Queensland couple Michael Cox and Taylor Anderton have been dating for almost two years and engaged for one.Now they want to get married and have children but both sets of parents are not supporting all of this dream.
The complex issue features on tonight’s Australian Story on the ABC. You may recall the couple – they burst on to the world stage in May when an ABC news video about their romance was viewed more than 13 million times.
Now they are in the spotlight again.
“Taylor and Michael want to get married and have children and that makes me feel very worried, apprehensive and concerned,” Taylor’s mother, Catherine Musk, tells Australian Story.
Michael’s father Simon Cox adds: “I don’t see parenthood being something that they’re going to achieve, or really they probably should achieve. It would be very difficult being a child whose parents both had Down syndrome and couldn’t have a job and couldn’t drive a car and couldn’t understand maths homework and those sorts of things.”
The young couple, however, express a determination to have children eventually. “We want to have four kids,” says Michael. “We’re going to have three daughters and one son.
“I know that their (the parents’)heart is in the right place, but being over-protective is strictly not on with your child, even if they have a disability or not.
“I know that me and Taylor have the skills to be married and to start our own family.”
It’s a complex question: what do you think?
People with disabilities will also weigh into tonight’s discussion.
Queensland Advocacy Incorporated director Michelle O’Flynn said people with disabilities were entitled to “bodily integrity”.
“People … like Michael and Taylor are certainly entitled to the freedom to do with their bodies as they wish and that includes reproduction,” she said.
“They have the same rights as everybody else. The fact that they have a disability doesn’t diminish that.”
Ms O’Flynn said rather than stand in the couple’s way, it would be better to direct energy and resources into helping them fulfil their goal.
“We don’t ask other parents in the community: ‘are you good enough to raise your child?’, and this shouldn’t be prejudging how a person with an intellectual impairment parents their children,” she said.
Genetic Health Queensland director Julie McGaughran said if both parents had Down syndrome, there was a “high chance” in each pregnancy that a child will have Down syndrome.
Michael and Taylor said they were confident they would make great parents.
But their parents said they worried about the responsibility that would fall on them if Taylor and Michael did start a family.
“The advocates will tell us that we should just allow Michael and Taylor to have the same rights as their siblings and we just don’t agree,” Mr Cox said.
“They’re not the ones picking up the pieces.”
Watch “Tough Love” on Australian Story at 8pm tonight on ABC TV.
