It’s one of the fundamental human rights that our founding fathers here in the US formally recognized in our Declaration of Independence. And, yet, so many human beings here and throughout the world are judged by someone else’s standard of happiness and snuffed out (denied their other most basic human right to life) and never given the chance to pursue … Read More
Your Handicapped Child is a Blessing
I wish more families who have children diagnosed with Down syndrome and other diseases before birth would get advice like this instead of pressure to abort: In a related video, St. Josemaria talks about true “liberation” from suffering and the value of the prayers of sick people – the apostolate of suffering. On our retreat last week, the priest said … Read More
Prenatal Genetic Testing is Not the Problem, Abortion Is
Rebecca Taylor is a voice of sanity on the whole issue of genetic testing (she is responding to this LifeNews piece from Kristen Hawkins): I have the utmost respect for Ms. Hawkins and I feel her anger and frustration. Having tested pregnant mothers and their partners for cystic fibrosis mutations, I am fully aware of how this information is being … Read More
The Baby Who Didn’t Make It
In a column for Salon.com, Helena Holgersson-Shorter writes about The baby who didn’t make it: By the time we were finally ushered into the ultrasound room my husband and I were engaged in a sotto voce round of bickering — can’t believe you messed up the time/stop ruining this for me — only to be struck silent by the magical … Read More
Music for Your Monday: Grace is Dancing
“Grace is Dancing” is a very moving song by Tyrone Wells about a little girl with Down syndrome. In the video below, Tyrone tells the story of Grace’s birth and how she survived against all odds (h/t Rebecca Taylor): What a lovely testament to the life of this young girl and, yet, how sad, too, to know that the overwhelming … Read More
IVF: “The Younger Sister of Eugenics”
Some bishops in Poland aren’t afraid to tell it like it is: (Reuters) – Bishops of Poland’s influential Roman Catholic Church have branded in vitro fertilization (IVF) “the younger sister of eugenics” in a letter aimed at swaying lawmakers ahead of a parliamentary debate. But their intervention, two weeks after the church condemned the awarding of the 2010 Nobel Prize … Read More
Santorum: Daughter w/ Trisomy 18 “Worth Every Tear”
Former PA Sen. Rick Santorum has a moving piece int he Philadelphia Enquirer honoring the second birthday of his daughter Bella: ‘Incompatible with life.” The doctor’s words kept echoing in my head as I held my sobbing wife, Karen, just four days after the birth of our eighth child, Isabella Maria. Bella was born with three No. 18 chromosomes, rather … Read More
Love Makes Suffering Bearable
The other day a good friend drew my attention to an obituary that ran in our local paper recently. It comes from the family of a young girl who died just 42 minutes after she was born: Hailey Marie Glavin GLAVIN Hailey Marie Glavin was born Friday, June 12, 2009, at St. Mary’s Health Center in Jefferson City. Hailey spent … Read More
Good Science Can Be Used for Very Bad Things
The good news: scientists have found a genetic variant that may be associated with autism. The bad news: good science can be used for very bad things, as Ari Ne’e-man, who has Asperger Syndrome, explains in this Newsweek interview (h/t Mary Meets Dolly): But the new genetic advances concern Ne’eman…His ultimate fear is this: a prenatal test for autism, leading … Read More
Choice and Disability
As a disabled person myself I can totally relate to much of what is said in this article from The F-Word: Contemporary UK Feminism: Who has the privilege of deciding what constitutes a “serious handicap”? Not disabled people, that’s for sure. It’s no wonder that our voices are excluded from the abortion debate when the right to define disability is … Read More