[JustlookingForAGoodTime]

(02-06-2015 03:18 PM)Vronsky Wrote:  

Traditionally, as in the last century in the West and majority of the world currently, handicapped children would get killed at birth via exposure or other methods, get sent to an institution (like one of JFK's sisters), or get locked up/hidden away in the family home. Enlightenment and humanism has endowed rights towards the mentally and physically disabled so that they are able to mostly live a life of dignity in the West.
In high school I knew a girl who had some sort of eye condition that rendered one of her eyes blind, with a milky film. Her family had to immigrate from one of the Gulf states as she was not allowed to go to school there. She wasn't mentally handicapped, she actually was pretty sharp, but due to attitudes towards disability her life was curtailed over there. She ended up running for student council and last I heard is an engineer, married to a white dude, with three children.
The Armenian mother'a attitude is not out of the norm. She lives in a society where the child will be an outcast, with outdated attitudes, and where there is minimal support network from the govt and other institutions.
Westernerners, thanks to the medical, governmental and educational support systems that are tax payer funded, in addition to overall progressive and humanitarian value systems, have shaken off such backwards attitudes towards the disabled and are able to provide dignified life to them.
For all the squawking about the decline of the West that's made over here, one of the most honourable things about living in Western society is the recognition of the dignity of human life no matter the person, and the actions taken in societal and individual levels to ensure that dignity.

100% spot on.