We could be, though. In many ways my 45-year-old husband and I could be perfect parents. We’re professionals, with university degrees, own our own house, it’s even paid off (we’re financially careful yuppies). We’re also fit — we do Ironman events, marathons, play golf, travel and help support my parents. But being healthy, and looking 10 years younger isn’t enough to fool the gods that govern genetics. It turns out my 40-year-old eggs don’t give a hoot that I’m physically fit.
Here is what so hard for people to understand, but so necessary: the "disabled" child would have changed your life…but so will aborting this child. It’s an action that cannot be undone, a life that can never be retrieved, "what if’s" that can never be answered, and pain that will stick.
What I would give for the Church to be a more specific voice on this – yes, everyone knows the Church’s general stance on life, and various dioceses, plus the USCCB, do excellent educational work. But there’s an immediacy, an urgency and a directness that’s missing. When’s the last time you ever heard a church spokesperson directly address women and men, parents, on this matter, bravely reaching to the heart of the matter and the turmoil produced by a culture and society and medical establishment that is at best "indifferent" and at worst most supportive, even insistent on the "choice" to abort. 90% of all Downs’ Syndrome children are aborted. Parents sitting in pews in Catholic churches aren’t a part of that 90%? Really?
It’s been a sticking point of mine for a while – Project Rachel being the exception, Catholic talk about abortion is tinged with an air of distance, of a sense that this is a "social problem" that lies outside of us sitting in the pews, except for how we vote. It’s not. It’s about saving lives, and the fatal (literally) flaw in institutional Catholic pro-life rhetoric is the discomfort with admitting that dark reality.
Link via Blogger Sheepcat, who also provides links to the support group Be Not Afraid, for parents awaiting the birth of children with disabilities.
Waiting with Love is another group for parents of children with even more serious problems: "For Parents Who Choose to Continue a Pregnancy Knowing Their Unborn Baby Will Die Before or Shortly After Birth and for Families Who Learn Their Newborn Will Die"
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