Quickly

No time to blog about this to the extent I'd like to but I would draw your attention to commenters b and Lisa who say, re the Sarah Palin post below, respectively:

"It really bothers me that "knowingly had a Down syndrome baby" (by the way, "baby with Down syndrome" is the preferred language) seems to automatically equate to pro-life in most of the public discourse about Sarah Palin I've been seeing. People with all kinds of disabilities have much to contribute to their families and communities, and are often wanted children in their own right regardless of their parents' political views. There is no reason someone pro-choice couldn't or wouldn't choose to have a child with a disability. Not that Sarah Palin is pro-choice... just that this reflexive analysis of "she's so pro-life that she even had a Down syndrome baby" feels to me like an implicit judgement that anyone who considers abortion an acceptable choice would and should necessarily choose to terminate a pregnancy if the fetus has a disability. Not in my world!"

and

"yeah, I second the whole thing about the "knowingly giving birth to a baby with down syndrome = pro-life." I mean, I get that she is pro-life, but I don't see the CHOICE (which she had) of giving birth to that child as obvious anecdotal evidence of someone's pro-life stance. Especially the KNOWINGLY part is so blatently bigotted. Like no sane pro-choicer would do that. Well, I'm pro-choice, and all other factors put aside for the moment, I would knowingly have a child with down syndrome.

It's lovely how the repubs can insult women with a woman VP nominee that was supposed to grab up the Clinton supporters and insult both people with disabilities and pro-choicers with such a screwed up praise as someone who would give birth to a baby with a disability could obviously be nothing else but pro-life."

And add 1) AMEN to that and 2) I feel the same way about the spin around McCain's adoption of the pitiful brown baby who no one without a heart of gold would want to raise.

The kids are the losers in both cases here, and all kids with special needs (NOT "special needs kids") and all adopted children by extension.

I'd love to say my own piece about it, but too busy at the moment.

Comments

[pollyanna sunshine]

Hear, hear! Especially about the adopting Bridget = proof of Cindy's saintliness. What does it do to a kid to hear people constantly congratulating her parents (or themselves) on how "humanitarian" they were to take her into their home? The McCain campaign also explicitly uses their experience as an adoptive family as a "pro-life" credential: http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/Issues/95b18512-d5b6-456e-90a2-12028d71df58.htm.

The McCains really seem like the most unreflective and self-absorbed adoptive parents I've ever heard of.

[Christina Shaver]

All of it is politics and spin doctoring to convince someone for a vote. I believe none of it and pretty much none of what either candidate says. I go by their actions and not their words.

What I see in Sarah Palin is lack of good judgment. Here is a woman who is on the verge of becoming a grandmother for the first time -- a grandmother whose grandchild will need lots of support given the nature of the age of the child's parents -- and a woman who just gave birth to a child with Down's Syndrome.

I have a child with multiple special needs, and she is lying to herself if she thinks she can be both a good mother and a good VP. Something is going to suffer, and my guess is that it's going to affect her job. How can someone not put family first when push comes to shove?

I get that her spouse may become or already is the primary caretaker of the children. The onus isn't solely on her to raise the family just because she is a woman. But if McCain is elected president she will manage the next four years or eight years of her infant's life -- CRUCIAL years in child development for any child and most especially important for kids with special needs -- AND manage the role of VP? It simply can't be done. She has no idea.

It is for this reason that I have serious doubts in her judgment. And I therefore have serious doubts in McCain's judgment to make her his running mate. Would I want my "go to" person to have so much personal responsibility? Absolutely NOT.

[Sara]

It extends even further than equating keeping a child with a disability with pro-life. I can't tell you how many folks have said to us about our son that what a "miracle" he was. I don't argue that medicine and technology did a lot to save his life at the start - but now? He's a plain old kid, with some mobility challenges that most kids don't have. He's no "miracle" - beyond the miraculous being that all kids are ;)

[Nicole]

Don't you wonder if the choice to keep the kid (the pregnant daughter) was really her own? or is there no choice in that family either.