On September 2nd 2008, Governor Sarah Palin addressed the Republican National Convention and accepted the nomination as Vice Presidential running mate for Senator John McCain’s bid for the White House. She gave a riveting speech – albeit sprinkled with brilliant sarcasm about Barack Obama.
Sitting up in Canada, my wife LaRee and I watched Governor Palin’s speech on CNN. At one point early in her speech, Governor Palin said,
“Sometimes even the greatest joys bring challenge. And children with special needs inspire a special love. To the families of special-needs children all across this country, I have a message: For years, you sought to make America a more welcoming place for your sons and daughters. I pledge to you that if we are elected, you will have a friend and advocate in the White House.”Moved to tears
My wife was moved to tears. She’s the provincial Director of Alberta Pro-Life Association so she knows how cheap human life can be seen in North American’s prevailing culture of death. In liberal North America, the most deadly sin is being defenseless and unwanted or inconvenient. In this culture, it is a capital crime worthy of death.
Each year, more than a million unwanted children are aborted in America. At a tenth of America’s population, Canada is trying to keep up with 100,000 abortions annually. Did you know that 80% of pregnancies involving a Down’s Syndrome baby end in abortion? Our society is not kind to unwanted or disabled human beings. According to the current secular mindset, the goal is to kill unwanted or disabled children in utero -- it’s a woman’s right, you know – then we don’t have to deal with them once they are born. And if search-and-destroy prenatal testing misses detecting a disabled child in the womb, infanticide is the new option of choice. (I encountered this while serving on the ethics committee for a major Canadian hospital from 1993-2004.)
LaRee knows first-hand the struggles faced by families with disabled members. We know the subtle (and not so subtle) hostility toward people with disabilities. LaRee knows the heart-ache of watching the struggles of a disabled loved one, and the sense of isolation that can bring.
With tear-filled eyes LaRee listened to Governor Palin’s promise to special needs families and said, “I wished we had someone like that in Canada.” Indeed! Canada has been ravaged by decades dominated by rampant liberalism that has stripped a previous Judeo-Christian consensus that believed there was something sacred about human life.[1] We may have failed at times to behave as though it was sacred but there was a consensus that we should – and most people tried to behave as though life was sacred. And they expected governments to do the same. Not any more!
Eliminate the inconvenient
Now self interest is the ideal for human behavior. If an unplanned pregnancy occurs, sacrifice the baby rather than lifestyle or other plans. If the pregnancy involves a disabled child, kill the baby. If grandma or grandpa develops cancer or dementia, … stop feeding them and remove their fluids. They won’t mind, they will enjoy it. Remember how right to die lawyer George Felos told us that Terri Schiavo fo
und being deprived of food and water for two weeks beautiful and peaceful? Oh yes, -- we all know the beauty of being hungry and thirsty. Multiply that a hundred fold and you have the peaceful and beautiful death of being denied nutrition and hydration. ( For the real description of Terri’s death, see http://www.priestsforlife.org/euthanasia/terrisfinalhours.htm)
Lisa Bloom of the program Court TV said Sarah Palin has some explaining to do about her opposition to “a woman’s right to choose”. Sarah (Benedictine Arnold) has betrayed the feminist party line supporting abortion on demand. Bloom called Governor Palin’s views extreme. Extreme?
Never trust a person who won’t finish their sentences. Choose what? Let me finish the point of Lisa Bloom’s sentence. She won’t finish her own sentence because its conclusion is abortion and the word abortion carried a negative connotation to most people.
Bloom thinks Sarah Palin needs to explain her “extreme” position of opposing a so-called woman’s right to choose death for her child in the womb. May I point out that it is only this perverse generation that thinks opposing abortion is extreme. Previous generations believed abortion itself was extreme (it is) and unborn children needed protection (they do). In fact a 1959 United Nations’ Declaration on the Rights of the Child stated: “The child by reason of its physical and mental immaturity needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection before as well as after birth.”[2]
The architects of that Declaration of the Rights of the Child really knew the inclusive nature of what they were asking the United Nations General Assembly to adopt. They wrote in Principle 4:
"The child shall enjoy the benefits of social security. He shall be entitled to grow and develop in health; to this end, special care and protection shall be provided both to him and to his mother, including adequate pre-natal and post-natal care." (My emphasis added)
They were concerned about both mother and child, not just the mother. Both stood in the sway of nurture of the whole human family beginning “before as well after birth.” The United Nations General Assembly passed the Declaration in November 1959.
