Pajamas Media

61 Comments

1. Realisti-idealisti at mariosechi.net:

[...] un bimbo affetto da sindrome di Down. Anche questo è argomento da campagna elettorale. Segnalo un articolo su Pajamasmedia scritto da Bridget Johnson. Oggi il Wall Street Journal è uno scrigno di preziosi commenti. Sphere: Related [...]

Sep 2, 2008 - 2:25 am 2. Lance Brown:

I love that Governor Palin chose LIFE. She doesn’t just talk the talk. She walks the walk. She’s the REAL DEAL.

She exudes a sense of what America used to be and what it can return to: confident, proud, able, and firmly unapologetic. Yes compared to perfection, America may be lacking but compared to every other country on Earth, America’s benevolence has no equal. Our bad acts have been no worse than those of every other country but our positive acts have saved the lives of 100’s of millions of people through out the world.

Palin seems to stir this sense of American exceptionalism that for too long has been squelched by the radical Liberal agenda. We have been constantly told by educators, by the media, by politicians that we are a bad country in need of much deserved rebuke. Palin on the other hand casts such dispersions aside and stirs feelings deep inside all of us that we Americans should be proud and confident. We have the unparalleled ability to solve any challenge placed before us. Palin has awaked this long slumbering American spirit.

Must Read: http://minx.cc/?post=272151

Must Watch: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quvBbcFDPI0

Sep 2, 2008 - 4:34 am 3. J.J. Sefton:

It never ceases to amaze me how the left, so called champions of human rights, the weak and downtrodden are such abject hypocrites.

Margaret Sanger, whom they all but deify as the champion of women’s reproductive rights admired the Nazi eugenecists. No big mystery why most abortion clinics are in poor and black neighborhoods.

That said, I am not anti-abortion in all cases. But as I’ve gotten older, I have come to appreciate the immense emotional strain that having to choose one represents. We will never solve the great mystery of when life begins or what the value is of a human life at any stage of its development. But those who have been pointing the finger at the Palins and shouting “j’accuse” need to take a long hard look at themselves.

Sadly, that will never happen since they are so hardened to the belief that they, and only they, are absolutely in the right. Let’s face it, there are extremists on both sides. It’s just that the extremists are the ones that are in control of what was the Democratic party.

Sep 2, 2008 - 5:12 am 4. PDS and a lot of BS from the left (Updated) « Republican Party of Jefferson County, TN:

[...] Bridet Johnson raises a good point over at PajamasMedia. Hopefully, Palin’s candidacy will be about more than [...]

Sep 2, 2008 - 6:32 am 5. John J Kulidas:

Yes special needs children shiould be protected under the law yet Rs were agansit the disablties that would give them the right to attend schools. So on the this issue the R s are like dogs chaseing their tails. They may Protect the life of the diasbled but once theier born the offer no health care funding for special schools or any civil right that would forec schools to help them

Sep 2, 2008 - 7:22 am 6. Mike Feightner:

My oldest son was born with epilepsi and cerebrial palsy.
I diagree that the Gov’t does not help.
We got free medical from the state and special schooling also.

Sep 2, 2008 - 8:23 am 7. jay:

John J Kulidas, You sir don’t know what your talking about. I have walked in those shoes. Save your leftist propaganda for another site.

Sep 2, 2008 - 8:37 am 8. Matt, Esq.:

While I think this is a debate conservatives should be having, do not expect liberals to participate. A fully healthy fetus is not considered a person by the left- why would they ever consider a less than fully healthy fetus to be a child?

And what does a fetus have to do with universal health care ? Health care is available, many times for free, to people who work hard, sacrifice and take responsibility for their actions. The fetus in the womb never has a chance to be productive member of society. Good try with the moral equivocation but you’re barking up the wrong tree.

Sep 2, 2008 - 8:49 am 9. cedarford:

Eugenicists have gotten a bad name from all the slippery slope, “it all leads to Hitler!” arguments, but the counterargument, that it is WONDERFUL to sire lines of humans disposed to serious genetic disease, low-IQ, and predisposition to violence and criminality (if you think the “nature is as important as nurture”) – has big flaws as well.

The vulnerable in our society are the canary in the coal mine: When society decides that any sector of the population is less worthy of protection, less deserving of life than another, we teeter over the edge into an abyss of inhumanity.

We practice animal husbandry and breeding in other species. A line of dogs born retarded or with high rate of retardation is bred out. We do not continue to propagate generations of pigs that violently attack other swine. We all agree that it would be a bad thing for a fish hatchery to produce trout that don’t grow well and die of a genetic metabolic disorder in 6 months.

Those bad lines in animal husbandry and breeding are not the “vulnerable” – they are the undesirable.

And no one is hesitant about saying that, but everyone IS hesitant about saying that a human line that produces 50-60% of its offspring affected with a lethal genetic disease that costs the taxpayer a million or more in medical costs before they die IS ALSO UNDESIRABLE and we should work to eliminate that line from propagating.

We can indulge a different path for a while, because after WWII until globalization happened and started to effect it, American prosperity meant we could afford having all the “vulnerable” we cared to…And now we are in a period we can’t afford it, but China is still accepting our credit card debt.

But with over 30 trillion in unfunded medical liabilities, the day of rationing medical care is coming…and rather than deny care to MD, 45-year old women dropping off their newborn Downs baby for lifetime care on the taxpayer’s dime …it would be better if we work to try and only create healthy intelligent offspring and eliminate defective genetic lines.

And if people insist on continuing to crank out “the vulnerable” after being told they best not have kids with a partner with the same recessive gene, they can. Or a line of males that over 4-5 generations have all turned out to be violent, uncontrollable felons. And shout all they want about God-given freedoms to have as many “vulnerable” as they want.

