Page 150 - Battleground The Media Volume 1 and 2

D sab l t es and the Med a | 1

disabled child—can be “problematic” to a family, and that having the informa-
tion in one’s first trimester of pregnancy that one is carrying a child with Down
Syndrome—a disabled child—will do, in the words of Dr. Nancy Green, medi-
cal director of the March of Dimes, “the most good for the biggest number.”
Given that the population of children with Down Syndrome—of children with a
disability—does not comprise “the biggest number” in society, one might won-
der what form “the most good” might take: Is it suggested that “the most good”
would be for fewer disabled persons to be born, so that those who do not have a
disability do not have to take care of them?
English and disability studies professor Michael Bérubé offers a different pic-
ture about “the good” of life with a disabled child. Bérubé’s son Jamie has Down
Syndrome. In his book, Life As We Know It: A Father, a Family, and an Excep-
tional Child, Bérubé represents his son by narrating his early struggles to learn
to eat and talk and learn; he has continued to write about Jamie growing up and
becoming a teenager who loves Harry Potter books and traveling. Bérubé under-
stands the significance of images and words, our “social constructions” of dis-
abled persons, when he writes in the Epilogue to his book. “That’s why advocates
of the disabled are so concerned about polite words, popular movies, and visual
and textual representations of every kind. We need to deliberate the question of
how we will represent the range of human variation to ourselves” (p. 260).

ConCLusion

As more tests for screening for chromosomal and genetic abnormalities in a
fetus are developed, we will be faced with more difficult questions about having
a child with a disability. If life with a disabled child is represented as terrible and
tragic, people may be more likely to choose not to have such a child. If life with
a disabled child is represented as full of hope and new discoveries amid the dif-
ficulties, people can understand that life with disability, while different, can be
very good indeed.
The metaphors and the language that are used to refer to people with disabili-
ties have a direct impact on how they are understood and treated by society. It
is crucial to pay attention to how persons with disabilities are represented in the
media because, as disability studies scholars Sharon Snyder, Brenda Jo Bruegge-
mann, and Rosemary Garland-Thomas write, “Disability as both a bodily condi-
tion and a social category either now or later will touch us all. The fact that many
of us will become disabled if we live long enough is perhaps the fundamental
aspect of human embodiment.” Each one of us is likely to one day become dis-
abled as we age and our bodies change and it is therefore all the more crucial to
pay attention to how disability is represented in the media today.
see also Bias and Objectivity; Internet and Its Radical Potential; Narrative
Power and Media Influence; Paparazzi and Photographic Ethics; Public Access
Television; Sensationalism, Fear Mongering and Tabloid Media; Shock Jocks.

Further reading: Bérubé, Michael. Life As We Know It: A Father, a Family, and an Exceptional
Child. New York: Vintage, 1998; Burke, JoBeth McDaniel. A Special Kind of Hero: Chris