Australian 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 featured on an Australian news program and has sparked heated discussion. The couple 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, told the show, Australian Story.
Michael’s father Simon Cox added: “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, expressed 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.”
Medical geneticist Michael Gattas told Mamamia that if a couple with Down syndrome were to fall pregnant, they would have about a 50-50 chance of having a child with Down syndrome.
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