But our dire fiscal situation means that in the near future, society can do less and less expensive care on such people. Leaving them minimal care, and warehousing..

Sep 2, 2008 - 9:18 am 10. cedarford:

Lets also add that a society that spends 6-8 times more on a “special ed child” unable to contribute to society as an adult – over mainstream children that can – and does not invest extra resources in highly talented students that can contribute far more to society than the average person as an adult?

That nation, by will of the legislators, the professional educrats, or court decrees has a counterproductive strategy that will steer that nation to be less competitive than its rivals, with less average educational attainment in its future workforce.

(On a cost per hour of schooltime, only Switzerland pays more for its public school system. But America now ranks near-bottom in educational attainment in advanced or rising nations. Chinese students as HS seniors are about 6 months ahead. French and Germans and Russians are about a years worth of attainment ahead of us. Japan and Singapore, about 2 years.)

Sep 2, 2008 - 9:33 am 11. Dafloyd:

John J Kulidas: What tripe. Let me get this straight… If you don’t support the standard laundry list of tax-payer supported social programs you have no right to oppose the murder of potential beneficiaries? Do I have this about right?

Sep 2, 2008 - 9:49 am 12. MagikJack:

Sarah may be able to take her baby to work with her and nurse during a meeting as Governor of Alaska – a state with a population of 626,000 people. It is a different story being the VP of the United States. No CEO in any corporation would do such a thing. I think a woman with children is certainly capable of being the VP or president of the US, but I do question the judgment and “family first” priority of a new mother with a newborn having special needs.

When it comes down to it, where will her allegiance be? With the MILLIONS of people relying upon her to lead the country, or with her children, whether they be pregnant, sick or whatever the issue? Will she be in the Middle East brokering a peace deal and suddenly have to fly home to attend to the health care needs of her infant son? She would be a cruel, heartless mother if she did no less, but she will be an ineffective, laughable joke of a world leader if she places her family priorities ahead of her country.

Sep 2, 2008 - 9:55 am 13. Rob:

@cedarford:

As you just proved, you line of argument leads to Hitler style eugenicism allright.

You might want to look up the German terms “Volksgesundheit und Rassenhygiene”, “unwertes Leben” and “Berufsverbrecher”; you are repeating _all_ the Nazi’s arguments for it’s eradication – hopefully unconciously so.

I especially love your addendum: “The nation will be less competitive” – wow, just wow. Could be straight out of “Mein Kampf”.

Even stylizing pre-natal abortion as an act of mercy since “society can do less and less expensive care on such people. Leaving them minimal care, and warehousing” follows the line of argument of that abominable twelve years of German history.

And finally, sorry to say it, but your comment once again shows why a “reality-based” aka rationalized, cost-benefit oriented society will turn into an inhuman society. Take away the sacredness of all human life as commanded by most religions and you’ll end up there – think about the time when you will grow old and “useless” to “society”. What happens then?

** Still shaking my head **

Sep 2, 2008 - 10:00 am 14. Bullfrog:

cedarford: you are psychotic. The whole point here is that human life is not dollars and cents so you respond by making just such an argument. You either value human life or you don’t; your stance is clear.

Sep 2, 2008 - 10:12 am 15. Rob:

@MagikJack:

Don’t you think her husband can handle most of the possible problems by himself? Is your opinion of fathers that low? Not all and everybody’s fathers run back to Kenya after spawning …

Sep 2, 2008 - 10:17 am 16. funky chicken:

So Sarah Palin can nurse a baby in her governor’s office in Alaska, but it would be impossible in her office in Washington, DC? Please explain.

No CEO would take a baby to work, or have her husband bring the baby to the office at lunch time and at dinner time to nurse? Really?

Sep 2, 2008 - 10:48 am 17. Tri21X2:

Cedarford:

I am dumbfounded by your reasoning. Are you comparing human beings to animal breeding? Honestly?! You are the perfect example of the post-modern, moral relativism that is so pervasive among the world’s intelligent “elite”. You are so “learned” in your own eyes that you have become an intellectual moron.

My sons, I have two with Down syndrome (one biological, one adopted), will NEVER be a financial drain on society. My husband and I have private health care, have set up special needs trusts for them both, and plan to leave a fully comprehensive plan for their care once we are gone. IF they should even have need of it. Adults with Down syndrome today are quite capable of working and providing for themselves with minimal help from family or the federal government, if only given a chance. As Early Intervention services get more and more targeted to young children’s needs, my sons may even be supporting you and yours someday by their taxes.

As for your reference to those who are predestined to commit crimes, I certainly hope you are not referring to individuals with Down syndrome. If so, you are an absolute idiot. When was the last time you saw someone with Down syndrome or any developmental disability for that matter commit, much less be arrested for, any crime? Those of us who know and love someone with Down syndrome are all too aware that they can be the most accepting of differences in others, show absolute unconditional love for others, and are convinced that all men are created equal. They lack inhibitions so it’s perfectly okay with them to hug anyone, dance or sing at the top of their lungs if a song they like comes on the radio, and give up winning a race to help someone who’s fallen behind. For all your pretense at knowledge, YOU have much to learn.

Do you know Peter Singer, by any chance?

Sep 2, 2008 - 11:38 am 18. cedarford:

Bullfrog:
cedarford: you are psychotic. The whole point here is that human life is not dollars and cents so you respond by making just such an argument.

No, a psychotic is someone that denies the realities of society and life and insists that human lives are not in any way impacted, or should be impacted by any resource limits or spending restraints, or traditional assigned values made by insurers or courts.

=================
Rob – especially love your addendum: “The nation will be less competitive” – wow, just wow. Could be straight out of “Mein Kampf”.

