Posted on 04/19/2011 11:01:51 AM PDT by wagglebee
There is an ugly statistic made well known by none other than The New York Times from a 2007 article; 90 percent of all pregnancies where the unborn child is given a diagnosis of Down Syndrome end in abortion.
Can you wrap your head around that? 9 in 10; 90 in 100 – that is a lot of life snuffed out because of the possibility of one pesky extra chromosome.
Have you ever met a child with Down Syndrome or with other special needs? I have met plenty of them. If fact, one of my own children has special needs. We say she may be delayed at most things, but she’s very advanced at loving.
I’m not going to paint a rosy picture and say it’s all sunshine and smiles being the parent of a child with special needs. There are extra trials and days you wonder if you’ll be able to keep your head while you heart feels like it’s breaking. My husband and I explain it to our other young children that their sister needs extra help, more help than most kids her age. Sometimes it’s not easy being a sibling of a child with special needs. But none of us could ever imagine our life without her, without her smile, her laughter, her hugs and (extra wet) kisses.
That’s why that statistic causes me to shudder. How many beautiful children meant for this world have been killed because some test didn’t come back perfect? How many smiles and hugs has the world lost because this little life wasn’t given the chance to take a breath and change minds, hearts and lives? Here’s a newsflash: none of us is perfect; some of us just have more visible crosses than others.
“We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution. Each of us is willed, each of us is loved, each of us is necessary.” Pope Benedict XVI said this a few years ago, and I have since had conversations with other parents who have children with special needs about the last part: necessary. These kids who have extra struggles, extra pain, need extra help, are necessary. Many a lesson can be learned from them: selflessness, humility, sacrifice, joy, triumph.
The extra struggles lead to greater triumphs. The first time she independently got that morsel of food to her mouth or was able to sit up for a few minutes without assistance, joy welled up inside of me far exceeding that of my other kids reaching appropriate developmental milestones. Parents are not the only ones who feel this way. Siblings share in the extra joy too mushrooming into an exponential effect for the whole family.
Daily, my daughter teaches me these things and more. In fact, for the time being, I’ll be taking a break from this column and a professional break from the front lines in the fight to build a culture of Life so her lessons sink in more deeply. I thought I needed to go out into the world to help build a culture of Life, but lo and behold a daily building will occur in menial tasks with the potential for monumental triumphs. Families with children who need extra help do this every day and are a testament to the world that each life matters, including, and perhaps especially, the special ones.
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What problem? I made a post to you, to which you have not yet responded, except by misquoting me. Feel free to respond to my actual post.
You’re talking about things you don’t know anything about. Things are considerably more civilized than they were when you were a child. Today there are numerous group homes and schools that are perfectly good places. Children with Down Syndrome can be taught to be fairly productive members of society. My brother’s school is Cstholic and extremely affordable for it’s students. My parents have 6 children living at home right now; they aren’t rich but they don’t have to bankrupt themselves or deprive the other kids to see to my brother’s needs
My neighbors have taken their middle aged sister with Down Syndrome in. She goes to work every day, walks her dog around the neighborhood and fits in. I am sure her family had to work extra hard when she was young to see that she wasn’t institutionalized. Today it’s not nearly so hard. And if people like you would stop claiming that a disabled child was going to destroy the lives and future of it’s family, maybe we wouldn’t murder them
See, life isn’t fair. Sometimes It sucks. But that doesn’t mean we get to kill people who are making it hard on us.
State the misquote.
I already did.
Oh, is that right?
Her family?
Where were you?
Uh, don't think so.
It is of course dependent upon each individual person but many of the people my brothers worked with were able to function in group center homes.
Quite a few were able to hold down a job. If I recall, my brother said they had a very low absentee rate.
I do think I understand where you are coming from. It is not easy.
A dear friend of the family who was in her late 70's and had a Down's Syndrom child in her 50's told me once,that she went to her priest to confess, that she prayed that the Lord would take her child before she herself died, because she feared for who would care for her child when she died.
It is a silent, true, and extremely inspiring testimony.
**90% of Down Syndrome Children Aborted, Survivors Bring Joy
**
These murdered children are in heaven with God.
I am so thankful for my Down Syndrome grandson. He is such a joy!
I guess one revelation said that the person who could cure AIDS was aborted. And a second person who could have cured AIDS was also aborted.
Just think — two doctors/scientists/ Whoever they might have been.
Upon moving to Georgia, I was startled to see so many more Downs kids. Says a lot about the culture vs. NY.
Check this out.
God bless your family ~
I have a four year old with Optic Nerve Hypoplasia....the fancy name they’ve given under-developed optic nerves.
He also has a slew of other vision issues ( nystagmus, esotropia, afferant pupuliary defect, and the list goes on ).
He was diagnosed with a cataract at 6 months old, surgery to remove right before 7 months old and we did the contact lens thing for awhile and at 3 years, 1 week old, he had the lens implant surgery.
His left eye is a bit smaller than the right... nerve on right is just slightly ONH but no one notices his eyes unless they talk to him and he has to turn his head to the right and look out the left side of his eyes as that is where his nystagmus ( latin for dancing eyes ) is the least wiggly and that is how he has to look at you.
We’ll be going in 2 days to have an eye movement recording done again to get a better reading to prepare for the eye muscle surgery.
Sorry I got long winded but wanted to say God bless you and yours.
Oh my, Your poor little guy. Thank you so much for sharing. No matter what your problem, there is always someone with worse. Give your little one a hug for me. I hope all goes well with your next procedures.
Believe me, I saw the fear in my father's eyes when he neared death. I have zero tolerance for happy talk about blessings and joy when it comes to Down's Syndrome.
Great picture.
There was a very similar one with Coach Stallings and John, hand-in-hand in the end zone, at old Busch Stadium in St. Louis.
Thanks.
Thank you ~ He gets hugged many times a day ~
Just think — two doctors/scientists/ Whoever they might have been.
In the past century more than ONE BILLION children have been murdered. To put this in perspective, the total population of the world in 1900 was about 1.65 billion.
A genius is considered to be someone with an IQ in the top 2%: that means we've murdered 20 MILLION of these.
When you consider the number of "universal geniuses" who lived when the population of the world was much smaller, men like Da Vinci, Newton, Mozart, Goethe, Franklin, Aquinas, etc., it is almost a certainty that we've murdered at least one person who was as gifted as anyone who has ever lived.
As unfortunate as it is to consider, it's entirely probable that the person or persons who could have cured AIDS, cancer, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and a whole host of other diseases were murdered in utero.
The often breathtakingly articulate writings of the Holy Fathers, must be divinely inspired.
Thanks.
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Agreed!
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