Palin: Son with DS helped her live out anti-abortion beliefs
April 17th, 2009
From the Evansville [IN] Courier Press, Associated Press:
Speaking at a major fundraiser for an anti-abortion group in Indiana Thursday, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin said her pregnancy with son Trig gave her an opportunity to live out her anti-abortion beliefs. Trig’s Down syndrome was diagnosed prenatally.
“The moment he was born, I knew that moment my prayers had been answered,” Palin said. “Trig is a miracle. He is the best thing that ever happened to me and I want other women to have that opportunity.”
She challenged the notion that children must be born perfect and that unplanned pregnancies are inconvenient and can be ended by abortion.
Palin criticized President Barack Obama for his support of abortion rights, but also said she thought about abortion when she got the news she was pregnant with Trig while out of state at a conference. “I knew, ‘Nobody knows me here. Nobody would ever know,’” she said. “It is easy to think maybe of trying to change the circumstances.
The 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate got a standing ovation from a crowd estimated at 3,000 people at the Vanderburgh County Right to Life banquet. She and her husband, Todd, were to attend a private breakfast event hosted by the nonprofit support group S.M.I.L.E. on Down syndrome Friday morning.
(AP photo)
UPDATE:
From the Washington Post — Palin says she considered abortion
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin told an antiabortion audience in Indiana on Thursday night that, “for a fleeting moment,” she considered having an abortion after learning that her son Trig would have Down syndrome.
The experience, she added, “now lets me understand a woman’s, a girl’s temptation to maybe try to make it all go away.”
Ultimately, Palin said, she decided she had to “walk the walk” concerning her long-standing antiabortion views. She avoided using the word “abortion” in her speech, preferring the phrase “change the circumstances.”
Video of Palin’s speech: Remarks about Trig’s birth are in clip 4, starting around 3:20.
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April 24th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Gee, Bloop, what exactly is your interest in disability rights?
Keeping the birthrate worldwide down would certainly be a good thing: fewer trolls would be born.
April 24th, 2009 at 2:17 am
My hope for Sarah Palin’s advocacy is that she will encourage everyone in the Right to Life movement to take on post-birth issues — opportunities that support individuals with Down syndrome who have been and will be born into (or adopted into) our families, neighborhoods, healthcare systems, schools and workplaces. I can’t help but believe that the information about the potential and accomplishments of individuals with Down syndrome that expectant parents receive from well-educated genetic counselors help many to choose to welcome their child with a prenatal diagnosis into the world.
Genetic counselors and the rest of us would know very little about the potential and talents of individuals with Down syndrome without the support and encouragement they have found in early intervention, inclusive education and job training, effective support and accommodations.
Imagine what effect growing up knowing a classmate with Down syndrome has had on the decisions of those who have a prenatal diagnosis.
Mary Jo Hebert wrote in her recent Albany Times Union op-ed piece, “… Three quarters of young couples in a recent survey said they would choose abortion if told their fetus had a 50 percent chance of growing up to be obese. …” (noted on this website at http://www.patriciaebauer.com/2009/04/22/op-ed-a-moms-reflects/ )
It seems as though we need to be teaching our children the value of diversity and the worth of every individual, no matter what their differences, to reduce the attractiveness of abortion for these reasons, too.
Prenatal testing will never be made illegal. And even if there were laws that completely eliminated the availability of abortions through healthcare or family planning facilities, there would continue to be illegal abortions. So, it just seems reasonable to me that the Right to Life movement embrace and address issues that arise after the birth and during the full life-span of individuals with Down syndrome.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:56 am
David, I wish the figures weren’t so devastating.
Here is what I found online – Norway (only – only? – 84%) :”TRONDHEIM, Norway, August 13, 2008 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A recently published Norwegian study of prenatal detection of trisomy 21 (Down Syndrome) reveals that 84% of babies diagnosed with Down Syndrome in the country are aborted. The study also concludes with the observation that “based solely on maternal age and second-trimester ultrasound imaging, the prenatal detection rate of trisomy 21 cases was poor and remained unchanged throughout the 18-year study period.”
The study was conducted by the Norwegian National Center for Fetal Medicine and published in the August 2008 issue of Ultrasound in Obstetrics and Gynecology.”
I could Google the figures for Sweden, Denmark and Finland – but I’m too depressed about it.. I’m also the parent of a child with Down’s and I find the ease with which the medical profession has slunk into eugenics, appalling.