Yep, any nation or business that strives to be competive and succeed is Nazi.
And any effort to build good roads is like building autobahns which we all know leads to Hitler..

And finally, sorry to say it, but your comment once again shows why a “reality-based” aka rationalized, cost-benefit oriented society will turn into an inhuman society.

A society that is not “reality-based” goes from the largest creditor nation to the words greatest wastrel debtor nation in 60 years, loses it’s educational lead going from Top 5 in 1950 to 46th in educational attainment in 2000.

It encourages masses of dysfunctional people to breed more bad and even subsidizes them to bred more. Which is why the US has the greatest per capita prison population in the world and actually needs to open more prisons and why our “special needs” percentage of school kids quadrupled in the last 40 years.

Any business that is not rational, reality based, and which employs good cost-benefit analysis ends up bankrupt or falls from greatness. Nations follow the same path. But the best businesses and best-run nations are hardly “inhuman”.

America is up from 5 trillion to 9.7 trillion in Fed debt under Bush II. Our unfunded medical and SS liabilities are 32 trillion on top of that. Our trade deficit is a trillion a year. We have lost the lead we once had in high technologies in 20 different fields from 18 of 20 in 1960 to 2 of 20 in 2006. Half our scientists are foreign-born because we do not put our resources into gifted education and then dumb them down so we have no choice but to import foreigners into our high tech career fields and hope they stay.

Yeah, we DO need some rationality and we DO need to substantially change socially destructive policies and those that subject America to ruinious medical costs – 50% more per capita than any advanced nation with longer lifespans than Americans – some 22-25 other nations.

Saying otherwise is just Right to Lifer idiocy that comes from being so deep in the grip of religious dogma&fanaticism that other areas of the brain shut off.

Sep 2, 2008 - 12:25 pm 19. Tri21X2:

“It encourages masses of dysfunctional people to breed more bad and even subsidizes them to bred more. Which is why the US has the greatest per capita prison population in the world and actually needs to open more prisons and why our “special needs” percentage of school kids quadrupled in the last 40 years.”

Cedarford: Your last post is too imbecilic to even warrant a rebuttal, but I never shrink from a challenge.

Don’t you think that the reason for the US having the largest “per capita prison population in the world and actually needs to open more prisons” could be because of the decline in two-parent households, post-modern moral-relativistic attitudes that pervade society and are openly taught in the public schools, and the fact that a HUGE number of those prisoners are in this country ILLEGALLY?

What has the rise in the number of special needs students got to do with our current prison population? You are assuming that parents with special needs are breeding children with special needs. Where are you getting your “facts”? Could not the increase also be due to the increase of diagnoses of Autism and other pervasive developmental disorders, ADD/ADHD, more and more babies born to drug and alcohol addicted mothers, or undiagnosed children who had previously just fallen through the cracks in the public (read: government) education system? If you knew anything at all about Down syndrome, which is what this article was addressing in the first place, then you would know that women with Down syndrome, although they are perfectly capable of conceiving and bearing children, have only a 50% chance of having a baby with the same condition. Men with Down syndrome are overwhelmingly sterile. In fact there has only ever been two documented cases of men with DS fathering children. And yes this disturbs me greatly because the chances of either of my very healthy and high functioning sons with DS ever becoming fathers is slim. (I can hear your heartstrings breaking for me.) Guess I’ll have to rely on my perfectly healthy, but otherwise “chromosomally ordinary”, blonde, blue-eyed, brilliant, multi-lingual, witty, TAX-PAYING daughter to make me a grandmother. Or are you deathly afraid that the taint of having a biological brother with Down syndrome might just cause my daughter to ruin the gene pool and you’d have to support yet another generation of bloodsucking parasites upon humanity?

“Saying otherwise is just Right to Lifer idiocy that comes from being so deep in the grip of religious dogma&fanaticism that other areas of the brain shut off.”

OMG! For such an open-minded (and studious!) liberal, you are really just a closed-minded bigot! I cannot believe the hypocrisy and hateful rhetoric in this quote. I have no doubt where your hate comes from and I do feel sorry for you. You must live such a miserable existence. Does it make you feel better to think you are so superior, not only in intellect, but also very obviously in enlightenment? While us idiotic and fanatical religious pro-lifers cling to our dogma, you must feel so far above it all. Too bad that ain’t gonna last very long for you, mate! God is not going to be mocked forever.

You and your ilk make me sick.

Sep 2, 2008 - 1:57 pm 20. FreedomLover:

As a long-time university instructor, I can attest to the fact that our low national academic rankings have nothing to do with wasting money helping disabled students. They have much more to do our having raised a couple of generations of “normal” and privileged children to believe that they need not work hard. The truth is that most foreign-born (or first generation American) students simply out-work most American-born students, and most foreign-born parents demand more of their children than do most American parents.

As for comparing human beings to pigs and trout, cedarford, this is too silly to be contemplated. I do sympathize, though, with your grammar disability (not knowing the difference between effect and affect) and hope that no one decides to warehouse you for being an underperformer.

Sep 2, 2008 - 2:55 pm 21. Rob:

@Cedarford:

No, cedarfors, your particular notion of competitiveness as applied to both individual human persons as well as to nations/societies as a whole in a vulgar-Darwinian fashion is highly reminiscient of the Nazi ideology which was also based (in parts) on an early 20th century popular misunderstanding of Darwinian evolution. In your sentence the use of “nation will be less competitive” in the context of breeding just replace “nation” with “race” and you’ll see what I mean.

Let me add that I couldn’t care less about the U.S. debt since I am not American nor do I live in the U.S. But your debt has less to do with the ridicoluously low social security level that exists in the states and much more with military spending, which, alas, is necessary for a de-facto hegemonial power (and before you attack me for that, I am aware that Europe is free-loading on this by outsourcing security as a whole and security of e.g. shipping lanes to the U.S., and I am grateful for that).

