WE ARE WHAT WE DO:

I wish Ruth Marcus had come to the birthday party Wednesday night.

Not that I know her that well, but I've always found her pleasant, decent, and smart. We've exchanged green room pleasantries and apparently last week during a joint appearance, I introduced her to the term "pornstache" (in a discussion of John Bolton's facial hair).

A few weeks ago, Marcus created a stir with her column headlined: "I would've aborted a fetus with Down syndrome. Women need that right." A mother of two, Marcus wrote that she was old enough to be tested for Down syndrome after the 15th week of her pregnancy. "I can say without hesitation," she wrote, "that, tragic as I would have felt, and ghastly as a second-trimester abortion would have been, I would have terminated those pregnancies had the testing come back positive. I would have grieved the loss and moved on."

I would have liked to have taken Ms. Marcus to Gracie Jagler's 21st birthday party.

Gracie had her hair done for the event and a limousine brought her to the local Elks Club lodge for the gathering of families and friends. Coincidentally, her birthday fell on World Down Syndrome Day, which was appropriate since Gracie was born with an extra chromosome.

I wish I could have introduced Marcus to this lovely young woman and told her Gracie's story. Last year, Gracie was awarded the first-ever Blake Pyron Entrepreneurship Scholarship. The award, given by the National Down Syndrome Society, recognized Gracie's success in creating her own company--a natural dog treat business based out of her home in Watertown, Wisconsin, called Gracie's Doggie Delights.

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