Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) yesterday apologized for comparing the potential Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC)-Intel joint venture to marrying someone “from a family with inherited ‘Mongol syndrome.’”
“You’re going to marry a woman, but you know that Mongol syndrome runs in her family. Will you marry her?” Kuo said of TSMC and Intel’s joint venture during a radio broadcast interview on Friday.
“That takes great determination. Not that Mongol syndrome is a bad thing, but it’ll pose a long-term risk to your descendants and cause them distress,” he said.
Photo: Taipei Times
Kuo’s remarks provoked an outcry from disability groups.
The term “Mongol syndrome” (along with related terms like “Mongolism” or “Mongolian idiocy”) was discontinued by the WHO in 1965 because it was deemed scientifically inaccurate, racially misleading and offensive, particularly following a formal request from the Mongolian government.
The WHO officially replaced it with “Down syndrome” named after John Langdon Down, a British physician who was the first to accurately describe the distinctive features of the condition in the 1860s.
Sun Yi-hsin (孫一信), deputy secretary-general of the Parents’ Association for Persons with Intellectual Disability, said that Kuo’s remarks were “profoundly discriminatory.”
Comparing a risky joint venture to marriages involving families with inherited Down syndrome “seriously undermines the marital rights of people with Down syndrome, as well as their siblings and relatives,” he said, citing the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
The French physician Jerome Lejeune in 1959 discovered that Down syndrome is caused by a chromosomal abnormality, but the root causes remain to be understood, so no family can be excluded from the possibility of having a child with Down syndrome, Sun said.
“We know that each child in the world is unique, and we never give up on any opportunity for our children to thrive,” he said.
Down Syndrome Foundation chairman Lin Cheng-hsia (林正俠) wrote on Facebook that it is heart-wrenching to know that children with Down syndrome are being referred to as having “Mongol syndrome,” especially so close to World Down Syndrome Day on March 21.
“While society is becoming more inclusive and accepting of people with Down syndrome, the head of the Ministry of Economic Affairs compared marrying someone from a family with Down syndrome to a risky joint venture. This is outrageous and we strongly express our protest,” he said.
Kuo in a statement yesterday apologized for his remarks.
“My understanding of Down syndrome was outdated, but my remarks are wrong whether I made it in the past or the present,” he said.
“For the distress caused to people with Down syndrome, people who are offended and the companies due to my inappropriate, incorrect analogy, I sincerely apologize,” Kuo said, adding that he would reflect upon himself and be more careful with his words.
Additional reporting by CNA
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