March comes in like a lion and out like a lamb. That's how the saying goes. And oh, how it rings true for my family. It is Lent, of course, a time for the faithful to pray, sacrifice and fast. And it is in our prayerful reflections and daily acts that we prepare ourselves for Easter and new life.
March is also Trisomy Awareness Month. For my family, this has become a time to celebrate the life of our daughter Bella. Bella was born almost five years ago with trisomy 18, a severe genetic condition that I believe makes every day with her a gift from God. Children with trisomy 18 have an extra chromosome, are born underweight and suffer a number of health issues that lead in most cases to a shortened life. It is true that 90 percent of babies with trisomy 18 die at or before birth, many by abortion. Only 1 in 10 that survive birth see their first birthday. Despite this painful reality, Bella has enriched our lives beyond measure, and she is a happy child surrounded by the love and comforts of her family. We've been truly blessed, but we do not take for granted the resources and access to medical support and pro-life disability groups we have had in caring for Bella.
Not every child born with trisomy 18 — or any physical or mental disability, for that matter, of course — has the means or the access to the same support. This is true across the United States, but it's especially true in developing countries, where many of these children live in poverty. This March, to observe Trisomy Awareness Month, we are thinking about those children and the great organizations that are working tirelessly to support them. And we hope you join us in recognizing them for the great work they do.
My wife, Karen, and I believe that every life is sacred and that every child is born with the God-given right to live a rich and rewarding life. And this is just as true for children with disabilities. When these children are born into lower-income families, the challenges they face can be quite steep. And though public assistance may ease the situation, we can't rely on the government alone to help these families and these children.
We must do more. We must support communities, organizations and churches that can provide specific support to these families.
I'd like to mention a few examples of the organizations that are doing this important work. Building awareness will help these children, and if you are able to support them this Easter season, please do.
Prenatal Partners for Life provides a community where parents, medical professionals and clergy can connect with one another and exchange information. It also includes resources such as adoption agencies that have clients waiting to adopt children with special needs. For other families with children born with trisomy, there is SOFT, the Support Organization for Trisomy. SOFT is also a community of families affected by trisomy, each dedicated to providing support for other families throughout each child's life. Jill's House in Virginia does amazing work providing support and some relief for challenges and stresses families that have special needs children face. These families are often stretched financially and emotionally, and Jill's House is there to provide some help. And finally, the Faith and Family Foundation at Wheatland Farm in Virginia provides a host of activities and support services for special needs children and their families.
All of those organizations do great work — but they aren't the only ones. The Special Olympics, led by the Kennedy and Shriver families, has worked so hard for decades. And across the country, countless nonprofits and churches provide support on a daily basis to help meet what the special needs children and their families so badly need. These are worthy organizations, providing countless hours of time and much-needed support.
As I've written before, our Bella has been a blessing. She has brought us so much joy and happiness. And despite her special needs, she, too, lives a purposeful and rich life. It's important for us to continually affirm life and our belief in the fundamental right to life by supporting those who work to ensure that all families with special needs children are able to provide for them. It's not easy, we know, and in fact, it's among the biggest challenges a parent can face. But they are not alone. Join me in being there for them.
Rick Santorum is a co-founder of Patriot Voices and the author of "American Patriots: Answering the Call to Freedom." To find out more about Rick Santorum and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2013 CREATORS.COM
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Sir;... You and your wife should have the right to bring as many damaged children into life as you desire; but anyone who advocates that all such children should be born against the wills of their parents are criminals who should be burdened with the support of any child whose life they demand...
I would agree that you have a right to life; and even your bella has a right to life, and that all once alive in the eyes of the public have such a right...Your right is based, however upon every individual's right to their own person and life... You may think your rights are God given; but if this was so, why is God not left to defend what he has bestowed??? Instead, your rights are constitutionally granted by the people and by their common consent to them... And when church people want to be obnoxious they attack other people's rights to do as they please with their own bodies without being able to offer even a hypothetical injury to themselves...An injury to self is a sin... An injury to society is a crime, and only in ancient times when the guiding spirit of a community was its god was sin also crime...
When church people deny rights as they have so often done, they deny their right to deny...To be in a position to deny rights, one must be superior to rights, and no church person can claim such superiority except by virtue of a privilage of religious freedom granted by the people through their constitution... If it is considered possible to turn a right against a right with only a majority, then no right is certain, even from a determined minority...The object of democracy is not simply the protection of a few privilages like property, press, and religion; but to protect the whole people first, and then to protect the minority from the majority, and the majority from the minority...
It is difficult to imagine a world where a retarded person would want to be born, though many seem quite happy... We are often inclined to look at others as though they could see themselves as we see them; but we know we cannot do this in regard to ourselves... So; while we say: I would not want to live that way; they may, and often clearly do seek life for themselves... The worms holds onto mother earth, and failing in that, resists the robin's beak... Should I judge the worm's life hell, or the bird's life heaven???
Life is will; and the question you and the moronic right should ask is: what is destroying the will of so many to pass on their lives to another generation... What is a sin against nature, or a sin by your definition of sin does not become a crime if it is essentially a demonstration of a right... But what a poor right, if all it is, is a reistence to the tragedy, and the crime of a life robbed of meaning...If you citizens with your perverted views of rights and wrongs are able; then only consider what you can do, one and all, to give your fellow citizens meaningful lives that they would like to share with anyone and everyone, even those of their own making...
Christians find meaning in slavery, as every Christian is: the property of Christ... Such slavery unfits a person for democracy; and if such people believe in God, but do not believe in their fellow human beings, then they should withdraw from politics and manage their own behavior...There is no law on this earth that can make a man sin against his God, and there is no law preventing sins against the public spirit...For such sins against the public, and in resistence to sins against God, the ancient Christians were fed to the lions...This was justice, and also law; because these people made their choice to live as citizens, as moral beings -though they set themselves apart immorally from the public belief in its own guiding genius...In time; the Christians were as ruthless against those they considered immoral; but we should be beyond that...
Women who refuse to bring children into this world as poor babies, suffering poverty amid plenty, knowing the insatiable curse of envy, feeling their poverty as injury and becoming every day more poisonous and monsterous in desires and appearance- to society, until killed or imprisoned as animals -should be given a medal... There is no excuse for people suffering poverty amid such wealth except that we allow greater wealth in order that many may suffer great poverty...
Those who cry about abortions, and make a spectacle of their deformed babies do absolutely nothing for social justice, but work night and day for social injustices, and primarily, for curbing individual freedom with bad law...Women who must choose abortions do not need more law, but more justice, and until law delivers justice it is not law at all; but coercion... You sir; stand on the side of coercion...
You may have a wonderful moral argument to make that you destroy by not bothering to make it; but simply jump to coercion based upon your beliefs....Every mother finding her self with the choice of abortion, which is usually, plainly the choice of abortion opposed to suicide, are already suffering the want of enough rights because rights would equal power enough to have justice and a fair share of the commonwealth...
You would force children to be born unloved...
What crime is that; when if you loved humanity instead of your distant God who is supposed to love humanity, then you would lift a finger for them, open your hearts and your wallets to them, and bring them into your lives...
You want to make a law...
I do too... I want to make idiots illegal, and that means you, and all people like you ought to be on a leash and with a licence...You must produce a body, any body injured in a physical sense by abortion... The psychological and moral injury you all whine about does not count because if you cared about pain you would do something about the real and tangible injury injustice causes that very often results in abortion as well as in other crimes against society.
Thanks....Sweeney
Comment: #1
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Tue Mar 19, 2013 7:26 AM
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