Kathryn Jean Lopez, a National Review Online editor, just published an op-ed that with the headline Don't Be Down on Palin.
The obvious play on words was enough to make my stomach lurch, but I kept reading. Lopez praised Palin for being anti-choice and quoted "facts" (read: not true) about prenatal testing, but essentially said that Sarah Palin is a good choice for VP because she has a child with disabilities.
But if the youngest life she and her husband care for can wake up a nation that’s blind to the eugenics in its midst, a routine part of medicine today, she and John McCain would be offering human rights and dignity a great, honorable service. In contrast to Barack Obama, who would let the survivors of botched abortion attempts be killed, the Palins could serve as a great clarifier for voters this fall — and an education.
- It's not good politics to use disabled children for your own political agenda in your quest to overturn Roe.
- It's Down syndrome, not Down Syndrome or Down's Syndrome or "a Down's child". (See this blog for proper usage of the term, as well as myths about Down syndrome.)
- You may think you are advocating your anti-choice cause, but you’re really just using an infant child with disabilities for your own political posturing because you have nothing else to stand on. Basically, Sarah Palin is a poor choice for VP, so you're making her out to be a saint. OK...Is this the new "John McCain was a POW!" argument?
- And when you say something like this:
According to a study cited in the New York Times last year, "About 90 percent of pregnant women who are given a Down syndrome diagnosis have chosen to have an abortion." (Emphasis added.) Most American women are given prenatal tests.
with "facts" about prenatal testing and couple it with the word "eugenics" and word twists, you're insulting women who choose to have prenatal screening as well as the Down syndrome community by insinuating that people with Down syndrome are social and medical cast-offs while making a mockery of people.
I am sick and tired of the anti-choice movement using Governor Palin's infant son to a) insinuate that Down syndrome children are a burden and she's a saint b) insinuate that millions of "liberals" are aborting because prenatal testing showed possibilities of Down syndrome (or would abort that "Down's syndrome baby" if they were Palin's position) while saying things like "a Down's Syndrome child", "unwanted", and sickeningly
Instead, though, Sarah Palin stuck with her pro-life principles. Down syndrome or no Down syndrome, she was determined to carry that baby to term, to deliver and love that little child
in an article by John Perry that began "thanks to the Down syndrome baby" in which he repeated the "Down syndrome baby/infant/child" grammar five times.
Knock it off.
OK. You have an agenda. Palin isn't pro-choice. She was going to carry any fetus to term, God-willing. But don't make out Governor Palin's son to be less of a human being because you want people to vote for her.
And insinuating that God gave her son Down syndrome or some such bullcrap as a way to save millions of unborn children is just sick.
God sent you, Trig Palin, and probably for a lot of good reasons.
I probably have a better way to lay this all out, but I'm upset right now.
This is probably for another diary, but I'm also increasingly alarmed at stories like this one where people are supporting the ticket because they think Palin may be a champion of those with disabilites because of her personal life. She hasn't mentioned yet and I don't know if that will be part of the campaign, but if anything, it's Democrats who are
pro education
pro mental health parity
pro health care
pro civil rights
and by far the biggest defenders of those with disabilties.
My entire life will be dedicated to Special Education. I'm in tears tonight. The fact that Governor Palin's youngest child has Down syndrome has been known to me for awhile because the news reported it, but this sort of political posturing and abusive language is only going to get worse.
Please...just stop.
[auth note] The original entry for this diary was cc'd into citizenpained.com. It's preceded by an entry which notes Alan Colmes being attacked by conservative bloggers and they use her son's Down syndrome as a weapon.
The idea that you can’t question Sarah Palin’s judgment because she has a Down Syndrome baby is right up there with the outrage some feel the minute you question a man who was held in a prison camp for five years.
While is lanugage is, again, wrong, his point was sound.