By now I hope that you’ve read this amazing post on Redstate.com by Melissa Clouthier, in which she shares her response, as the mother of a special needs child, to an article from the UK Daily Mail entitled Abortion or a baby born with a disability. Warning: both pieces are heart-wrenching, but essential reads for pro-life activists around the world.
After you’ve read these, I hope you will take a moment to consider the following points. And I urge you to post your responses in the comments box below or in the associated Facebook post for this article.
Melissa’s question at the end of her post is critical: What have we (as a society) become that this decision (to abort a welcomed, loved though disabled child) was encouraged?
My related question is what resources are available to couples facing the same heartbreaking decision? Where can they learn more about embracing such devastating prenatal diagnoses and affirming the sanctity of Life? Where can they find support when they & their unborn child need it most? I honestly don’t have the answers and maybe I was using the wrong google terms, but nothing immediately popped up.
As Melissa suggested in her post – we should all pray for George and for his parents & family who will never know the love and joy he might have brought them. We should also pray for the strength that faces us as we continue to fight for life. As one of the other SuzyB contributors pointed out to me, this comment was rated among the worst in the comm boxes for the UK Daily Mail article:
How could anyone possibly know for sure that the baby will have a bleak future? Perhaps it’s more appropriate to say that the parents believe they face a bleak future… I have a child with Down’s. Her siblings and extended family love her to pieces. It was very scary when she was born, but it is the best thing I could ever hoped to happen to me and her brothers and sisters. I always prayed that my kids would be compassionate, and because of her, they are…not that she needs anyone to feel sorry for her. She makes other people feel good about themselves. A friend told me when she was born that my daughter wasn’t the one with the problem; I was.
If we take this opportunity to honor George by allowing his story to motivate us in our continued efforts to fight for Life in all its varied beauty, then his untimely death will not be in vain. In fact, his death would serve a great purpose – one far beyond anything his parents could have imagined. George’s life and death may play an integral part in saving the lives of other babies who might otherwise share his fate. This result depends on us and what we can do to help all women who face crisis pregnancies and especially those facing the possibility of having and raising children with disabilities.