As for the high cost of the U.S. medical system: trying to get rid of the preposterous ligitation system in your country might help quite a lot. Just my two cents.

Let’s go back: nations are not business, thank God for that. Nations also built on a concept that might be alien to you, namely that of a hierarchy of communities, which – shockingly – tend to be rather altruistic.

So go ahead, build a fully rationalistic society, you’ll end up in either 1984, Stalinist Russia, Hitlerian Germany, or, most probably in something resembling Samjatin’s “We”.

And, by all means, read “Mein Kampf”; if you ignore the anti-semitic drivel you might find a lot to like, especially the idea of “optimizing” the inhabitants of one’s country (read the local “race”) to be able to compete with the other nations with their respectively optimized “racial” content.

The religious dogma & fanaticism card doesn’t do the trick in my case, since I am a typically lack-luster European lapsed Roman Catholic who doesn’t care much what the Church says but is still registered somewhere despite being an agnostic … everything I want to say that religions do carry some human wisdom brought down through the ages that you only should completely discard at your peril. The same, btw, goes for folk tales and ancient mythologies: a lot to learn about the conditio humana since time immemorial from that.

(And I’ll tell you a secret: I am even pro-choice up to week 12 of pregnancy; after that any fetus, disabled or not, that doesn’t endanger the mother’s life should be off-limits in my opinion.)

To summarize: in denying certain human beings the right to live on economic or eugenic grounds you are indeed stepping on a slippery slope which in the end leads to the horrors witnessed e.g. in the Nazi regime. There’s no evading it. And in the end, when you yourself somehow reach the limit of your “usefullness” you will be disposed of just like that; that’s the society you are advocating.

Tri21X2 is right on this: read Peter Singer, his prose is not as tortured as Hitler’s but he reaches much of the same conclusions on the value of human life plus he has my respect for rigorously following the rationalistic concept through to its logical end.

Good night to you, cedarford, unfortunately it’s already past bedtime over here in the Old World …

Sep 2, 2008 - 2:55 pm 22. Rob:

@cedarford

One last thing before I go to bed:

Sometimes it seems to me that the Puritan/Calvinist concept of “predetermination” is so deeply entrenched in the psyche even of allegedly liberal and rationalistic Americans that they invariably lean strongly to the “nature” site in the “nature vs. nurture” debate …

But now: good night

Sep 2, 2008 - 3:00 pm 23. Tri21X2:

Rob,
Thanks for the “plug”. I’m not sure if you are agreeing with Peter Singer or not. Your remark seemed somewhat cryptic to me. I suppose it is possible to admire someone’s tenacity in order to prove his point without fully agreeing with his conclusions.

I wholeheartedly agree with you on this point:

“Let me add that I couldn’t care less about the U.S. debt since I am not American nor do I live in the U.S. But your debt has less to do with the ridicoluously low social security level that exists in the states and much more with military spending, which, alas, is necessary for a de-facto hegemonial power (and before you attack me for that, I am aware that Europe is free-loading on this by outsourcing security as a whole and security of e.g. shipping lanes to the U.S., and I am grateful for that).
As for the high cost of the U.S. medical system: trying to get rid of the preposterous ligitation system in your country might help quite a lot. Just my two cents.”

This is quite off topic, but well said! By the way, your two cents are worth about four cents of ours right now precisely because of over-spending on national security, the war in Iraq, and our unprecedented transfer of wealth to the Middle East. Unfortunately we don’t yet have all the relevant technology to create viable alternative energy sources to the extent that we would notice a significant drop in oil prices, but if the OPEC nations get word that we are doing everything we can (e.g. drilling off the Atlantic coast (where I live and am happy to have an oil rig in my backyard) and in ANWR, funding research into alternative sources of energy), mark my words; the price will “magically” come down overnight.

I know I’m probably preaching to the choir. Fuel prices where you are, and in Australia from where my husband hails, has been sky-high for years. Americans have been spoiled for years with gasoline prices at less than $1US per gallon and we as a nation refuse “to go quietly into that good night”.

But, I digress. I just wanted to say that in spite of you being in the Old Country and me being a member of the American hoi polloi, our situations are really not that different. Even if we disagree somewhat on theological matters. No biggie.

Sep 2, 2008 - 3:23 pm 24. DavidN:

“Retardation was the equivalent of a crime deserving the death penalty.”

The amazing thing here is that, as it stands, that may just be the tip of the iceberg. *No one* wants to confront one of the ugly side effects of abortion rights: aborted fetuses, in ethnic (especially Asian) neighborhoods sometimes run 90% female. In those societies, male children are a blessing, and female children (who require dowries to get married, later) are a terrible burden. Male children are also a social distinction, female ones a blight. And as they say in the infomercial, but wait, there’s more…

Someday, not too far in the future, scientists will be able to determine what a person will become, from their DNA. As it stands now, they can match a person’s DNA to matter that they find at a crime scene, tell if two people are related, etc., but all of that code actually determines everything about you: height, appearance, hair color, intellect, dis/likes, everything. Some of those things can be changed (via plastic surgery, study, training, etc.) but the basic building blocks are always going to remain the same. We’re not that far from a world where the mother and father meet the doctor in his office, and he says “Your child is going to be tall, blonde, and gay” and the parents respond by getting an abortion, because they don’t believe in homosexuality, or wanted a brown-haired child, or a short one, or whatever. Nobody’s talking about this yet, and no one is trying to get out in front of the science, near as I can tell. Anyone want to speculate on how many Down’s Syndrome children there will be once the science is in place to make sure you’re giving birth to a super-child?

Sep 2, 2008 - 3:35 pm 25. Jennifer:

I am very happy that Mrs. Palin did not have an abortion. But I’m afraid that that is where my support of her ends. She proudly annouced that she had an amniocentesis during pregnancy to learn about her baby’s diagnosis. This is a procedure she had by choice and it is a risky procedure that can cause a miscarriage. Apparently it holds no medical benefit for the baby- pelple just use to get information for themselves or to decide on an abortion. Then she left her baby only a few days after he was born to go back to work. And now she has a pregnant teenager??? I have a special needs child, and I can’t imagine leaving him now, at the age of 3, much less as an infant. I will also say- I was offered an amniocentesis and DECLINED because I was confortable leaving everything up to God. A miscarriage would not have been worth it to me. Any chance we can get this woman booted off the election ticket? I’m not voting for her….

Sep 2, 2008 - 5:40 pm 26. Dark Helmet:

Being a complete retard has never precluded anyone from running for office in the country.

Sep 2, 2008 - 6:49 pm 27. Bullfrog:

cedarford: I stand corrected, you are not psychotic, you are a sociopath.

And you can count me in the “Right to Lifer” and “Religious Fanatic” crowd where human life is a gift from God and therefore deserves our respect, even if it isn’t necessarily economically expedient to do so.

Sep 2, 2008 - 8:13 pm 28. Dark Helmet:

Can we please talk about a much more urgent issue that needs to be implemented, retro active birth control? It is a long over due program that needs full funding and our complete support in order to resolve the issues that face our nation.

Sep 2, 2008 - 9:12 pm 29. Judy, NYC:

jennifer: sarah palin and her husband share raising their children, and spell each other. apparently, you think men lack the ability to take care of children with special needs. maybe you should take a look into a hospital corridor, where you will find quite a lot of men who are superb caregivers. you can also find these men in the best of marriages. i suspect you are an obama troll or perhaps you regret having DECLINED the amniocentisis. no wonder you’re annoyed.

Sep 2, 2008 - 9:37 pm 30. HRPKathy:

Jennifer,
You make me sick. Really barfy – the especially green bile – sick.

“Women” like you have no idea what it takes for a woman to succeed to the degree Sarah Palin has succeeded. She did it on her own steam, not on her husband’s coat tails and is not the daughter or wife of a millionaire. A crook did not help her buy her home. She’s not best friends with an unrepentant terrorist who thinks the death of policemen and the destruction of the Pentagon was “not doing enough”.

Nope her sin in your eyes is that she is not a good mother so you won’t vote for her. She has a grown son who serves his country in the army and a daughter who didn’t runaway and hide and lie to her parents and get some hidden abortion. Nope, the kid made a mistake, but the way I judge character is not the nature of the mistake but the response to it. We all make mistakes, what separates us is how we own up to them. It’s called accountability. So far her grown children seem more than able to stand up under that character test which says more than a little bit about the quality of mother Palin is.

Now I’m not calling you a liar about your ’special needs’ child. You simply don’t sound authentic compared to the women that I know who have special needs children. But of course I know career women who have something besides dust and space between their ears.

And it frankly doesn’t bother me whether you’re even really a woman or not. what bothers me is the sexist nature of your attack. You think a man can have a job but not a woman? Or do you just hold that anyone with a special needs child should go on the government dole because no parent should work and be productive? Because I can promise you that you would not dare say a word about it if the candidate’s name was Sam instead of Sarah. Bigot.

And that turns my stomach.

Sep 2, 2008 - 9:48 pm 31. Phineas Worthington:

Should the rights of the able be subordinated to the needs of the disabled?

Sep 3, 2008 - 6:16 am 32. HRPKathy:

False choice, Phineas.

Sep 3, 2008 - 6:57 am 33. ddc:

We pay for a lot more nonsense than the needs of “special children” to the extent that taxpayer dollars to support these children is a non-factor. While it is a legitimate question to ask, it’s unnecessary to the debate when the larger issue is a woman’s right to choose for herself what she alone or what she and husband can handle.

Simply being pregnant does not a parent make. If a woman (and a man) have doubts about whether she or THEY can fully meet ALL the needs of a child either emotionally, physically or otherwise than that should be their choice.

If a woman has decided not to go ahead with a pregnancy it’ll be a sad day if she loses control over their bodies – and in desperation suffer yet again in the back alleys and under the knives and hangers of incompetent “abortionists.”

Sep 3, 2008 - 7:19 am 34. HRPKathy:

ddc, the sky is falling the sky is falling the sky is falling….

Thirty years ago I was in the first generation of young women told that abortion was about ‘controlling my own body’. During that time college friends of mine chose abortion. One had a nervous breakdown; she was a Catholic and it was a mortal sin to her. Another has tried repeatedly to have kids, but because of that “safe” abortion cannot. And still another is walking around with one kidney from a “safe” abortion that knicked her urethra. In all cases the babies died. All those safe abortions are very unsafe for at least half of the humans involved.

In the early eighties I got married and in two years I was carrying a ‘fetus’ too. It kicked, it squirmed, it bounced when I drank coffee and it was soothed by classical music. Then it was born. It wasn’t an it. It was a person, and at no point would my ‘preferences’ have been the prevailing moral authority as to the life and death of her. My eyes were opened, and this feminist career woman in a testosterone-dominated field realized that the “unfairness and equality” argument was fallacy. Women simply have to be more responsibile than me in facing up to the decision to have sex. We are never going to make ourselves EQUAL by murdering people, even the really quiet and helpless ones that can’t vote. And it doesn’t help our cause for equality to have the only issue that we fight for is the right to protect a womb when we have a lot more body parts that need defending. But as long as we can be distracted from abortion, the men have us, and we’re not demonstrating that our brains are our first consideration.

That’s why independent women who’ve had children, especially those under 45 who have seen ultrasounds of that unborn PERSON would never dream of murdering it. It isn’t the end all issue for anyone except (my apologies to Rumsfeld) the democrat dead-enders, the ugly feminazis that came ill-equipped in this world to function within its limits.

Right now the issue is respect for women and their personal achievements and the leadership at the top of the party says layoff Palin’s family. Some leader. Nobody is listening to him. Women are watching and we think the politics of personal destruction are part and parcel a democrat soley subsidized endeavor and its number one mechanism is rampant sexism in all its abhorrent glory.

Women are more than wombs. We have a minds. And right now it’s the achievements of those minds that are being disrespected. And given the choice, I’ll fight for my right to achieve over my right not to conceive any day.

Don’t bring abortion up as a women’s cause anymore. Only the willfully blind consider it humane. Senator Infanticide is no exception.

Abortion is not a woman’s right – it is a liberal woman’s peccadillo. A woman’s right is to have her achievements and accomplishments treated with the same respect as a man’s. Women are as entitled to ambition as a man.

The American media had better realize that and soon or those dinosaurs really to have an Ice Age coming.

Sep 3, 2008 - 12:14 pm 35. HRPKathy:

PIMF! Egads.

Women simply have to be more responsibile than me in facing up to the decision to have sex.

Should read:
Women simply have to be more responsible than MEN in facing up to the decision to have sex.

LOL.

Sep 3, 2008 - 12:16 pm 36. jay:

ddc:
What about the human rights of the baby? How about in this day and age we (men) use contraceptives or keep it in our pants? How about personal responsibility? How about us MEN stepping up to the plat and start thinking above our waists and teach our young sons well. Come on, almost 40 million! How can we live with that? If you can then you just plain out suck.

Sep 3, 2008 - 1:28 pm 37. kenth:

To those inquiring about Gov. Palin’s husband’s ability to take care of their child, I think the more pertinent question is, “Are they saying women are not able to have children and a job?” They’re reverting to a sexist argument. The democrat nominee has minor children, why is he not being castigated for not staying home to take care of them?

If the people who oppose Gov. Palin on the ballot were honest, it would be due to Palin’s energizing the conservative base, and not their fears for the country or her child. Two things are happening here. One, the left is terrified of the conservative base rallying around McCain now that he has selected a conservative running mate, one who was only dreamed of on conservative forums. We made our wishes, but held little hope that McCain could come close to selecting Palin. The second, and most insidious, reason the left has gone into extreme attack mode is their default pro-death stance. The left has married itself to death, they oppose life at every turn – except for themselves. The idea that Palin not only had five children, but one who was afflicted with Down’s Syndrome, repulsed them at their core.

Immediately after the announcement of Gov. Palin as McCain’s VP pick, some of the first comments on leftist websites attempted to disparage Palin for being a “breeder” and for having the gall to bear her child instead of aborting him. The left calls themselves pro-choice, but their choice is always killing. There is no support of those who choose to bear their children.

One item that needs to be interjected into this discussion is the role Sarah Palin will have. The job of the Vice President is notoriously boring. She will not be “leading the world” as the left pretends to worry. She will be helping carry out President McCain’s wishes, handling smaller day to day business, attending functions and being a Presidential dignitary and performing her duties as President of the Senate, casting the occasional tie-breaking vote. Others have fulfilled the role while raising children.

Sep 3, 2008 - 1:45 pm 38. jay:

My brother in-law’s son has Down syndrome, His son is now 24 and does pretty well, he is a pleasure to know but it did take a lot of work to raise him. My brother in law is a preacher in a very large church and his wife is a schoolteacher and they still managed to raise a large family too. I think the issue of Governor Palin and her husband caring for her children is a non-issue. For me, case closed.

Sep 3, 2008 - 2:13 pm 39. ddc:

Jay

I am all for responsibility. Boys and girls. I abhore the idea of abortion, but it is not for me to decide what another woman does with her body. I think there should be limits to abortion, yes. But really, I feel more for the person already living who has to deal with questions I would never have to deal with.

That people will have sex is a fact of life. That condoms break is a fact of life. That people will act irresponsibly with regards to sex is a fact of life. While I think teaching abstinence is a good idea, I also believe in letting kids have all the facts. Abstinence isn’t foolproof and neither is laying it all out for them.

I really don’t know what the answer is. Aside from making pregnancy (for males and females) a punishable crime or making a viable birth control pill for males. Perhaps the boys will be more vigilant with birth control than the girls who knows? But do we really think we will stop all young people from accidentally getting pregnant when they otherwise shouldn’t? Doubtful. I absolutely do know that the answer shouldn’t be to make abortions illegal across the board for all women and make these people have children they neither want, nor can take care of or to have women abort their own babies with God-knows-what.

Sep 3, 2008 - 3:10 pm 40. john from cinncinati:

so who will decide who is worthy of life? is there an I.Q. cutoff? we already have a breeding program but it just isn’t very scientific, its called the bar scene. what will we use as a guide? to short, to ugly, to skinny, to fat. green eyes or blue? i like brown, but what about hazel? to smart, to dumb, to rich, to poor. do we take a chance or keep it on the safe side? but what is safe? can downy kids be American too? they are in my book.

Sep 3, 2008 - 4:26 pm 41. aunt ralph:

umm? Hello Editors?

The thumbnail picture is Willow, not Trig ??
And not a very good likeness of that lovely child.

Sep 4, 2008 - 3:54 am 42. Allison Kaplan Sommer:

aunt ralph,

Editor here – that is just an illustrative picture of a Down’s Syndrome kid, it wasn’t meant to be one of the Palin children. Sorry for the misunderstanding.

