Born 'untouchable', she now touches lives

AS A woman born with brittle bones, I regret the misconceptions concerning people with special needs ("Very premature babies face serious risks" by Dr Yik Keng Yeong; Tuesday).

When I was born, I was "untouchable" because my bones would break at every touch. I could very well have been labelled a "grossly handicapped child" facing long-term severe disability and dependence.

My life could have been terminated if my parents had received such a prognosis. But because medical technology was not so advanced in the 1970s, I had a chance at life.

Through parental support, medical treatment and personal determination to excel, I am now an educator with the ability to impact lives.

I would like to lend my voice to the voiceless - the many unborn babies deemed to have no right to live and no future simply because they have medical defects - at a time when medical advances can be used to maximise their potential rather than strike them off from human society.

The selective abortion of unborn children with medical defects is an indication of how people can fail to recognise the inherent dignity and value of people with special needs.

What about people who have disabilities later in life? Are they no longer valuable as people?

I am greatly heartened by what Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said recently at an event to mark the 50th anniversary of the SPD ("The disabled can contribute to society: PM Lee"; Nov 28).

He said: "Our society should value every person, no matter who he is, what he was born with or without, because every person matters to us. These are the basic principles that should guide us as we build a fair and just society."

To gain a better understanding of how people with special needs and their families live their lives with passion and meaning, I encourage everyone to talk to them or, better still, volunteer with the SPD or any similar organisation.

"Very premature babies face serious risks" by Dr Yik Keng Yeong

IT IS hard to disagree that advances in paediatric neonatology have allowed the survival of very premature babies ("Flawed rationale for 24-week rule on abortions" by Mr Darius Lee, Dec 22; and "Concept of foetal viability too subjective" by Mr Edmund Leong Meng Tsi, last Thursday).  

Life indeed is sacrosanct, but a reasonable discourse on what constitutes life and the viability and survivability of in-utero products of conception at different stages of development must include long-term morbidity studies of very premature babies.  

Let's take babies born prematurely at 23 weeks - one week before the current bone of contention for legal abortions in Singapore.  

Even with months of intense paediatric care in the best hospitals, about half will perish. Those who survive face very high risk of physical handicaps including cerebral palsy.  

If they survive the first two years, there is also cumulative morbidity as they become young adults with increased learning disabilities, poor motor skills and attention deficit syndromes.  

It is sad handling infertile couples, but nobody I know prefers having a grossly handicapped child to being childless.  

Doctors cannot determine what an in-utero being wants - to be born with all risks attached or to be unborn, this being an unscientific question to be answered only by moralists.  

Yet, from all the official Advance Medical Directives that have been signed and the unofficial opinions gathered from patients, it seems that for those who can choose, death is preferable to long-term severe disability and dependence.