'I Am a Man with Down Syndrome and My Life Is Worth Living' [theatlantic.com]

Alicia Doktor 10/31/174:00 AM

Last week, the actor, Special Olympian, and advocate Frank Stephens gave this testimony to Congress: “I am a man with Down syndrome and my life is worth living.”

In fact, he went farther: “I have a great life!”

For those conceived with his developmental disability, it is the best and worst of times. “The life expectancy for someone born with Down syndrome has increased from twenty-five in the early 1980s to more than fifty today,” Caitrin Keiper writes in The New Atlantis. “In many other ways as well, a child born with Down syndrome today has brighter prospects than at any other point in history. Early intervention therapies, more inclusive educational support, legal protections in the workplace, and programs for assisted independent living offer a full, active future in the community.

[For more on this story by CONOR FRIEDERSDORF , go to https://www.theatlantic.com/po...worth-living/544325/]

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