That Declaration called “upon parents, upon men and women as individuals, and upon voluntary organizations, local authorities and national Governments to recognize these rights and strive for their observance by legislative and other measures progressively taken … .”
Sarah Palin's beliefs and actions are consistent with these and other historical principles of justice, human rights and equality of all human life -- dating back into antiquity.[3] It is Lisa Bloom (and the usual gaggle of pro-abortion feminists) who act in a historical vacuum. Perhaps it is they who have explaining to do for digressing from the wisdom of the ages.
Democratic strategist Anna Greenberg told PBS’ NewsHour (September 5th) that she knows Sarah Palin is a "traditional conservative" because of her decision to have a special needs child. (Translation: In enlightened and progressive liberal society led by elite liberals, like many in the Democratic Party, baby Trig Palin would likely have met a different fate. It’s not personal you understand, ... it’s just that Century 21 is for better people.
Modern medical bioethics wants to eliminate disability from the face of the earth by eradicating disabilities if possible, or the disabled if necessary. Modern medical bioethics would wipe special needs children from the face of the earth before could see the light of day (or shortly thereafter if they happen to get through the birth canal with their disabilities undetected).
Euthanasia is now raising its ugly presence to dispense cognitively disabled adults. Assisted suicide can answer the problem of unwantedness amongst the physically disabled. Imagine Anna! A perfect world where no disabled people live. And all it will cost is your compassion, and any challenge to accept and include people who make you uncomfortable. In short, all you have to do is forfeit your humanity.
It is on to such a world stage that Sarah Palin the hockey mom steps. She steadfastly refuses to compromise her humanity against unwanted and inconvenient, or disabled humanity. She is willing to include everyone and try to create a new and inviting climate for disabled children/adults and their families. She is willing to embrace the handicapped, and the pregnant teenager (beginning with her own son and daughter). She loves by example. She leads by life-affirming example. Sarah Palin is an ordinary hockey mom called to rise above the ordinary and do extraordinary things.
It’s not an easy calling. The time in which we live is hostile to love and the extraordinary. People will resort to lies and character assasination to stop her. (See Top 7 Myths, Lies and Untruths About Sarah Palin,
http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/09/05/top-7-myths-lies-and-untruths-about-sarah-palin/
Home Alaska, John McCain, Sarah Palin
Yet for those Americans who are open to her influence, perhaps Sarah Palin is God’s chosen instrument to help return America to its greatness.
When my wife said that Canada needs a Sarah Palin, she didn’t realize that there are hockey moms and dads in every community dotted across the North American landscape. They can rise above the ordinary and do extraordinary things in their communities. They just need to realize it. They must be ready to serve and become committed to further a culture of life, integrity and inclusion. There are local pro-Life groups, hospices, auxiliary hospitals, boards, councils that need hockey moms, dads and grandparents to volunteer and show their greatness.
Mark Pickup
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Notes
[1] It’s interesting to observe that Canada was a Christian nation at the beginning of the twentieth century but degenerated into a secular nation at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
[2] United Nations Declaration on the Rights of the Child, proclaimed by General Assembly Resolution 1386 (XIV) of 20 November 1959.
[3] The Didache [ca. A.D 140] , stated, in part, “You shall not procure abortion, nor destroy a new-born child.”. The Hippocratic Oath dating back to the 4th century B.C. says, “I will neither give a deadly drug to anybody who asked for it, nor will I make a suggestion to this effect. Similarly I will not give to a woman an abortive remedy.”
The American people have been hurting for quite some time – losing jobs and homes – but they ain’t seen nothing yet, if Democratic and Republican politicians in Washington don’t put aside partisan politics and work together for the good of the nation.
The American people have been hurting for quite some time – losing jobs and homes – but they ain’t seen nothing yet, if Democratic and Republican politicians in Washington don’t put aside partisan politics and work together for the good of the nation.
