Character is revealed in crisis, and Governor Sarah Palin had a crisis that challenged her basic values when she learned that the child she was carrying – her fifth – would have Down Syndrome.
What would this pro-life wife and mother do?
For Sarah Palin, there really was no question: she would love her child.
Women who argue that men have no right to talk about abortion (as though ideas and morality have male or female genitalia), who argue that a child with Down Syndrome is the “poster child” for termination, are stymied in the face of this courageous woman.
Tim Graham wrote a magnificent article on the story, saying in part:
Immediately the family made this announcement: “Trig is beautiful and already adored by us. We knew through early testing he would face special challenges, and we feel privileged that God would entrust us with this gift and allow us unspeakable joy as he entered our lives.”
Trig Palin has Down syndrome. Early prenatal testing alerted the Palins to this chromosomal abnormality, as it is alerting more and more families in the early stages of pregnancy.
Unfortunately, because of early screening, more children with Down syndrome are aborted and fewer and fewer are being born.
Children with Down syndrome do bring “unspeakable joy” into this world. I know the laughter and blessings my 5-year-old nephew, Ethan, with Down syndrome, has brought to our family. But how do you explain this joy to a perfection-at-any-price world?
Sarah Palin didn’t want perfection; she wanted her child. And, with a true mother’s heart, she loved her child no matter what, and – with her husband – was willing to fight for her baby.
And she chose to rejoice in her newborn baby even though he wasn’t “perfect.” Who is?
The Nazis had a phrase that they used to justify the killing of all kinds of unwanted human beings – lebensunwertes leben – “life unworthy to be lived.” Sarah Palin proved with in the most powerful way imaginable that she believes all innocent human life is worthy to be lived.
The liberal’s response? That makes her a terrible, narrow-minded person.
She’s everything Barack Obama despises: she’s clinging to her guns and her religion, and add to that a baby that Obama would have gladly left out to die.
But the reaction to Sarah Palin is already revealing who really has “antipathy to people who aren’t like them.”
Tags: abortion, antipathy, choice, cling to guns, Down Syndrome, pro-life, religion, Sarah Palin, Trig Palin, woman, women
Start Thinking Right 
August 30, 2008 at 11:09 am
Palin proves in deeds his love: being a proud mother of five children, and a son with Down syndrome, is a good sign.
Santiago, Granada (Spain)
http://opinionciudadano.blogspot.com/
August 30, 2008 at 12:48 pm
If she’d never had a choice to complete the pregnancy, she wouldn’t be a hero at all.
August 30, 2008 at 3:21 pm
I said something like this on americansentinel. I’ll say it again.
Killing your own child isn’t heroic. It is evil, it is despicable, and it is pathetic.
Heroism is standing for innocent life even when it’s hard.
Sarah Palin is a hero.
When slavery was the issue, Democrats believed in being ‘pro-choice.’ They thought people should have the right to decide for themselves. Abraham Lincoln responded, “You cannot have a right to do wrong.” If slavery is wrong, people shouldn’t be allowed to do it. It was. And so is killing innocent babies, who are every bit as human as those black slaves (or anyone else).
August 31, 2008 at 3:33 pm
Whereas previously, a Down’s child could be born without the prior knowledge of the mother, going forward, a parent with a Down’s child will likely have made a conscious choice to have that child. As prenatal testing for trisomy 21 becomes ubiquitous, Down’s children (and eventually those with other genetic disorders) will increasingly become symbols of faith – a freak show meant to communicate the “family values” of their parents. The children will become public sacrifices made by their parents for their faith. They will be a symbol of religious reverence in the same way as the scarred backs of Catholics who flagellate themselves, or Buddhist monks who set themselves on fire, or Sunni Muslims who mutilate their girl’s genitals or Shiites who bloody their children’s heads with swords.
Genuine moral virtues – such as integrity, honesty, and productivity are not useful as evidence of religious virtue. To the extent that their practical benefit is visible to everyone, they do not represent the special domain of religion. To demonstrate religious virtue, it is necessary to sacrifice authentic moral values in favor of “religious” values. The particular object of the sacrifice is not important – there is nothing particularly “biblical” about being prolife (the Christian bible just as easily supports the opposite position.) If Christian fundamentalists decided that cutting of one’s hand sufficed as proof of moral virtue, they would be wrong to do so, but not much more so than the numerous other ways that people find to be self-destructive.
