November 12, 2004
PEOPLE WHO HATE PEOPLE:
Tumor growing in Democratic Party (Francis X. Maier, November 12, 2004, Rocky Mountain News)
I met my wife before I had returned to my childhood faith. One day I made the mistake of poking fun at those neanderthal Catholic views on abortion. What I got for my ignorance was a kindly but memorable tutoring on the sanctity of human life.For my wife and her family, being a Catholic meant being a Democrat, and being a Democrat meant fighting for the little guy - literally. That included the poor, the homeless, racial and ethnic minorities, and the unemployed. It also meant defending the unborn child.
For my wife, arguing whether an unborn child was a "full human person" or a "developing human being" was irrelevant - or worse, a kind of lying. The dignity of the unborn life involved was exactly the same, whatever one called it.
In the years since the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion on demand, my wife and I have struggled many times with the choice of voting Democratic. Our youngest son has Down syndrome, and Democratic policies often benefit the disabled in ways Republican policies don't.
But it's also true that children like our son are becoming extinct in part because the abortion lobby has a stranglehold on the Democratic Party platform, with all that it implies for legislation and judicial appointments. The easiest response to handicapped children is to kill them before they arrive. That's not a solution. That's homicide.
We can't build a just society while killing a million unborn children a year. No matter how much good we try to do, we can't outrun the effects of that most intimate form of violence against women and children.
Hard to believe you can build a successful American political party on death either. Posted by Orrin Judd at November 12, 2004 8:59 AM
For my wife, arguing whether an unborn child was a "full human person" or a "developing human being" was irrelevant - or worse, a kind of lying.
That is because it is lying. If you found a fetus on Mars, the headlines would say "Life found on Mars".
Posted by: pchuck at November 12, 2004 9:38 AMI had my first child in NYC and my OB had us meet with a 'genetic counselor'. I told the counselor that I didn't see how anyone could abort a child just because it had Downs. He said some couples would abort for gender. I knew this happened, but hearing it from him was chilling. It obviously bothered him, but he wasn't able to verbally take any sides in the issue.
The Left has a designer mentality. They think they can design a world. Little do they know, they will design themselves right out of it.
For instance, what do you think prospective parents will do if a genetic marker for homosexuality is found in an age of genetic manipulation?
Posted by: NKR at November 12, 2004 9:40 AMIt's perversely ironic given all their preening about being the party of "the little guy". It would be bracing, and perhaps enhance their status if they abandoned that line and just proclaimed themselves the party of The Superman.
Posted by: luciferous at November 12, 2004 9:54 AMA Third-order Dominican once told me "Hell is full of Supermen".
Posted by: Ken at November 12, 2004 12:29 PM