Parents make Down’s Syndrome child undergo plastic surgery

11/03/2008 12:08:00 PM. 
The parents of a girl with Down’s Syndrome have caused an uproar by making their daughter undertake cosmetic surgery before the age of five so she could “fit in” with other children.

Britain’s Daily Mail newspaper has reported the girl had “radical” cosmetic surgery three times by the time she was five years old, with critics labelling the parents’ actions tantamount to child abuse. 

But the girl’s mother, Kim Bussey, defended the move to alter the appearance of her daughter Georgia.

“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,” she said. 

“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.” 

However, others have argued such extreme measures aren’t necessary, as the condition should not be something to be ashamed of.

“What these children bring to our lives is something so deep and extraordinary, it is humanity stripped to the bone,” Rosa Monckton, the mother of a 12-year-old daughter with Down’s Syndrome, told the newspaper.

“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.”