Families with Down syndrome children to participate in March for Life
UPDATE, 10:45a: Moderator Bethany found the following YouTube video of a young man, Daniel Drinker, with Down syndrome, who supported Barack Obama in the primary because he was a “good talker,” was “black,” had a “good wife,” and had a “deep voice.” Sounds like reasons why many Obama supporters voted for him, but I digress. Dan didn’t know Barack Obama supports killing preborn babies with Down syndrome. Wonder if that would have made a difference in his vote.
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This is fabulous news. Makes me want to cry just thinking about it. Here’s the press release emailed to me. An attached note stated the group has invited Sarah Palin to participate. That would be wonderful….
For more information:
Eileen Haupt: 802-899-4882
Leticia Velasquez: 860-556-9116
with Down Syndrome
to march together in the 2009 March for Life in DC
to raise awareness about the high incidence
of aborting babies with Down syndrome
Leticia Velasquez and Eileen Haupt, two mothers who each have a daughter with Down syndrome, are organizing a group of families who have children with Down syndrome to march together in the 2009 March for Life in Washington, D.C. We are calling our endeavor KIDS (Keep Infants with Down Syndrome) to raise awareness about the 90% abortion rate of babies with Down syndrome and to challenge the misinformation that often leads mothers who receive a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome to seek an abortion.
WHEN: Thursday, January 22, 2009, 11:30 a.m. to Noon
WHERE: National Right to Life Committee, 512 10th Street, N.W., Washington, D.C.
WHAT: Meeting place for families who have children with Down syndrome (and other prenatally diagnosed conditions) to walk together in the 2009 March for Life
Leticia and Eileen’s bios are posted below.
Leticia Velasquez is a mother of three daughters and lives in CT. Her 6-year-old daughter, Christina, has Down syndrome. Leticia has a background in journalism. She is the creator of several blogs and writes for several publications, including the National Catholic Register and Faith & Family magazine. Her recent article published in the NCR entitled “Down, Hero Dad, and Palin” reported on the recent passage of the “Prenatally and Postnatally Diagnosed Conditions Awareness Act,” and the influence that Sarah Palin and the late Tom Vander Woude had on the success of the bill becoming law.
Eileen Haupt is the mother of two daughters and lives in VT. After her daughter Sadie was born with Down syndrome almost 10 years ago, she was drawn into the pro-life movement when she learned about the high incidence of aborting babies with Down syndrome. She is on the board of the VT Right to Life Committee and is the Alternate Delegate from VT to the board of the National Right to Life Committee. She ran as a candidate for state representative in her district in VT in the 2008 elections.
Jill Stanek is a nurse turned speaker, columnist and blogger, a national figure in the effort to protect both preborn and postborn innocent human life.
Awesome! Hope to see them there! :)
It’s good to see these people fighting back and showing the average person that contrary to the liberal media’s portrayal of them, they are not freaks nor a burden on society.
Change is already apparent in Britain where the number of abortions being sought for Down Syndrome is dropping.
Good for you, Jill!
After seeing this (horrible) news report about MORE testing for Downs last night on my local 10:00 news and how they were talking about “Reducing the amount of infants inflicted with Downs” I am praying for abortion to end even sooner.
Liz, that phrase “Reducing the amount of infants inflicted with Downs” sends a chill down my spine.
It reminds me of the proabort motto: “Every child a wanted child”… and of course, the only logical way to achieve that goal is to kill every “unwanted” child, just what they support.
This is why you should support the Democrats’ call for universal health care. The prospect of having a baby with heart defects, intestinal defects, recurrent infections, hearing and vision problems and mental retardation would not seem nearly as daunting if families weren’t saddled with the huge cost of treatment.
Under the present capitalist health care system, having a baby with Down Syndrome is expensive, and abortion is cheap. It’s really no wonder that 90% of Down Syndrome pregnancies are aborted.
A truly pro-life nation would not put such a huge price tag on life.
The statistics regarding the abortion of Downs babies never ceases to amaze me. 90%? I doubt very much that they are all women who identify and vote “pro-choice.” I don’t think that only 10% of the population considers itself to be pro-life!
What do those numbers mean? That some women who consider themselves to be pro-life think they can make an exception for themselves when it’s *their* baby who is not “perfect?” That the procedure is not really an abortion if it is done at a hospital and not at an assembly-line type clinic like Planned Parenthood? That people kid themselves into thinking that a DS diagnosis means that continuing the pregnancy puts the baby’s or mother’s health at risk?
