On November 18th, 1916, in the weekly Spanish magazine “La Novela Corta: Revista Semanal Literaria”, in its 46th volume, Emilia, Countess of Pardo Bazán, wrote a short novel. Said novel was titled “La Última Fada: Novela Inédita” (Condesa De Pardo Bazán, 1916).

The short novel the countess wrote is a retelling of the 15th century French Arthurian text “Ysaïe le Triste”. In the text, Vivian and other fairies discuss what they’re going to do with the son of Tristan and Isolde the Fair, who has been abandoned to die in the woods by Isolde of the White Hands. Vivian reaches a consensus with her peers that they’ll adopt the baby as their godson and take care of him from afar. When Ysaïe (Isayo in the Spanish text) grows to manhood, they determine that he shall be called the Knight of the Faeries. The rest of the novel recounts the childhood and the adventures of Ysaïe with Tronc (who is none other than Vivian in disguise) (Pardo Bazán, 1916).

The text can be found here in its original published form → [LINK]

And it can also be found here in its transcribed form in the Cervantes Virtual Library → [LINK]

References

Condesa De Pardo Bazán, E. (1916). La Última Fada: Novela Inédita. La Novela Corta: Revista Semanal Literaria, 1(46), 3–34. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=cub.u183019778220&seq=755

I got these back to back on my facebook feed. Now, I haven't read the Atlantic article, and also it was written in 2020 and not as a response to this couple, but clearly the Atlantic is reposting it with an incendiary pull line to capitalize on this couple's story.

And the pull line is ridiculous on its own, regardless of what context I'm missing from the article. Down syndrome is not an inherited trait like red hair or brown eyes. It's chromosomal abnormality. Talking about it like there's some kind of movement trying to "wipe out" a group of people is so intellectually dishonest. Down syndrome is not an ethnic group, and one woman aborting is not a call to murder all living people with Down syndrome.

So, in Western countries people with Down syndrome have the best resources available than ever before, but it's the also the "worst time" because many people are simply not being born? Huh? They're just not being born, not experience worse things than before. People are trying to "eliminate" Down syndrome because of the individual choice to abort, but not, uh, the collective choice to give those who are born with it the best possible life they can? Life expectancy going up does not change the face that you might have to bury your child before they're 40 or 30 or 20. School is not necessarily affordable, and school existing does not mean your child will be capable of it. A child in and out of the hospital getting heart stints is not the preferable way to live for a child or a parent. Can both choices not be from a place of love?

This argument makes no sense unless every Down syndrome child must be born. And so then why shouldn't every child be born? There's just no way around it, if you argue this way, you must ultimately think there is no reason "good enough" for abortion.

This emphatic function is quite the same as the one in ancient theatre, whose resources, language and its accessories (masks and cothurns), concurred in the exaggeratedly visible explanation of a Necessity. The gesture of the vanquished wrestler signifying to the world a defeat which, far from concealing, he accentuates and holds like a pedal point, corresponds to the mask in antiquity intended to signify the tragic tone of the spectacle. In wrestling, as on the stage in antiquity, one is not ashamed of one’s suffering, one knows how to cry, one has a taste for tears.”