A café set to open in November is providing jobs in the hospitality sector to those with learning disabilities. SPUC has welcomed the café as “a perhaps game-changing initiative, pushing back against anti-disabled abortion culture”.

At West London College, at the Fair Shot Café, young people with learning disabilities are learning all about coffee and customer service, eager to have work experience in the hospitality sector – and assert their right to life, adds SPUC.

Around 80% of staff at the Fair Shot Café are said to have learning disabilities.

Currently, only around 6% of adults with learning disabilities are in paid employment in the UK.

Bianca Tavella, the director of Fair Shot Café, said: “We hope to disseminate the message to all employers that hiring someone with a learning disability is taking on all their unique gifts and abilities.”

The hope is that this initiative will extend outside of London.

SPUC comment

A SPUC spokesperson said: “Men and women with disabilities deserve to be in the workplace. With the right support, their unique gifts and talents contribute greatly.

“Unfortunately, society currently demonises disability, undermining the right to life of the disabled and openly advocating that they be aborted.

“This is especially true of attitudes towards Down’s syndrome, which is so often portrayed negatively in the media. The influential evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins recently said that it is “wise and sensible” to abort a baby with Down’s syndrome.

“An essential aspect of combatting abortion culture, then, is to push back against the bigoted and dangerous assumption that people with learning disabilities have no value or right to life.”

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