Unfortunately a dr that gives a diagnosis of DS to a pregnant couple is hardly supportive in their decision to continue the pregnancy. Not offering a list of resources, or services, or support groups of families that find their children with Down Syndrome to be an absolute joy.
Unless you have a prolife dr!!! :)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhI6VkUIuNw
SUPREME COURT STEPS – SIT IN – MARCH – DEC 5 – OBAMA BIRTH CERTIFICATE
SPREAD THIS FAR AND WIDE!!!
http://f2a.org/coast2coast/ObamaCitizenship.htm
Eugenic discrimination need not stop with Downs, but can extend to all sorts of conditions – and doesn’t have to stop outside the womb.
I recall an operable spina-bifida case. Doctors and family were not supportive. She aborted. Now she can’t get pregnant.
Eugenic discriminators – that’s a nice way of saying bigots.
Reality, nice smoke and mirrors game, but you’re neglecting to reallize that children with disabilities qualify for SSI. SSI medicaid covers medical costs and, depending on income, gives a monthly stipend to the caregivers.
Having a child with severe disability is probably less expensive for lower income families than having a “normal” child.
I think you will find that mothers and fathers who respect unborn human rights do NOT for the most part have their children tested prenatally. I would not because I would not want to know.
Some parents who oppose unborn human rights will not test, but I imagine that most would because they would really want to know just in case.
So maybe as many as 90% of Downs children who are tested are destroyed, but a very large percentage (perhaps a majority?) are not tested, so the total percentage of Downs kids killed could be around 30 to 45%, which is consistent with levels of strong opposition to unborn human rights in our society. In other words, we are not so painfully morally bankrupt that 90% of society believes in destroying human beings in the unborn stage, but certainly at least 30% of people are tragically strongly abortionist in their “thinking”.
According to polls, about 25% of people would oppose abortion crime under all circumstances. That rises to about 50% if exceptions are made for rape and incest (and perhaps conditions such as Downs Syndrome). So this is the baseline we are dealing with.
I do so look forward to the day when 100% of kids coming out of the womb grow up to be strong supporters of unborn human rights instead of betraying those who come after them. Would be nice.
Hi Lauren,
Great point. A good friend of mine had a pre-mature baby that has down syndrome and other health related issues. They had no idea their baby would be born early with so many different challenges.
Her little boy is now almost 10 and he has been nothing but a blessing to them and their community. When they brought him home, the small town where they lived embraced him and helped to care for him and her family. She said she had no idea how many great people are out there to help out. She didn’t even know most of the supporters and now has hundreds of new friends.
She said she was sad at first thinking her little guy won’t grow up and drive a car, or go to prom, but then again she won’t have the worries that she would have regarding teenage shinanigans we used to get into together.
They have been supported by many programs in place that are there to help families such as hers and they live a very comfortable happy love filled life.
Joe,
Good point. I never had prenatal testing for any of my four. My last was born when I was 40. My dr. knew I would say no thank you but he asked anyway and laughed to himself. Get a prolife dr, people! :)
Joe: “but a very large percentage (perhaps a majority?) are not tested, so the total percentage of Downs kids killed could be around 30 to 45%, which is consistent with levels of strong opposition to unborn human rights in our society.”
Joe, unfortunately, this is not the case. I think the abortion rate for all babies with DS, whether diagnosed prenatally or not, is about 80-85% (I would have to verify, but I think that is the case.)
What makes it worse is that the testing can now be done much earlier in the pregnancy and is less invasive (blood test and ultrasound). This makes prenatal testing easy and no risk and also makes it easier to abort since it is earlier in the pregnancy.
Also, the American College of ObGyns recommend that ALL pregnant women have prenatal testing (not just the “older” women), so because of this recommendation, most women will have the testing done (and will therefore discover the diagnosis earlier).
There is tremendous pressure for women to undergo pre-natal testing and abortion if a condition such as ds is discovered.
Like so many other Americans, this young man has unwittingly slit his own wrists in voting for Obama because “he’s a good talker”, “he’s black”, and “he’s on TV a lot”. In other words, he voted Obama because the media told him to.
It’s shocking to see how many people have become puppets of the media.
Eileen,
I often wonder how many abort perfectly healthy babies when a prenatal test was wrong?
Eileen at December 2, 2008 2:00 PM
Joe and Eileen – is there a particular study or government data that you can point to that solidifies those numbers a little bit? Links?
Chris,
I’ll see if I can put together some links. There are studies out there for the rate of abortions after prenatal diagnosis; I’m not sure about the overall abortion rate (which would include the births of those who were not prenatally diagnosed.) So I’ll have to do some digging.
