By Australian Story producer Kirstin Murray.
All parents want to see their children marry happily and start a family. But when the couple has Down syndrome, the situation is profoundly complex.
Michael Cox and Taylor Anderton have been dating for almost two years and engaged for one.
The Queensland couple burst into the national spotlight in May when an ABC news video about their romance was viewed online more than 13 million times.
Michael and Taylor’s parents have recognised the pair are happy together, but said they cannot support their dream of starting a family.
“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, told Australian Story.
The parents have raised their children to believe they can achieve their dreams, but now they worry they have fostered unrealistic expectations.
“I don’t see parenthood being something that they’re going to achieve, or really they probably should achieve,” Michael’s father Simon Cox said.
“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.”
Michael and Taylor have agreed to delay their wedding, but remain determined to eventually have children.
“We want to have four kids,” Michael said.
“We’re going to have three daughters and one son.
‘Their bodies, their choice’
Disability advocates said the decision on parenthood should rest with the couple.
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.
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.
Feeling out of their depth, Michael and Taylor’s families sought professional guidance on how to manage their fears and the couple’s expectations.
“How can I stop it?” Ms Musk said.
“Do I go talk to a specialist, do I talk to a GP and see what the options are? I don’t know — I don’t know what our rights are and what her rights are.”
Ms Flynn said the parents could attempt to secure an order for sterilisation.
“It is really something completely abhorrent to most of us,” she said.
“I would say that they would have no chance of winning that because it’s quite likely that Michael and Taylor would be proven to have capacity.”
Top Comments
Hard to see how they can be denied a child - even two, but if they are set on four, that is worrying. I'd be concerned as a grandparent. Social care is - rightly - for those already in need and is overstretched: responsible adults would understand that and plan their family accordingly, meaning that many would decide not to have children.
Whilst they might be capable of looking after a baby, i would worry how they would cope as the child gets older and their needs become much more complex.