(Was a) Deacon's Blog

Go, Go, Alito…

On the Alito Confirmation, the following was found in a Reuters article:

Sen. Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, said, “I must say that I wish the president was in a position to do more than claim a partisan victory tonight.”

“The union would be better and stronger and more unified if we were confirming a different nominee, a nominee who could have united us more than divided us,” Schumer said.

The honorable Senator must have downed twelve Manhattans at lunch. Or perhaps there was something odd in his hookah pipe? Senator, the nation is divided and issues of life and the culture of death are at the root of the division.

Where we are lucky as a country is in our freedom to express ourselves. The consistent message for life has taken root. People do not want abortion, euthanasia, babies killed to produce stem cells that do … well nothing.

You should well know that your own actions and rhetoric are divisive. Perhaps New York State needs a different nominee for Senator?

Insights into the Motivators for Abortion:

Report: 8 Million Born With Birth Defects Annually by Lauran Neergaard of the AP.

Ms. Neergaard writes:

“Most people think of birth defects as something that is not preventable,” said Dr. Jose Cordero, the U.S. assistant surgeon general and birth defects chief at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “There are great opportunities to ensure that babies are born healthy.”

A good opening, but now it gets worse:

About 8 million children worldwide are born every year with serious birth defects, many of them dying before age five in a toll largely hidden from view, the March of Dimes says.

Now this is a bold statement, meant more to elicit the idea —“ well if they are going to die anyway —“ why not abort them? You have to read down to get the statistics.

Unfortunately the statistics are unclear at best. They do not specifically address which of these children dies when. How many born in a year die that same year? If you took the statistics reported and if you drew a huge generalization from them you might say that 42.3077% die in a year, but you would be wrong.

Most birth defects occur in poor countries, where babies can languish with problems easily fixed or even prevented in wealthier nations, according to research released Monday by the organization.

Again, leading —“ look they are languishing, why not abort them? They are also poor and languishing. Hey, nobody wants to see that, right?

However, the researchers said some innovative programs in Iran and Chile show that effective preventions don’t have to be costly.

Preventable Defects

Indeed, about 70 percent of birth defects could be prevented, repaired or ameliorated, they concluded.

Now at least they are talking about doing something useful. Prevention, good heath care, it goes on. This is indeed good and worthy. We can all agree to support that.

What they fail to discuss is the other 30% of these lives. What about their lives? What can we do to improve their lives, care for them, and provide them with nurturing and a commitment to their lives? How can we assist their parents and train their parents and the world that this is not a problem, but a blessing?

“We were surprised by the toll,” said epidemiologist Christopher Howson with the March of Dimes, which sponsored the five-year project after doctors complained that birth defects often are ignored as a public health problem.

“It’s like the tip of an iceberg that is rising out of the ocean” — noticed only after infant mortality from other causes drops, he said.

Specialists said the report focuses much-needed attention on a concern of every parent-to-be.

“Most people think of birth defects as something that is not preventable,” said Dr. Jose Cordero, the U.S. assistant surgeon general and birth defects chief at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “There are great opportunities to ensure that babies are born healthy.”

Some 7.9 million children a year are born with serious birth defects caused at least partly by genetic flaws such as heart defects, spina bifida and other neural tube defects, sickle cell anemia and Down syndrome.

Undoubtedly hundreds of thousands more are born with defects caused not by genes but by post-conception problems: mothers infected with rubella or syphilis, which can damage their babies’ brains; certain medications or alcohol; lack of dietary iodine. Too few countries count those defects for a good estimate.

Millions Die

At least 3.3 million children under age five die each year because of birth defects, and millions more are mentally or physically disabled.

Prevalence ranges from a high of 82 defects per 1,000 live births in Sudan to a low of 39.7 per 1,000 in France. The researchers cautioned that the data aren’t precise enough for detailed country-by-country comparisons, but they cited poor maternal health care, a higher percentage of older mothers and greater frequency of marriage between relatives as leading risks in low- and middle-income countries.

Additionally, populations from Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean and Southeast Asia are most at risk of the common inherited diseases thalassemia, sickle cell and the metabolic disease G6PD. Those regions are less likely to offer genetic testing that reveals at-risk couples.

