is still there, and erasing merely the outward features of it does nothing but feed into the notion that surface perfection is of utmost importance.
Kim insisted: “We live in a society that judges people by the way they look. Society is not going to change overnight - so Georgia has to fit into society, rather than society fitting into the way she is.
“The people who criticise us are usually people who don’t have Down’s children of their own. They don’t see the teasing that goes on and the problems Down’s children have. I just want to give Georgia a helping hand - an “edge” to get on in life.”
I worked with people who have developmental disabilities, including Down’s Syndrome, for over 20 years. We never did anything to try to hide or change their appearances, nor did we attempt to hide them away from the world. Instead we worked to change societies misperceptions and increase acceptance.
Moreover, there are many parents with Down’s children who are horrified at the idea of somehow airbrushing their children’s appearance, as though having the condition is something to be ashamed of.
Some claim that the procedures - on a child who could scarcely comprehend the pain they were suffering - were tantamount to child abuse.
Rosa Monckton, the wife of former newspaper editor Dominic Lawson and mother of 12-year-old Domenica, who has Down’s syndrome, agrees.
“What these children bring to our lives is something so deep and extraordinary, it is humanity stripped to the bone,” she says.
“It is not about how they look, but who they are. First and foremost, they are our children, children to be loved and cherished - not tampered with and altered because they look slightly different.
“It’s a sad indictment of what our must-have society has become - the expectation is for something perfect. Anything which isn’t aesthetically perfect - be it breasts, bodies or the faces of children just out of babyhood - must be fixed until it is. These are grotesquely skewed values.
“Our natural instinct as parents is to cherish and love our children. Not to gaze at the faces of toddlers and wonder what we might change surgically later on.
“The thought of allowing your own child’s face to be cut open in an attempt to make them more ‘acceptable’ to society is appalling. Perhaps these parents are struggling to come to terms with the shock - and it is a shock - of finding out that your child won’t be exactly as you expected.”
I couldn’t agree more. To complain that society expects perfection while you feed into that by cutting up your child is obscene. If it allowed the child function better–helped them walk or grasp objects better–it would be a different story. I can even understand correcting significant deformities, but normal features of Down’s Syndrome do not fall into that category.
Children and adults with disabilities have long fought perceptions that they’re imperfect and demands that they change to please others. The inability of some parents to accept their children’s disability has led to abuse and even murder. Will parents who can’t even tolerate their child’s appearance of disability be able to tolerate the other manifestations of the child’s disability?
I truly feel for Ophelia, should she be forced to endure this nonsense, and for the others like her.
Tags: Cosmetic Surgery, Down's Syndrome, Ophelia Kirwan
