Monday, January 03, 2011

Rosa's law is a ruse

Fr Raymond J De Souza commented on Rosa's Law on ALL President Judie Brown's blog, which I referred to in this post ;

In October, Barack Obama signed a new law that prohibits the U.S. government from referring to the “mentally retarded” in any of its laws and regulations. The term to be used instead is “intellectual disability.” Given the harshness with which it strikes the ear, the word “retarded” has long since dropped out of common usage, but it still survives in official policies.
The law is called Rosa’s Law, after a nine-year-old Maryland girl with Down’s syndrome. Her official classification at school was “mentally retarded,” which struck her mother as hurtful. The U.S. Congress passed the law in response to Rosa’s case, but also in response to a long campaign by the Special Olympics to end the use of the “R-Word,” as their campaign puts it.

I told you in my post, I had no objection to the term "mentally retarded" as a classification, as I understood its history, but I did bristle at my daughter being called a 'retard' in a pejorative fashion however, I'd rather she be called that horrible name than for this to be the cruel reality in our society;

We insist that harsh words are not used in regard to the mentally disabled, but the most lethal words today in medicine are those that announce Down’s syndrome. It is far better to be diagnosed with terminal cancer as an adult than to be diagnosed with Down’s syndrome as an unborn baby. No cancer has a 90% death rate within a month.
In 1962, there were live children and fake obituaries. In 2010, there are dead children and no obituaries. The late Ms. Shriver did not consider that an improvement. (Neither does this mother of a child with Down syndrome).
If Rosa is like almost all Down’s syndrome children, she is probably preternaturally gifted at showing love and transmitting joy. Those who know such children would be horrified to speak of them in anything but the gentlest language.
If, that is, they get a chance to speak of them at all.

Powerfully stated, Fr DeSouza! Eunice Kennedy Shriver is one of my heroes, and her legacy is poorly represented by her family members who let President Obama off the hook for his pejorative remarks about the Special Olympics and the fact that he is the ONLY politician who voted against the BORN ALIVE INFANT PROTECTION ACT. See his voting record here. while he was in the Illinois Legislature. Even NARAL let this law pass both houses of Congress, for it didn't want to appear too extreme. Barack Obama had no such qualms.Babies born alive during abortion attempts were to be abandoned to die under his leadership. This was a common method of aborting babies with Down syndrome, along with the horrific partial birth abortion, which was also outlawed. It has to do with the fact that amnio often offers a diagnosis of Down syndrome late in the pregnancy when other methods of abortion are impossible. But it is terrifying.

Christ Hospital nurse Jill Stanek happened upon an infant with Down syndrome who had been deliberately delivered before the age of viability, alone in a storage room, gasping for air. She held the tiny baby boy for forty five minutes until his little heart stopped beating (he was so tiny she could see it beating through the wall of his chest). At least this child knew 45 minutes of love in his life. Read her testimony here. 
If he had been born in the year of my birth, 1962, he might have been condemned to an institution, where he might have been loved, or he might have been neglected, but at least he would have had a chance to love, be loved, and live the life God gave him. Many of these institutionalized babies of the sixties, now adults,  lived in group homes near me on Eastern Long Island. They were busy, happy adults, limited in their abilities because of educational neglect, but alive.

How dare Obama claim to champion our children with Down syndrome with Rosa's Law when he repeatedly moved to defeat the Born Alive Infant Protection Act which would have prevented the death of this little boy and thousands like him? If he is born now, he has to be given life saving treatment, regardless of his mother's intentions. And his president's.
Did you know there are 600 approved families waiting to adopt babies with Down syndrome? Find out more here. 
Meanwhile, don't be fooled by a President, a prominent family, or an organization which claims to honor people with disabilities while remaining silent about their genocide.
(Photo is of our eight year old pride and joy, Christina, with Down syndrome, enjoying Daddy time! See what those who abort their children are missing?)

Read the entire post here. 
Bookmark and Share

No comments: