Try to imagine....
Imagine that you love somebody with a profound developmental disability. Imagine that you have come to admire this person. Imagine that you have seen so much joy and beauty and dignity in this person that one of the best compliments that anybody could give you is to say that they see a bit of him in you. You love this person more than words can say.
You realize that much of the rest of the world looks at him and sees somebody who is "retarded" and "deformed", but you see a masterpiece of God's handiwork.
Imagine a candidate for President who chooses as a running mate somebody who can see that joy and beauty and dignity, who is able to see your loved one as a masterpiece of God's handiwork. Not as "defective", but as an example of a Divine perfection.
Imagine how desperately you would want to see that person in office -- that person who sees your loved one as a worthwhile and valuable human, even though the rest of the world sees him as something subhuman, to be shunted away in an institution if by some mistake "it" is allowed to be born in the first place.
Now imagine that this candidate, who is ready to value and embrace your loved one, is defeated. Imagine instead that a candidate is elected who does not see the beauty and value in your loved one. And imagine seeing massive celebrations of this election. An election that seems to you to be a referendum on the value of your loved one. A referendum declaring that his value is less than zero. That he's a burden. That he should have been weeded out in the womb, and if that failed, stuck in a closet and left to die.
Over half the country is doing the happy dance that babies just like my loved one will continue be put to death, and in ever greater numbers -- preferably before birth, but after birth if necessary.
Give me a while to be heartbroken about that before you gloat, Obama supporters. Try to understand that I really do love somebody who most people just see as "retarded" and "deformed".
But you can go ahead with the snarky comments: "Okay! You're retarded! You're deformed!" Because then you'd just be telling me that I'm like M. And you can't insult me by comparing me to one of the most remarkable human beings I've ever met, a man I love and admire deeply.
If you can't see his value, that's no reflection on him, or on me. And I can feel compassion for you as I'd feel compassion for a blind man who can never see the beauty of a Monet, a deaf man who can never hear the beauty of Mozart, a lonely man who doesn't know the loving smile of a friend.
I just wish you could feel compassion for those of us who love those you see as unlovable.
11 comments:
This is one of the most beatiful posts I've read lately.
Over half the country is doing the happy dance that babies just like my loved one will continue be put to death, and in ever greater numbers -- preferably before birth, but after birth if necessary.
What? You know, this is why the anti-abortion movement is such a failure: you treat everyone who disagrees with you like a monster.
Pro-choice people don't hate the disabled. We just don't want the government telling us what to do with our bodies. We believe women should be allowed to follow their own beliefs about abortion.
President Obama will work to promote life by bringing affordable health care to all, reducing unwanted pregnancies and supporting working families. He'll save more babies than Bush ever did.
Well said, Christina. My prayers are with you.
Pro-choice people don't hate the disabled.
Yah, right. Look at all the hatred that was directed at Palin's son, Trig. "Retard" and "it" were some of the nicer epiteths hurled at the infant.
90% of children diagnosed with disabilities in the womb are aborted. Not because the child is a threat to the mother's life or health - simply because the child is disabled. So your argument holds no water.
We believe women should be allowed to follow their own beliefs about abortion.
Yeah, until that woman has an abortion and suffers from it and changes her views. Then you believe that woman should be demonized, belittled, shuffled aside, and discredited as crazy or a minor statistic.
I highly suggest you really read this blog.
See what the de-regulation of abortion clinics via FOCA will actually do to women.
Obama and his supporters don't give a crap about unborn babies, just votes. And irresponsibility.
We will answer for our crimes against humanity. In a big way.
And if things fall as I fear, and Obama surrenders to the terrorists who hate us, having abortion rights will be the least of your worries - abortion is forbidden under shar'ia law, don'tcha know?
well said, amy.
:-)
angele
When I see a prochoice politician outraged at how Marla Cardamone and Allegra Roseberry were bullied and deceived into abortions that killed them, I'll believe all the talk about caring about women. It's as if women are just cannon fodder in some sort of fetal extermination campaign.
Marla and Allegra didn't WANT abortions. They were browbeaten into them by medical professionals who lied to them. Where was the CHOICE? And does the abortion lobby care?
I have seen ONE prochoice politician that seems to care about women like Marla and Allegra, and that's Ted Kennedy, who co-sponsored the Brownback/Kennedy bill to make doctors stop bullying women into eugenics abortions.
90% of children diagnosed with disabilities in the womb are aborted.
And people deplored, publicly, that Sarah Palin had let Trig live because it might encourage other women to let their babies live.
I love them too. So few are born alive now...
And people deplored, publicly, that Sarah Palin had let Trig live because it might encourage other women to let their babies live.
Yes, they were openly repulsed by his very existence.
That should tell everyone something about how the "compassionate", "tolerant" left views the disabled and infirm: with disgust.
Those who voted for Obama will be sorry. And the blood of the unborn is on their hands, too.
Well said. I'm a Democrat, but I find all of this Obama gloating to be STUPENDOUSLY repulsive and largely undeserved. I still think that Obama would have lost if the stock market hadn't crashed. He was the lesser of two evils, for most.
Thank you, anon.
I know that the people who are happy about Obama's win -- most of them -- weren't voting for him because of his stand that being left in a closet to die is good enough for a "mongoloid baby". But it's almost worse that the whole issue never really made it onto their radar. The disabled kids, and abortion survivors like Rowan (left to die in a toilet) or Shanice (put in a biohazard bag and tossed onto a roof) are beneath their notice, to trivial to enter into the equation.
The opposite of love isn't hate, it's indifference. So it would be almost better if they hated these kids. But they don't even care enough to hate them. And I find that immeasurably sad. Especially when so many of the jubilant Obama supporters are -- or at least were -- my friends. And it's not that I'll turn my back on them; they are chiding me to "be sensitive" -- while they're dancing on Rowan's grave.
But some of them, at least, are no longer denying that he's even there. That's progress of a sort, I suppose.
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