Shortland Street - Billy McCaskill's birth

Television (Excerpts) – 2018

Look Billy's gonna grow up happy and strong, okay? And he, she, they are truly gonna believe that you are the greatest dad in the history of the entire universe.
– Boyd (Sam Bunkall) reassures Drew (Ben Barrington)

Oh for goodness sake! It only takes a second to say — boy or girl?
– Leanne (Jennifer Ludlam) asks what newborn Billy's gender is

She didn't even know I was there. I mean, what if my baby grows up disabled like that — locked inside itself, suffering in silence.
– Zoe (Holly Shervey) worries about having a baby with Down syndrome, after meeting a woman with a different disability

Harper and Drew welcomed their first child Billy into the world during Wednesday night's episode. It was later revealed that Billy was intersex. According to Intersex Awareness New Zealand, the term intersex is an umbrella term that includes over 30 conditions where the sexual anatomy or the chromosomes are not the standard male or female.
– Article on Shortland Street winning praise for introducing an intersex character, The NZ Herald, 9 August 2018

The New Zealand Down Syndrome Association said it has fielded numerous complaints from upset families and people with Down syndrome, after a storyline of Zoe Carlson discovering she was possibly pregnant with a child with Down syndrome unfolded on the TVNZ show.
– Article on criticism for Shortland Street's Down syndrome storyline, Stuff, 1 August 2018

Billy is so small and so helpless, and the world is so huge and heartless. How do I protect him — her — from whatever cruel crap is going to get chucked our way?
– Drew (Ben Barrington) worries about raising an intersex child