"Not a Saint, Just a Parent".

Read the following two passages back-to-back and see if you don't shake your head in amazement as just how dishonest is the impression left. They come from the Irish Independent newspaper yesterday, under the headline "Hospitals refusing to give advice on abortion."

"A number of hospitals have refused to give couples information on abortion procedures after having diagnosed several women carrying abnormal foetuses. Distressed couples are contacting the Irish Family Planning Association (IFPA) with complaints that they are being 'abandoned' by Irish heath services after being given the traumatic news.

"Ms. [Rosie] Toner [director of the IFPA] expressed her concern that couples who have been told their baby will die at birth are becoming further distressed at their hospital's refusal to provide information on a termination."

Ireland does not have the ultra-liberal abortion law found on the books in the United KingdomEngland and Wales. The complaint is that the hospitals are not "supportive in giving information to couples to travel [to the UK for an abortion]."

No specifics are given, but you know that the percentage of babies whose prenatal diagnosis is that the child will die at birth or shortly after is minuscule compared to the number of babies who will be aborted because the parents have been told the child has a disability, primarily Down syndrome. The dishonestythe embrace of eugenic abortion smuggled in under the cover of dying babies is both nothing unusual and disheartening.

For an honest appraisal, I turn you over to bioethicist Wesley Smith. He has another outstanding piece online about "Politically Correct Eugenics." [www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/014/915cuzel.asp]

Near the end Smith quotes from an outstanding article written a while back by British sportswriter Simon Barnes.

Barnes's op-ed appeared in the Times of London and recounted how "At the hospital, when they discovered on the scan that Down's syndrome was a possibility, they very kindly offered to kill him for us." The Barnes decided otherwise. (We wrote about Barnes, his wife, Cindy, and their child, Eddie, at www.nrlc.org/news_and_views/November06/nv112906part1.html)

"If you find the idea of love uncomfortable," Barnes wrote, "or sentimental or best-not-talked-about or existing only in the midst of a passionate love affair, then you will find problems with what I am writing. I am writing of love not as a matter of grand passions, or as high-falutin' idealism, or as religion. I am writing about love as the stuff that makes the processes of human life happen: the love that moves the sun and other stars, which is also the love that makes the toast and other snacks... .

"What is it like to have Down's syndrome? How terrible is it? Is it terrible at all? It depends, I suppose, on how well loved you are... . I can't say I'm glad that Eddie has Down's syndrome, or that I would wish him to suffer in order to charm me and fill me with giggles. But no, I don't want his essential nature changed. Good God, what a thought. It would be as much a denial of myself as a denial of my son... . I am here to tell you that Down's syndrome is not an insupportable horror for either the sufferer or the parents. I'll go further: human beings are not better off without Down's syndrome."

It is important and symbolic that Barnes headlined his opinion piece, "I am not a saint, just a parent." If you want to read an account that will raise you up the same way the article from the Irish Independent would bring any morally sentiment human being down, go to www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/article633433.ece.