Carla, because of the high risk of miscarriage the prenatal tests present, more healthy children die as a result of them than “abnormal” children are aborted.
I was tested with most of my kids. If the test had come back positive I wouldn’t have gotten an amnio because of the risks, but I wanted to know if there was a possibility just so I could research and get everything in order. I didn’t want to be dealing with a newborn on top of trying to find outside resources and information.
I think most of my friends were tested as well. All pro-life gals.
Kirsten,
Testing isn’t wrong in and of itself; it’s the abortion that follows many times. I’ve talked with several women who were pregnant when they discovered through testing that their baby had ds. All of them said they wish they never knew. There is a lot of fear. Of course after their babies were born they were loved and life with a child w/ds was nothing what they feared.
Eileen, I know. I just wanted to be prepared. I’ve been around special needs all my life so it didn’t scare me as much as it probably does others.
When one of my friends was thinking about testing she asked me if I did it. When I told her I had she asked why and I said I wanted to be prepared. She said I don’t think I’d want to know and I told her not to get the test then. One friend said she always refused the test until she found out I got tested and why. After that she always got tested.
To each his own. I didn’t get tested with my first two and can’t even remember if my doctor even asked, but I was in my early to mid twenties with those two so it might not have been common for him to ask.
I do think that people should get tested to give the baby the best possible care up front. If that means some may abort then, of course, I’d rather they not get tested because they’ll love that baby in the end anyway.
Great show on TV today regarding Children with Downs. The show is called “The Doctors” (the website is thedoctorstv.com). The pediatrician on the show has a brother with Downs and he could not have been more loving and supportive of him and all children with Downs. And this was mainstream TV. He repeatedly said, “I have to give the families the news about their child (when a baby is diagnosed), but I tell you this is NOT bad news.”
Wow. Way to devalue a person simply because of his electoral choices. Seems like a smart kid to me. It’s better than people voting for McCain because he got captured in some mistake of a war 40 years ago. It’s good to know that your pro-life stance is conditional on the fetus growing up to vote hard-right.
Tengo, I don’t remember reading a single comment that said this boy should have been aborted because he is now voting Democrat. That’s a disgusting and low accusation. Pro-life people are the ones who believe ALL life matters. It’s the pro-choice people who believe your life is 100% dependant on whether or not you’re “wanted”. Your mother and mine alike could have ended our tiny lives on a whim, for something as superficial as not wanting stretch marks. I and other pro-life people, however, don’t support murder. Not for rape, incest, or liberalism, but I do support the death penalty for those who grow up to kill children.
Posted by: Eileen at December 2, 2008 4:56 PM
It’s interesting that Daniel Drinker indicates that his brother has Hirschsprung’s disease, and compares that with Downs.
I had a friend who had a Downs Syndrome baby. She was (and I assume still is) pro-life, but chose to be tested because there are a lot of health conditions that go along with the syndrome that you don’t want to catch you by surprise. Her little girl had to have surgery when she was about a day old, but because they knew about it, they had everything prepared and delivered at a hospital that could care for the baby’s needs.
I got tested during my first pregnancy because I was having a lot of complications and they were trying to figure out why. My triple screen came back abnormal (probably due to the fact that I was bleeding the entire pregnancy) and so they did a special ultrasound to examine my son’s spinal cord to make sure he didn’t have any deformaties. He didn’t. However, leading up to the ultrasound, I was repeatedly told to abort him if he had Spinal Bifida. Only through my own research did I find out that even if had the disorder, it wasn’t a death sentence.
Anyways, later ultrasounds showed markers for Down’s but we didn’t do an amnio due to the risks involved. Though, I just now realized that because my membranes had ruptured, they could have easily just tested the tons of amniotic fluid that I leaked. Oh well. Anyways, we thought he might have Down’s but decided not to do anything. He was born small, and premature, but without any sort of genetic issue.
False postivies happen all the time, which is why I decided against testing in later pregnanacies.
Lauren, you rock. Amid all the hype and crazy stuff we see (and it comes from both sides) – I really appreciate your approach.
Posted by: Laura at December 3, 2008 12:41 AM
So you’re pro-life but pro-death penalty… well isn’t that special. You just made me feel so much better about being pro-choice and anti-death penalty. You see I have respect for that which is actually alive, you don’t have respect for life if you’re willing to play “eye for an eye” with someone else’s life. Its so much better to be pro-choice than pro-vengence