Deal Hudson: Obama and Infanticide?

Catholic online ^ | 7/2/08 | Deal W. Hudson

[Aliska]

No, I didn't mean all of them don't feel pain. I'm positive many do. Plus sometimes those diagnoses are wrong or the baby isn't that disabled. More than one confronted set of parents decided to carry the baby to term anyway, and it was perfectly normal.

I don't know why I stuck pain in there. When talking to the nurse, that word didn't come up. I think it was my friend, haven't seen him for years who blasted me for something I wouldn't do because of conscience, and for some odd reason it shot in my head to retort: "Did you ever cause a girl to have an abortion?" He answered, "I helped pay for one once." Can't remember how the rest of it went, but he said "They don't feel anything." Yes, he probably was talking about earlier terminations, but it doesn't make any difference to me if they feel pain or not or when the pain sensing mechanism kicks in.

It was his child and would have been his parents' only grandchild. No remorse, happened to be a liberal Jew who said/led prayers every Saturday night (for awhile) at the synagogue. This was years ago.

All right. I'll say it. I got to thinking about my daughter's wedding which she planned and was in super catholic mode but even without that, he was catholic and divorced and didn't get an annulment. He also had a very serious cocaine habit which was hell for us while it lasted. Finally they broke up. I think my daughter was doing drugs, too, but functioned better than he did. He set their apt on fire when she was in rehab so they took off for CA. Out there, he got crazy again, she had to drive up to Oregon on mountainous roads when he tried to commit suicide by jumping in front of a car on a city street. Then one kidney shut down, and it was nip and tuck. Last I heard, years later, he had gone clean. I'm pretty sure my daughter got off all drugs, too, but still drinks too much beer, didn't think you could die of alcoholism on beer. I think you can in the quantities she sometimes drinks but could be wrong.

A few days before the wedding, the words of the ceremony kept going through my head, "If anyone objects . . .let them speak now or forever hold their peace." I don't think they read those words any more, but I would have sat there objecting even though it was a Methodist minister and he didn't care about the divorce (or the other or didn't know).

So I decided in good conscience I shouldn't go, and it was hard because people judged me for it, others may just have wondered a little. Wasn't the first time I couldn't do something (that was because I was totally emotionally exhausted and couldn't make another trip, anywhere) normally people do, and got criticized for that, too.

[lymelady]

You’re right there, the tests aren’t always right, it doesn’t really matter even if they’re wrong because that’s still a human child, and it doesn’t matter if the baby feels pain or not because again that is still a human child and killing that baby is wrong regardless of how much pain can be felt.

I would’ve made the same choice. I would not want my child to go down a destructive road, and I would not want to seem like I was condoning it. It would be too hard to watch, too. She’s in my prayers.

[Aliska]

I agree with you about their being human. People used to accept their misfortunates and just learn to cope with it before we came up with all these tests and have to have a perfect baby. There ain't no such thing.

When I think over my positions and stances, I consider what if it were me, and I had a very disabled child? So it's not that I don't emphasize with what some people go through. But I had healthy children, the usual childhood stuff, a few bad times, it's life, and if I had a child that was so bad off I couldn't cope with it, I might institutionalize it, but now we know what happens to some of those poor, defenseless children. There is a lot of help out there for people with disabled children. Sometimes they even seem to get more preferential treatment in some ways than normal children, if they manage to be born. Only if they live. The social agencies, schools and services move heaven and earth for these children. Some they mainstream when they shouldn't imo. Many turn out to be great blessings to their families.

Thank you for your prayers for my daughter and in support of my decision. I think I would do it all over again except if it were just the divorce issue, most people think I am too picky about that, and indeed, maybe I am. I tried to raise them right with good values and morals, but I guess my mind was on my generation, and I was simply unprepared to cope with some of the things that I was confronted with in their generation. I was a single, divorced mom, never had a live-in boyfriend, never married again. But there comes a time when you cannot control the choices your children make.

My daughter has some some new devices inserted into her fallopian tubes (I wonder how safe they are over the long haul). She should NOT have any more children. My advice was to quit screwing around. But she decided to do it. I told her there was enough catholic left in me that I couldn't help her in her decision, even though I know she should not have any more children. With this last one, she at first wanted an abortion, couldn't be an enabler for that either, knowing full well then the problems that lay ahead. Trying to do the right thing is very hard sometimes, and I am by no means any saint. Funny, it was their father with the drinking problem, I drank socially but wanted to set an example, so don't drink at all for years and years now. A lot of good it did. All three of my kids have had serious drinking problems, each one different. I had to get to the point where I quit blaming myself. That one daughter, my son and I went down and got her committed once. Then I didn't want her to feel I betrayed so I told her and asked her if she was going to wait for the police to come pick her up or would she get in the car and I take her there. She got in the car.

A lot of good it did. She went for a hearing a week or so later, her friends all showed up, I was there all by myself, was so nervous didn't present my case very well, and the liberal judge let her go, problem (a serious health issue that need immediate attention as well, bad pap smear) unresolved. How those girls cheered and laughed at me. Then she took off for CA again. But eventually the chickens come home to roost. Then I have to watch that.

That's enough. I talk too much.