Sep 4, 2008 - 4:01 am 43. Evelyn:

No law you can write will compel adults to love their kids.

Women who are made to have kids they don’t want will hate them, and they won’t like to put the hard work to raise them properly either.

So at best you’ll get dysfunctional adults out of such forced families, so, whichever way you turn it, it’s a hard choice, nothing wins, everything just loses. In the long run, I think abortion is better than raising broken people, because those folks are like poison to society and unloved kids grow into criminals and produce unwanted kids themselves, most of them don’t know how to raise kids either (think about it — you can’t learn this from books…!) and so, you get the messed up culture that keeps people in poverty and ignorance.(that way round, not the other!)

Down’s syndrome is not a big deal when compared to other disabilities — what would your take be on abortion if the child had some of the very painful and expensive genetic problems? Would you put a child through lifelong serious pain, work yourself to exhaustion 24/7 until you die and in the process financially cripple your family, thus curtailing the chances of the healthy siblings to be successful?

I think those decisions are best left to the individuals who themselves have to decide what they are taking on. If you compel people, all that happens is that they’ll find a way of their enforced duties somehow — and some families would be destroyed that way too.

Few people who would otherwise abort will WANT their disabled kids just because the law says so, you cannot legislate for love nor sanity.

All you can do is to make it possible for people to do the right thing, but in the UK, support for carers is almost non-existent — we have small kids (6 years of age is no rarity) having to care full-time for sick, bed-bound adults who would need proper help but are not getting it, it’s that dire here, adult carers get even less help than child carers. Don’t know what the state in the US is, but it probably won’t be much better.

This is where to start — make it possible for people to look after their sick and disabled family members so that an abortion is no longer the only sane choice that many people have got.

Sep 4, 2008 - 6:50 am 44. ddc:

“No law you can write will compel adults to love their kids.

Women who are made to have kids they don’t want will hate them, and they won’t like to put the hard work to raise them properly either.

So at best you’ll get dysfunctional adults out of such forced families, so, whichever way you turn it, it’s a hard choice, nothing wins, everything just loses.”

That is basically the size of the abortion question. I would though add men to the equation as they are 50% responsible for producing a baby. There are vast amounts of unwanted children alive and living outside the womb lingering in ophanages in this country and the next and until and unless we can assure THOSE kids the love and nurturing they deserve as human beings what right do we have to subject more of these children to a life we wouldn’t want for our own children. I dislike like abortion on a personal level but the alternatives aren’t better.

Sep 4, 2008 - 8:58 am 45. Sharonsj:

The key word here is CHOICE. Sarah Palin and her husband discussed the situation regarding their unborn child and chose to have it. Funny how she would deny that discussion and choice to every other woman in America. But then again, religious nuts always think they’re right and everyone else is wrong. Yes, life is sacred, but humans kill each other and everything else on a daily basis, so that argument won’t work.

Sep 4, 2008 - 10:57 am 46. Bullfrog:

This whole debate can be distilled into 2 key questions:

1. When does life begin?
2. Do you respect life?

I suppose you can order the questions any way you like.

Sep 4, 2008 - 3:25 pm 47. Phineas Worthington:

An egg is not a chicken.

Right to lifers equivocate potential human entities with actual human entities.

Rights only apply to actual human entities.

An egg is not a chicken.

Sep 5, 2008 - 6:48 am 48. Bullfrog:

“An egg is not a chicken”? I have never heard that one, but that doesn’t make it anything more than the weakest argument I have ever heard for pro-choice.

So you believe life begins when?

Sep 5, 2008 - 7:47 am 49. Down’s Syndrome Screening « Doc C’s Internet Haven of Serenity:

[...] This blog is rightly concerned with the way Sarah Palin’s anti-abortion stance and her Down’s syndrome have stirred the media, and asks for a frank discussion of the rights of the disabled. (Godwin’s Law violations will need to be forgiven The writer refers to the case of Baby Doe -  an American controversy from the Regan era. I’d never heard of this case, but it involved the parents of a Down’s syndrome baby born with a tracheo-oesophageal fistula (in this case relatively simple and low risk to correct surgically) refusing corrective surgery and allowing their child to die of starvation. Supreme Court intervention was sought, but it was unsuccessful and the child died. The Baby Doe Law was enacted in response. [...]

Sep 5, 2008 - 9:04 am 50. Soccermom:

What it boils down to is this: The left just cannot stand how inadequate and compassionless and selfish they feel when they come up against someone like Sarah Palin. It’s hard for them to look in the mirror and it makes them angry. They hate feeling like that. It’s gut-wrenching for them. They cannot measure up to her standards. They are not brave enough. And that’s why they attack and ridicule. They don’t have the guts and moxy to do something like her (choosing to give birth and love a disabled child). They don’t have the character. Kind tolerant left? Completely false, it’s conservatives who have more compassion and tolerance.

I’m Canadian and I wish I could vote for McCain/Palin. Up here, there are many politicians who are Pro-Life but they have to keep it quiet. They cannot advocate for it. That would be the end of their careers. Very sad, but true. Thanks to an entrenched liberal society and liberal media who have had their way for far too long.

BTW, I also have a beautiful loving son with Down Syndrome. And there is a reason he is here. I see it in his uplifting smile every day.

Sep 5, 2008 - 9:32 am 51. Soccermom:

One more note; we had a Liberal Party Prime Minister a few years ago who was, according to himself and the media, a “devout Catholic”. But guess what? He was pro-choice. What a joke.

Talk about the hypocritical left!

Sep 5, 2008 - 10:22 am 52. Soccermom:

“Women who are made to have kids they don’t want will hate them, and they won’t like to put the hard work to raise them properly either.” so said an earlier poster.

Hmm, ever hear of adoption????? Duh. There is such a thing, you know.

