:: The S.I.C.L.E. Cell ::

:: Thursday, July 03, 2003 ::

Someone sent me a link to yet another "wrongful birth" article. What I read in said article only confirms that if people don't get the help they need they will sell out and take it at any price. (And I should know, baby.)

The child, Jade, is 8 years old and remarkably differently abled. Her mental functioning is profoundly retarded, she can't walk or see or eat (she lives off of alternative nutrition via a g-button), and her daddy says he rushes home from work to see her because she's his "heart". Jade's mama says, "She's the best thing that could have ever happened to us."

Yet these loving parents have been arguing in court that the child they describe as their "foundation", their "rock" should have never been born. Doctors should have somehow detected these health conditions before birth, because Jade's mama and daddy would have aborted her.

The parents' slimy lawyer (who justifies his sliminess by noting only positive byproducts) says the doctor didn't allow the parents the choice to abort. He slithers, "The doctor caused the birth of this very, very neurologically impaired child."

Preposterous, yet if it is so, the parents should be throwing the doctor an appreciation party for preventing them from destroying "the best thing that could have ever happened" to them.

The article talks about the difficulty in reviewing sonograms and bolsters the case that they should not be used alone to diagnose conditions. The sonogram of one child raised eyebrows, and physicians noted that there might be problems with the baby. However, what the sonogram was showing was a little Rapunzel with tons of hair. Think about that. Doctors sit down and have "the talk" with the parents: "We've found something that could potentially be devastating to your child's health and your family. You have the right to abort. In fact, we can schedule it today." I've had "the talk". It's scary. Many parents might run screaming towards abortion out of utter fear of the unknown. And then you'd have a child aborted over an in-utero coiff. Talk about a bad hair day.

But what about the cases when something is actually awry? A little boy named Ryan has spinabifida that paralyzes him from the waist down. He makes straight A's at his CATHOLIC school and is a "normal" kid in every other way, but the article says Mommy sued her OB because she would have aborted him had she known he would not be able to walk. Holy crap. What's Ryan, the straight-A "brain", going to think when he finds out? Time has a way of revealing things; of course he'll find out. What's Mom going to say? Her only possible explanation: "I did it for the money." Well that's a good lesson to teach your kid: "I sold your existence out in court so I could snag some loot."

John Cougar Mellencamp's mom could have gone to court and made a few bucks off of his spina bifida. Just imagine... if doctors had caught the condition on a sonogram and had "the talk" with his folks, I wonder if we ever would have heard that little ditty 'bout Jack and Diane. (About half of all children with spina bifida are aborted.)

All differently abled kids don't go on to make millions as rock stars. In fact the care of a differently abled child can be financially exhausting. Jade's mom and dad made $1.2 million arguing that she should have been extinguished in an abortion. They used the money to buy a van with a wheelchair lift and now have the funds to hire nurses to help. These are things the parents should have already had.

Horrible Hillary Clinton says it takes a village to raise a child. If that is so, then it takes a nation to raise a differently abled child. Parents need support, not abortion. If a loving society supplies a mom and dad with a lift van and some weekly outside medical assistance, and if this prevents a father from losing his "heart" in an abortion, then by God it is a miniscule price for humanity to pay.

As it is, our society will help you put your differently abled child in a bell jar before we'll help you put her in a van. Parents are stooping dangerously low to get what they need, and it's a sad, sad state of affairs.

SICLECell@hotmail.com

:: ashli 10:56 AM # ::
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