by Kelli
I think that’s so sad. I think that’s incredibly, incredibly sad and, yeah, it hurts my heart a bit.
~ Singer Leona Lewis at the Global Down Syndrome Foundation Gala, responding to the information that 9 out of 10 67% of babies with Down syndrome are aborted, as quoted by CNSNews.com, May 9
[Photo via akacp01.blogspot.com]
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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.
Im not familiar with her music but i love that she has said this. I feel the same way.
I think there is a lot of sympathy out there amongst the public for persons with all sorts of handicaps. The idea that we should strive to assist handicapped persons to enjoy full lives has been well taught in our schools.
If we could raise awareness that 90% of Down’s children are being killed, and that mothers with prenatal diagnoses of spinal bifida or cleft palate are often urged to abort… we could save lives.
When I was growing up (remember, I’m an “old head,” in my fifties) I remember seeing quite a few people with Down Syndrome. Now I rarely see them, so I guess that’s the reason why.
Spina bifida and cleft palate can both be corrected. I heard of a woman who had an abortion because the child she was carrying was a dwarf. Sheesh.
People in the social work profession tend to be strongly pro-choice (yes, I’m an outlier) so I wonder what they think of the fact that so many of their potential clients are being aborted? I’ve been asked to join the National Association of Social Workers, but I don’t support their pro-abortion agenda.
It’s true Phillymiss, my great aunt was a social worker, she is your stereotypical rock-ribbed conservative on every issue imaginable, but she is A.O.K. with abortion. What is it about the profession, meant to help those in need, that leads so many of them to believe people would be better off dead? Maybe they don’t get opportunities to see positive stuff enough, they lose hope and become disillusioned?
Good to know about social workers. I guess you wouldnt think they were pro abort but I guess they are. phillymiss Im glad you are the acception to the rule.
“I think there is a lot of sympathy out there amongst the public for persons with all sorts of handicaps.”
I think it varies depending on the handicap. My partner’s older brother has mental difficulties including but not limited to Tourettes. He is 45 and is just now living alone for the first time in his life, in an attempt to help him slowly prepare for the eventual, hopefully far-off death of his mother. He has two low-skill-level part-time jobs (bagging groceries and cleaning a nursing home) and is functional enough to do them well, but can’t do things like manage the money he earns or things like that. He can drive and run errands just fine but about twenty years ago there was an incident where he saw a lovely girl at the mall while he was picking up some socks, and just followed her because he liked looking at her. The police were eventually called and he was baffled when they showed up – he doesn’t really, to this day, understand what was “wrong” about walking where that woman walked in a public space just because she was pretty, but he knows (by now) that “following people is wrong unless they ask you to.” Still, we try not to have him run “wide open” errands like that alone, just because it’s impossible to tell where the break in understanding will come in. That sort of thing. Basically, he bridges the line between “obviously impaired” and “decently functional” in a lot of situations.
We get a ton of dirty looks and rude treatment in public with him. He talks loudly and has to be reminded to be quiet – we remind him, but every time his voice gets louder again, the people around us shoot exasperated looks. He repeats things ad nauseum, which I’d think is a dead giveaway that something else is going on but which a surprising number of people respond to as though he’s doing it intentionally. He is sometimes so blunt that it would have to be taken for EXTREME rudeness if not presumed to be the result of a mental impairment, but people often assume in favor of extreme rudeness anyway, and respond accordingly. (ie, this past weekend his food portion was larger than he expected, so when his side dish made it to the table he said, “No thank you,” and when the bewildered server said, “Sir, you ordered this,” he said, “I have enough food, thank you,” and we explained to him – in front of her – that he’d ordered it so it was his whether he ate it or not, and we apologized to her and he did as well; I feel like in that situation it’s pretty clear that there’s something else going on besides rudeness but she was pretty curt and rude to our table after that anyway.) Basically, when we’re in public, 90% of the time people assume he’s a really obnoxious person rather than someone who could use a bit more understanding, even when I feel it’s become pretty obvious. Even once it’s undeniable – once something extremely obvious happens that makes it clear that he has impairments – people still often react like we just ruined their day by bringing him out. Like we should just keep him at home so that they don’t have to deal with it on the periphery of their lives, or something.
Sometimes I wonder if there were more physical indications, people would be more understanding. I am not sure which way I lean on that question. I know a guy who views Down Syndrome in particular as “preventable” (via prenatal testing and abortion) and thus is actively, aggressively rude to parents of children with Down Syndrome, since he essentially believes (or claims to believe) that they chose to “do this” to their child and to the world as a whole. He is a jerk but he probably isn’t the only one.