The report takes no stand on abortion, but it found that Down syndrome is roughly twice as common in poorer countries — which typically lack prenatal testing — while half of affected pregnancies in Western Europe are terminated following prenatal diagnosis.

A stand without a stand! Look, the rich western nations know how to do it. The westerners get it right. No languishing, dirt poor, disabled kids in our culture. NIMBY! Even the languishing poor can read between these lines.

Every mother-to-be has about a 5 percent chance of having a baby with a serious birth defect, the so-called “background rate,” explained Dr. Arnold Christianson of South Africa’s University of Witwatersrand, who co-wrote the report.

Lowering Risk

That risk can rise or fall, depending on a host of circumstances: Does she take folic acid, a nutritional supplement that fights neural tube defects? Is she vaccinated against rubella? Does she have uncontrolled diabetes or other pregnancy-harming illnesses? Is she well-nourished? Are her pregnancies spaced far enough apart?

“If mom can be as fit and well as possible at the time of conception, it reduces the risk of a birth defect,” Christianson said.

Among the report’s recommendations:

Improved health care for all women, with special emphasis on pregnancy nutrition.

Improved family planning and birth-defect education. In Johannesburg, surveys show less than 40 percent of African women know what Down syndrome is — much less that their risk rises with pregnancies after age 35, Christianson said.

Here’s that stand for the culture of death —“ improved family planning. Once those South African women are ‘educated’ they can make the right choice. A child who is not perfect is a burden so kill it. It’s OK, they are going to die anyway.

Proper care of affected babies. In South America, for example, 55 percent of babies with Down syndrome die before their first birthday. Median U.S. survival is age 51, up from age 3 in the 1960s thanks to improved care.

“Care is an absolute,” Howson said. “Prevention is the ideal.”

Yes, and how about proper care of, and acceptance of, all life?

Furthermore, prevention can be cheap: Fortifying grain with folic acid costs about a penny per year per person, Cordero said.

In 2000, Chile added enough folic acid to wheat flour to cause a 40 percent reduction in neural tube defects. The U.S., with lower fortification levels, saw a one-third drop.

Even gene tests can be relatively inexpensive. The report cites Iran which, faced with skyrocketing costs for thalassemia care, in 1997 began giving couples a US$5 gene test prior to marriage. Some separate if both carry the disease-causing gene, but they also can opt for fetal testing if they choose to conceive. By 2001, more than 2.7 million prospective couples had been screened, 10,298 at-risk couples identified and counseled — and thalassemia births had fallen to 30 percent of the expected rate.

Yes, they were ‘counseled’ all right, and the children are no more. The death toll is still the same, they just did the killing earlier.

What absolutely amazes me about this drivel is that the article’s author and those doing the study advocate death as an answer to — death. It’s not out front, but it is surely there. The part that they forget is that we are all going to die. Why is your life more precious than these?

My wife and I had our children relatively late. Because of several factors there was a chance, which one doctor deemed to be significant, that they might have birth defects. And you know what? We ignored their advice. We ignored their tests. God was blessing us with a child and we accepted that blessing regardless of the possibility of physical, mental, or emotional difficulties for that child. God had given us the blessing. A moment of love and union. God gave us the opportunity to express our love and to cooperate in bringing about a new life.

Each child is blessed in the gifts that they offer all of humanity. The weakness of some calls us to reflect on our duty not to worldly perfection, but to the Christ in all. The glory of the cross is in the beauty and blessing that flow from it.

We were blessed that we have perfectly healthy children. Nevertheless, it made no difference —“ for it is human life and the most precious gift in God’s creation,

—I know what you are thinking. You need a sign. What better one could I give than to make this little one whole and new? I could do it; but I will not. I am the Lord and not a conjuror. I gave this mite a gift I denied to all of you-eternal innocence. To you she looks imperfect – but to me she is flawless, like the bud that dies unopened. She will never offend me, as all of you have done. She will never pervert or destroy the work of my Father’s hands. She is necessary to you. She will evoke the kindness that will keep you human. Her infirmity will prompt you to gratitude for your own good fortune…More! She will remind you everyday that I am who I am, that my ways are not yours, and that the smallest dust mote whirled in the darkest space does not fall out of my hand…I have chosen you. You have not chosen me. This little one is my sign to you. Treasure her!—

From: The Clowns of God by Morris West