There have been a lot of "narratives" going on this political season. Telling a story can be a an extremely effective way to make a point. Why else would we have fables, parables, and cautionary tales (stay away from the big bad wolf)?

People just usually find stories more interesting and compelling than, say, analysis of issues or statements of policy.

Part of the power of a story is that it can communicate far more than the details of the surface narrative. If well told, it conveys a whole range of underlying assumptions that are passed on to the listener without ever being specifically named. And in fact, these unspoken assumptions can be the most potent elements in the story's effectiveness.

One story this season ascribes a unique, almost heroic virtue to a woman's decision to raise a child with Down Syndrome. Aside from the fact that this decision is very far from unique (many families have done the same), I have some problems with the unspoken assumptions being communicated in the way that this particular story is being told.

The first assumption is that having a child with Down Syndrome is "a bad thing". (If it weren't a bad thing, there would be no special virtue in "choosing" to raise that child.) I find this assumption disturbing. I don't see children with Down Syndrome as "bad things." Once upon a time they were, indeed, treated as special difficulties, even somehow shameful to the family. But I had thought, perhaps naively, that we were long past that point.

A second assumption in the way this particular narrative has been told is that only a women who opposes legalized abortion would make such a choice. The implication (and I sincerely believe that this is the actual intention behind the telling of the story), the implication is that upon discovering that she was carrying a Down Syndrome child, any woman who does not fight to overturn Roe v Wade would immediately run to have an abortion. I find this deeply, personally offensive. This woman (or more likely her political handlers) is implying that if I knew I was carrying a child with a disability, I would terminate that pregnancy. How dare she? How dare she say such a thing about me?