We get a ton of dirty looks and rude treatment in public with him.
I work part-time with individuals who are severely mentally ill, mostly with paranoid schizophrenia. They live in an SIL facility (supported independent living). Most of them function pretty well, but ocasionally some of them have outbursts, talk loud, make strange comments, etc. I am used to this, but one of my clients was banned from the local McDonald’s because of his behavior.
He is a jerk but he probably isn’t the only one.
No, he isn’t. I mentioned numerous times how people in my family, especially my father, absolutely HATE people with mental disabilities, particularly with Down Syndrome. They look at Sarah Palin with disgust, contempt and scorn because she chose to have Trig and can’t understand why she didn’t abort. Yet they go to church and are “religious.” The sad thing is my Dad may be in the early stages of dementia. There are many people that look on older people with disgust, contempt and scorn, just as he does with the mentally handicapped. It’s a shame.
Heather, Chris, many social workers suffer from “compassion fatigue.” You see so many terrible things and they just keep on coming. Right now at my agency kids are sleeping in the childcare room because they need to be placed and not enough foster parents can be located. Philadelphia is the poorest big city in the country and there are many, many social problems here. Most people in this field are liberal Democrats, and that’s part of the party line, but many also suffer from “compassion fatigue”. I guess they feel that many of the terrible situations we see wouldn’t occur if the child(ren) involved had never been born. But I think that while there’s life, there’s hope!
http://www.presentation-r2l.org/down-syndrome-babies-here-to-teach-us-tenderness/
Down Syndrome Babies—Here to Teach Us Tenderness
We snuff out their tiny, prophetic voices at our own peril.
They are possibly the last barrier against a society-wide breakdown into generalized violence.
Fr. Mitch Pacwa, speaking (5/10/2014) to Presentation Parish, Sacramento, CA, “On Redemptive Suffering”, remarked that “Down Syndrome babies are here to teach us tenderness”. Societies that protect the most innocent are moving towards greater compassion.
But young people in America today know that they may have brothers and sisters who were killed before they were ever born, and that it could have been them. How does that knowledge affect their understanding that life is precious?
Since Roe v. Wade in 1973, American society has become increasingly vicious in attitude and action, against the unborn, the elderly, the disabled, defenseless school-children and now, with the popularity of the sucker-punching “knockout game”, in random, senseless attacks against total strangers.
Did this increase in violence across the board just arise spontaneously, without precedent, or did our treatment of the most vulnerable portend it?
When protection of innocent life in the womb was first under open attack in the late 1960s, specious excuses were made that “abortion will reduce child abuse against ‘unwanted’ babies”.
Exactly the opposite has happened. In New York City during the ’60s, the number of abused children had averaged about 5,000 cases a year. Abortion was legalized in 1970. By 1975, over 25,000 [child abuse] cases were reported.
The figures for the entire U.S. are:
Date Number
1973 167,000
1979 711,142
1993 1,057,255
1996 1,220,000
Source: U.S. Dept. H.H.S., Nat. Center of Child Abuse, Child Maltreatment
(John Willke, MD, Abortion: Questions & Answers—Why Can’t We Love Them Both? Chapter 32: Unwanted. http://www.lifeissues.org/abortionqanda/chapters/c32.pdf#page=9 )
More than 85% of children in utero diagnosed with Down Syndrome today are subsequently aborted.
These little saints, capable of returning our love but incapable of personal sin, were sent here by God to teach us to love one another!
Those who are killed before birth will be rewarded by God as if they had fulfilled their mission to teach us tenderness for one another.
(They can still intercede for us, if we will just ask them.)
But our country and our world will miss this vital lesson
they were specially sent to teach us.
We disregard their gentle witness at our own peril.
Then I watched while the Lamb broke open the first of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures cry out in a voice like thunder, “Come forward.” I looked, and there was a white horse, and its rider had a bow. He was given a crown, and he rode forth victorious to further his victories. When he broke open the second seal, I heard the second living creature cry out, “Come forward.” Another horse came out, a red one. Its rider was given power to take peace away from the earth, so that people would slaughter one another. And he was given a huge sword. – Revelation 6:1-4
When he broke open the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slaughtered because of the witness they bore to the word of God. They cried out in a loud voice, “How long will it be, holy and true master, before you sit in judgment and avenge our blood on the inhabitants of the earth?” Each of them was given a white robe, and they were told to be patient a little while longer until the number was filled of their fellow servants and brothers who were going to be killed as they had been. – Revelation 6:9-11
See that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that their angels in heaven always look upon the face of My heavenly Father. – Matthew 18:10