Being a parent to a child with a disability was never part of my plan. It was certainly not something I would have chosen—not at the time, anyway. Regardless, carrying my son in my body did not give me the right to take his life because he didn’t fit into the preconceived notions I had about what I wanted out of a child. Having a disability does not mean that someone has less value than an able-bodied person.

I don’t have the right to kill someone because he or she has a birth defect or a disability, not at any point in his or her life. The fact that so many people feel otherwise—that they think people like my son should be sentenced to death before they’re even born, simply because they’re different or disabled—is utterly heart-wrenching.

When parents get a prenatal diagnosis of Down Syndrome or another disability, they’re often given the worst-case scenario, even if that isn’t the current medical reality. This is especially common with Down Syndrome, with research showing that only 11 percent of women who receive a prenatal diagnosis say the experience was a positive one.

In an anonymous survey, only 63 percent of doctors said they tried to be unbiased about the diagnosis, while 13 percent admitted to emphasizing the negative aspects of Down Syndrome to push the mother towards abortion. It’s no wonder that the majority of women receiving a prenatal diagnosis choose to have an abortion when their doctors are so completely and utterly failing them.