Down Syndrome

As most of you know, my eldest son has Down Syndrome.

I find it ironic that both the Democratic and Republican presidential nominees have a child with Down Syndrome in the mix.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain announced earlier today that Alaska governor Sarah Palin will be his running mate. Mrs. Palin recently gave birth to a baby boy with Down Syndrome, and she knew the child she was carrying had an extra chromosome in every cell of his body.

She knew in December. But she chose to carry her baby to term, birth him and love him like the awesome human being he already is.

Contrast that with Barak Obama, who doesn't know when life begins, who embraces abortion of his own grandchildren, and who listened to the testimony of a hospital nurse who cradled a dying baby boy aborted because he had Down Syndrome and had been thrown away to die alone, and still chose to block the Born Alive Infant Protection Act.

The older I get, the less tolerant I find myself becoming. How can any human being think it's okay to kill an innocent baby? There shouldn't be a right to choose, to play God. I want to know when we draw the line? People with Down Syndrome are innocent humans. Yet it's considered acceptable to protect yourself from hardship to kill your baby. I guess we actually don't draw the line. Any woman can abort her child at any point in the pregnancy, even at full term. What's wrong with people?

I guess it's because they've been educated to believe that a baby isn't a baby, until he or she is actually out of his or her mother's body, breathing air through his or her lungs. Prior to that, he or she is simply a fetus. A blob of nothing. Well, newborn babies are pretty blobby if you ask me. Why do we prosecute women who let their babies die after they are born? What's the difference?

Today, as I watched John McCain announced his running mate, tears were streaming down my face. I don't quite know why, but I know much of my emotion had to do with the fact that Mrs. Palin chose to keep and love her baby when many other men and women are taking the cowardly way out and choosing to kill their baby for equally cowardly reasons. Because they don't want a child, or don't want another child, or some other superficial reason. I guess about the worst one I ever heard was the child won't be able to live up to his or her full potential. Wow. Talk about expectations. I sure hope people with that outlook are able to withstand it when their "perfect" children make some mistakes, or don't become a doctor or lawyer, or whatever that full potential would be.

Years ago I had a friend whose parents forced her to have an abortion that she didn't want. Let me share with you a poem that she wrote - watch out, it's pretty heart wrenching:

She was just sixteen when she learned why
She had that little twinkle in her eye

The man did not want any part of it
and ended contact ... every last bit

She was frightened and felt all alone
So she sought help from within her own home

Alcohol played havoc on the addicted ones mind
Her parents made decisions that were shrewd and unkind

Without regard to her plight
Her feelings or her own right

Decisions were made based on her well being
Never stopping to ask her what she was feeling

They found a loophole in an old law
That allowed killing, the solution, they saw

So statutory rape they sought out to prove
To eliminate the shame, so she would not have to move

She was put through rigorous testing
Interminable questions, never resting

The child within her still safe and sound
Physical changes began, a heartbeat was found

She planned for this child to be loved like no other
She prepared for its future and the love of its mother

Then the court made the decision within the right time frame
To allow the procedure with the least danger or fame

To the hospital she was transported
To have the child within her aborted

To be with child in one moment
Suddenly without child and no comment

The next day she was told
By her parents so bold

How much they had helped her out
And would not allow her to cry or shout

But all along from her own perspective
She always had willed for her child to live

So silently she grieved, for her child she did mourn
Desperately longing for her child to have been born

New laws came into effect including Roe vs Wade
Then the right to lifers spoke out with comments they made

They detailed the procedures ... how the child would be shred
And opened the wounds of her loss and the child that was dead

She finally cried out to her God, her Lord
With all the emotion her heart could afford

Asking forgiveness for her part in the destruction
That detestable deed long ago, the abortion

God in His loving kindness and His ever gentle way
Reached down and comforted her and He proceeded to say

You didn't destroy the life, all involved have been forgiven
Your first beloved baby was born straight into heaven

Of your child, your first born
Take comfort young mother, don't mourn

Let precious visions of him be all you see
'Till you see him again ... with Me

Until next time.