Sep 5, 2008 - 10:24 am 53. cedarford:

Bullfrog – So you believe life begins when?

Always the argument RTL religious fanatics retreat to. The zygote of the fertilized egg is by their logic indistinguishable from the viable form of life because it too is alive and genetically indistinguishable.

By RTL nutty reasoning, an ordance to prevent town oak trees would also have to be made to prevent every acorn from destruction because to a RTL fanatic, there is no difference between the two. Thus to a RTL fanatic, shooting squirrels to “save the beautiful oak trees in acorn form” makes perfect sense.

And that a old, all but dead oak or diseased young tree soon to die – should command equal town resources in their care and maintenance.

Life either began in primitive one-cell organisms that became more complex bacteria 2.6-3 billion years ago or when God breathed life
into the 6,000 year old Earth. Take your pick.
Human life started when the 1st distinct breeding population evolved from hominids and the process of new human life starts as a female spits eggs from her ovaries and the male produces testes. Or we can do the same thing by manipulating DNA in living human skin cells.

There are a variety of ways to now create “distinct human life”. Science is figuring out more…as we can now insert or remove DNA from cells. Even add DNA from other species (create chimeras).

Or in other species, “start” precious life by dropping a chemical on, or mildly shocking with electricity – unfertilized eggs.

Plus other critters that “create precious babies” by cell division, buds, switching sexes.

Sep 5, 2008 - 10:45 am 54. Evelyn:

@soccermom: adoption has it’s own difficulties and there are plenty of kids out there for adoption that are in no way able to fit into a normal family either because they are too old to grow up normal now.

You can argue that we ought to take kids off their moms at birth, but in the UK we have young moms flee to Ireland because social services has adoption targets and will steal babies off moms with a history, regardless of how justified it is.

See here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1051180/Mum-run-Pregnant-teen-flees-Ireland-escape-social-workers-fears-baby.html

As I said, this is the kind of game that everyone loses, all the time. If you are in the UK — how can you even adopt a baby knowing that you may be stealing someone’s child? This is just one case of many

Sep 5, 2008 - 5:44 pm 55. Willie:

Sharonsj:

“humans kill each other and everything else on a daily…”

If I understand you correctly, then abortion is o.k. too?

Might I remind you that there are laws against killing.

Sep 5, 2008 - 6:08 pm 56. gus3:

@sharonsj:

The standard-bearers of the “pro-choice” crowd have a pathetic understanding of just what “choice” means:

http://gus3.typepad.com/i_am_therefore_i_think/2005/08/clueless_planne.html

Sep 7, 2008 - 7:57 am 57. Dotte:

I will not give Palin any credit for what she said she will do for special needs children since she now has one. What was her stance prior to the convention? ALL credit goes to and should go to the Kennedy’s and their great work with such programs, especially the Special Olympics. Maybe, she did not know this. Pres, Reagan took away a lot of the needs such as transportation to and fro to workshops which gave retarded kids a means of work and recreation. Without the transportation they could not attend. I know what the Republicans can do to such programs because I witnessed such unkind deed done to my sister-in-law, who is retarded. She is a sham and need to stay home with her special needs child like a REAL mom would do, and not a father or siblings who she will depend upon. What does it profit a man to win the world and lose his soul. I am a woman and a REAL mom. There are things which we, as women need to do as a woman, such as give birth, nuture (breast feed) which a man cannot do and no one expect him to. GOD made women for certain deeds, and if not–there would not be a reason for a man/woman. Only, one species would do. If she is real Christian, then she needs to Walk and Talk like one.

Sep 8, 2008 - 4:37 pm 58. Jeff:

For a more compelling look at Sarah Palin, please take a look at this link below—

http://howinsaneisjohnmccain.blogspot.com/2008/09/sarah-palin-scandals-complete-list.html

Sep 8, 2008 - 10:45 pm 59. momof3girls:

I may not be as well versed as some of you but what I have to say to all of you leftist and undecided relion haters is this- you can believe what you want,yes. The truth of the matter IS that if you do not wake up, some day you WILL be judged, believe it or not, but you will believe it then standing before your maker. He will deny knowing you as you have him and the words of those “crazy religious freaks” will eternally ring in your ears! Consider yourself warned

Oct 2, 2008 - 5:30 pm 60. scecil:

When a person is deemed unworthy of life because of a below average IQ score, and perhaps because they look different from others, then we have become a really ugly society? (And I am not including in here IQ stats of Down Syndrome people as compared to other factions of our society because then I would defintely be attacked though I am only a messenger.)
And then on top of this, it’s not enough that these loudmouths already have their totally unconstitutional Roe v. Wade, now they have the audacity to make judgments about whether other people’s babies are worthy of life.

The truth is that there are huge portions of our society that fall into the below average IQ range (even without a detectable chromosomal condition). And I did notice that one of the comments gave costliness as a rationale for the slaughter of our disabled population as well — but I do believe that there are factions of our society that are a greater drain on our goverment’s budget due to the need for support and the inability to effectively contribute to society and to the economy. So, if we’re going to start using such criteria for whether individuals should live or die, we are really going down a very heinous path.

Now, I’m pointing this out, but I am not advocating it — I am for life — I am from the party that came out of a movement that believed that every single human being is a child of God created equally. The party I stand with was formed centuries ago fighting for such a cause, and we still believe it today.

Oct 23, 2008 - 2:27 pm 61. John Kuklidas:

Dafloyd:You want to kill the disabled slowly by not educating them and not allowing to learn the skills they need to earn money. Without money you starve to death.

Jul 13, 2009 - 4:39 pm

Write a Comment

Name:	(required, displayed)
Email:	(required, not publicized)
URL:	(optional, displayed)
Comments: