Dagmar Schmidt

Dagmar Schmidt (born 13 March 1973)[1] is a German politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD) who has been serving as a member of the Bundestag, the German parliament, since 2013.

Dagmar Schmidt
Dagmar Schmidt in 2017
Member of the Bundestag
Assumed office
2013
Personal details
Born (1973-03-13) 13 March 1973
Gießen, West Germany
(now Germany)
NationalityGerman
Political partySPD
Children1
Alma materUniversity of Gießen

Education

Schmidt was born in Gießen to politically active parents, who were SPD members.[2] After her Abitur, she studied history at the University of Gießen.[1]

Political career

Schmidt became a SPD member when she was 16.[1] As a Juso member, she acted as an observer in the 1995–96 South African municipal elections.[2] While she was preparing a PhD thesis about the history of the SPD, she was offered a job in the office of Landtag of Hesse member Andrea Ypsilanti. She continued as Ypsilanti's assistant when Ypsilanti became state SPD leader, and later became an assistant to her successor, Thorsten Schäfer-Gümbel.[2] In the 2009 and 2013 federal elections, she was the SPD candidate for the Lahn-Dill electoral district, losing out to the CDU candidate each time.[3] However, in 2013, placed sixth on the SPD party list for Hesse, she was elected to the Bundestag.[4] She also became a member of the SPD executive committee.[5] In 2017, she was re-elected, placed fourth on the SPD list for Hesse.[6] She has since been serving on the Committee on Labor and Social Affairs.[1]

Since 2014, Schmidt has served as the chair of the German-Chinese Parliamentary Friendship Group in the Bundestag.[7] In this capacity, she has met with senior Chinese political advisors like CPPCC vice chair Gao Yunlong.[8] In the SPD Bundestag parliamentary group, she is a leading member of the left-wing group Parlamentarische Linke.[9] Her political positions include support for Kindergrundsicherung, combining and extending existing benefits and subsidies to guarantee a child's right to have a certain minimum standard of living.[10][11]

Personal life

Dagmar Schmidt has a son, who was born in May 2013 with Down syndrome and an associated heart defect, which required several corrective surgeries.[5] The child was not diagnosed until shortly after his birth; Schmidt had declined prenatal testing, stating that knowing about the condition would not change anything.[12] After the German federal election in September 2013, Schmidt became the first single mother of a child with Down syndrome to become a member of the Bundestag.[2] In a speech in a Bundestag debate about prenatal diagnostics she supported a "Willkommenskultur for all children".[13] In relation to prenatal testing, she has also argued for a "right not to know"[14] and has said that parents of children with trisomy 21 should not have to justify the right for their child to be born.[15]

Other activities

References
  1. "Deutscher Bundestag - Dagmar Schmidt". Deutscher Bundestag (in German). Archived from the original on 31 January 2020. Retrieved 31 January 2020.
  2. "Dagmar Schmidt - Die Frau mit dem ersten Down-Baby im Bundestag". Cicero Online (in German). Archived from the original on 31 January 2020. Retrieved 31 January 2020.
  3. "Lahn-Dill: Sibylle Pfeiffer fast mit "absoluter Mehrheit"" (in German). 23 September 2013. Archived from the original on 31 January 2020. Retrieved 31 January 2020.
  4. "Dagmar Schmidt (SPD) gehört Bundestag an" (in German). 25 September 2013. Archived from the original on 31 January 2020. Retrieved 31 January 2020.
  5. "Inklusion - Politik mit dem Downbaby". Cicero Online (in German). Archived from the original on 31 January 2020. Retrieved 31 January 2020.
  6. "Elected candidates by Land lists in Hessen - The Federal Returning Officer". www.bundeswahlleiter.de. Archived from the original on 9 September 2020. Retrieved 31 January 2020.
  7. "Zwischen den Welten". @GI_weltweit (in German). Archived from the original on 31 January 2020. Retrieved 31 January 2020.
  8. "China's senior political advisor visits Germany". Xinhua | English.news.cn. Archived from the original on 1 February 2020. Retrieved 1 February 2020.
  9. "Parlamentarische Linke - Über uns". Parlamentarische Linke (in German). Archived from the original on 13 April 2020. Retrieved 3 February 2020.
  10. "Kindergrundsicherung". Dagmar Schmidt (in German). 11 December 2017. Archived from the original on 3 February 2020. Retrieved 3 February 2020.
  11. "Gleiche Chancen für alle Kinder". Dagmar Schmidt (in German). 11 December 2019. Archived from the original on 3 February 2020. Retrieved 3 February 2020.
  12. Schwinn, Michaela. ""Diese Bluttests sind nicht das Ende, sie sind der Anfang"" (in German). Archived from the original on 31 January 2020. Retrieved 3 February 2020.
  13. "Bundestag debattiert über Downsyndrom-Bluttests – Schäuble dreht SPD-Rednerin das Mikro ab" (in German). Archived from the original on 3 February 2020. Retrieved 3 February 2020.
  14. ""Ich habe es nie bereut"" (in German). Archived from the original on 1 February 2020. Retrieved 1 February 2020.
  15. "German MPs voice concern about prenatal genetic tests". Archived from the original on 1 February 2020. Retrieved 1 February 2020.
  16. Bernd Westphal und Anke Rehlinger koordinieren neu konstituierten Politischen Beirat des SPD-Wirtschaftsforums Business Forum of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, press release of July 1, 2020.
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