What is really vicious about fundamentalists in America is that the prey on the most vulnerable –poor pregnant young girls and women, those dying from painful terminal illnesses, the loved ones of brain-dead patients, — and children afflicted with terrible genetic illnesses. One can at least grasp the moral indifference with which a fundamentalist can force a single young mother to abandon her goals and dreams and condemn her and her child to poverty. But what can we say about a parent that chooses a life of suffering upon their child? If we are morally outraged by child rapists, how should we judge a parent who chooses a lifetime of suffering on their own child?
August 31, 2008 at 5:51 pm
You can correct me if I’m wrong, but I see “heroic life” and I immediately think of Friedrich Nietzsche, the frankly pathetic little homosexual who died insane from syphilis. I read your post as coming from that “heroic tradition.”
You have a hateful attitude against both religion and morality, and it shows.
Every human being born with ANY genetic imperfection – and their parents, and their families – acknowledges that it is YOU who are “the freak.” And I will let readers decide for themselves if the type of person who would be so evil toward handicapped people has any understanding of morality at all. I know I don’t. The ugliness you express in that first paragraph pretty much means I’m not going to let you back.
There are passages in the Bible that abortionists like to use to claim that the Bible supports the pro-choice position.
Here’ s a big one: Numbers 5:11-31.
You read it, and it’s pretty harsh. But it doesn’t support the pro-choice position.
First of all, it is NOT the woman who comes seeking the “bitter water.” It is the husband. So if anything, the passage supports a HUSBAND’S right to have an abortion, and not a woman’s, even by an abortionist reading.
Second, it is God who brings upon the woman a condition that makes her” thigh waste away and her abdomen swell,” not the woman, and not even the husband or wife. In this sense, the passage does not support even the husband’s “choice.” It is the Lord’s choice alone.
Third, there is nothing in the passage that in any way indicates that any child is not fully human. If “execution by God” makes one a non-person, then everyone who died by the flood (including babies and small children) would therefore not be considered persons. God similarly sent the Israelites into the Promised Land to be instruments of divine judgment. God had said to Abraham, “the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet complete.” When they were so wicked that they forfeited their right to even life, God judged them. It didn’t make them “non-persons.”
Finally, the term “miscarriage” that abortion web sites cites is not there. The Jerusalem Bible gives it, and it is an alternative reading in the NIV; NO OTHER modern translation uses “miscarriage.” It’s not a valid reading. The natural reading of this passage is that if a husband suspected his wife of infidelity – NOT pregnancy – he would bring her to the priests. And if she had in fact committed adultery, the Lord would cause her sexual organs to become useless. Since a vast majority of adulterous unions don’t result in pregnancy, a test for adultery that caused an abortion would not be much of a test. For example, what if the wife committed adultery but wasn’t pregnant? What if she was pregnant, but her husband was the father?
One last thing: this passage took place during the theocracy, when God personally led His people through His servant Moses. It was never called upon to be used again. Like many Old Testament passages, this one applies to one specific people at one specific time – and no other time. Christians and Jews understand this, or we would be doing everything just like the OT says. And we don’t. The abortionist interpretation also assumes there IS no God, and therefore assumes what it actually wants to prove.
I provide this passage and interact with it to show that I’m not afraid of “Heroiclife’s” “proofs.” Rather, I am sickened by his worldview and don’t feel any reason to give such despicable ideas a forum on my blog.
That’s pretty much the best abortionists have, and it doesn’t produce the abortion-on-demand that they want. Far from it. On the other hand, there are myriad passages that demonstrate the full personhood of the unborn, and both Jewish and Christian historic positions on abortion prove that the Church was never confused by “the opposite position.” They never had one until the REAL freaks like “heroiclife” came along.
The original Hippocratic Oath (written some 400 years before Christ) had this to say about abortion:
“I will prescribe regimens for the good of my patients according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone. To please no one will I prescribe a deadly drug nor give advice which may cause his death.
Nor will I give a woman a pessary to procure abortion. But I will preserve the purity of my life and my arts.”
So this idea that it was “vicious fundamentalists” who came up with this doctrine is as idiotic as it is evil.