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:15 am
This is related to my previous ‘tough question’ – since we do such a poor job with people that have down syndrome right now, and aborting them away isn’t such a great idea – what are we going to do with a ‘kizzlion’ more ?
I’m for a much lower birthrate world wide. We have way too many monkeys.
April 23rd, 2009 at 7:57 am
The 90% figure, quoted above repeatedly (in reference to Sweden in one post, no less), is a myth. Our studies are few and far between. 86% in Paris. 6% in Utah. 26% in Atlanta. As a father of a boy with Down syndrome I am committed, personally and professionally, to doing whatever I can to make a world in which people do not choose to terminate based on a diagnosis of Down syndrome. But before we can win that battle, we need to get our facts straight.
April 21st, 2009 at 11:15 am
Sara, I’ll use Scandinavia as an example. Abortion is available on demand, social services (cradle to grave) exist. For kids with Down Syndrome in Scandinavia there is a very high level of care, support, education, therapy, etc.
Yet 90% of fetuses with Down’s are aborted.
This isn’t really, insofar as I am concerned, a purely American political “right to life” issue, this is a eugenics issue.
April 20th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
Please don’t get me wrong. It’s just that I have known far too many people who focus their entire energy on protecting the lives of the unborn, but then don’t stand up for the rights of people at risk after they are born.
Look at politicians who profess to be pro-life and then do not walk that walk with their voting record when it comes to support for people with disabilities to live independently or to achieve inclusion in society. And, guess what, I am pro-life, but for me that means from birth to natural death, protecting the rights of every human being at all stages and circumstances of their lives, regardless.
The point is to work towards a better solution, while recognizing that it is a long road. If we continue to demonize one another, we remain at a standstill.
UPDATE: Whoops, I meant conception to natural death, not just birth to natural death. I think we should all put more effort across the board towards stemming the tide of the tragically high rate of abortions of babies with prenatal diagnoses.
Regardless of anyone’s stance on this, I think most of us who visit this website agree that is not a “choice” any of us wish to see made. But to create the sense that there is hope and support out there, with more laws and grass roots efforts on the horizon to build a better future for our kids, we must push continually and demand that our loved ones receive the same basic rights as everyone else.
April 20th, 2009 at 5:10 pm
The animosity is not going to end if those who believe in the right to life are constantly characterized as not caring for children after they are born. I often wonder if the pro-choice people who make this sweeping generalization have ever had a discussion with a person who is active in the pro-life community and tried to understand their views. It is difficult to agree on common ground when we believe that abortion is murder. Less murder is better, but no murder is the only acceptable goal.
April 20th, 2009 at 1:51 pm
We live in a time of such animosity between the “pro-life” and “pro-choice” camps. Pamela’s comments are important because we have the rhetoric and political punch of the Right to Life community, which, in my estimation, seems to end at birth.
The same folks who wish to see a future where no child is terminated, tend not to be willing to lobby for and to pay for services many people need throughout their lives. Yet, the Pro-Choice group, most often fairly liberal, and potentially very supportive of rights and services for people with disabilities, by their zeal to offer women a choice, have (hopefully inadvertently) facilitated the tragically high abortion rate in prenatally diagnosed children (sorry but I don’t call them fetuses) with Down syndrome.
I believe there is a “common ground” out there if we can all stop fighting and start working on solutions to this issue. If we ever have a real support structure for people most in need, and if we decide everyone is worthy of our care and concern and that we are ready to do whatever it takes to let no one be excluded from the community around them, we will have fewer abortions, and women will less often have to make that choice.
April 20th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Though I don’t share her political views, I certainly support Sarah Palin wholeheartedly as a parent and hope that she will be able to continue to bring media attention to issues affecting people with Down Syndrome. We have far too few advocates who have access to the media as it is. The mainstream media may hate her, but parents are pinning our hopes on her to maintain visibility.
April 20th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Pamela, I am a member of the Right to Life community and I am for all of the things you mentioned. I was even before I heard of Sarah Palin. She does inspire, though!
April 19th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
How wonderful it would be for Sarah Palin to inspire everyone in the Right to Life community to be advocates for early intervention, parent support, inclusive education, supported living, employment opportunities and inclusive retirement communities for everyone with Down syndrome, and to spread awareness about their potential, contributions and accomplishments.
We can hope! And pray.
Happy Birthday, Trig.
April 18th, 2009 at 7:34 am
Don’t encourage her. She should just go away, and stay away.