A Tale of Two Babies

We saw him and we fell in love with him. His name is Trig. His Sarah Palin’s son, and he is beau­ti­ful. Like all of us, he has a right to live. But sadly, before he was born, many peo­ple in this coun­try would have denied him this right. And some would even deny it after he was born.

In this les­son, we will talk about two babies and two atti­tudes towards babies. We will point out the oppor­tu­nity these elec­tions offer us to save babies and to change atti­tudes towards inno­cent human life.

Sur­prise of joy, not a punishment

Sarah Palin was a very busy woman when she got the news she was preg­nant. She was gov­er­nor of Alaska and already the mother of four beau­ti­ful chil­dren. Yet she was over­joyed. Her baby was a new gift of love. He brought new hope and new love to the world.

Very soon Sarah and her hus­band received some addi­tional news. Their baby prob­a­bly had Down Syn­drome. In this sit­u­a­tion many doc­tors in our country

imme­di­ately begin to insin­u­ate that a woman should kill her baby. This is a sad, but true fact. Why is this? Because abor­tion is legal in this country.

And, because of abor­tion, doc­tors in our coun­try think par­ents only want a “per­fect” baby. This is how legal­ized abor­tion has changed the atti­tude of so many doc­tors and even so many parents.

Catholics for change

We as Catholics know this has to change, before any more babies are killed. The Palins, who are not Catholic, also know this. And they know that every baby, no mat­ter how hand­i­capped or “imper­fect,” always brings new gifts of love and joy to the world.

Fight­ing for life

The Palins kept the news of Trig’s exis­tence as a sur­prise for a long time. This was not because they were afraid or ashamed, but because they knew many oth­ers would not under­stand their joy. They would not nder­stand … until they actu­ally saw Trig.

Unspeak­able joy

When Trig was finally born, the Palins imme­di­ately released this press state­ment: “Trig is beau­ti­ful and already adored by us. We knew through early test­ing that he would face spe­cial chal­lenges, and we feel priv­i­leged God would entrust us with this gift and allow us unspeak­able joy as he entered our lives.”

The Palins are teach­ing us a pow­er­ful les­son dur­ing this elec­tion time. It is a les­son of joy and of love. Their son, Trig, has given a face to so many babies who have been snuffed out before they had the joy of being held and loved.

The vast major­ity of babies like Trig are never given the chance to bring a new joy to the world. The Palin fam­ily is show­ing us that a baby is never “a pun­ish­ment.” A baby is never “a prob­lem”, no mat­ter what the cir­cum­stances. A baby is always the great­est gift we can receive as human beings.

The baby we never saw

But there is another baby who is mak­ing news dur­ing this elec­tion. We have not seen this baby. He was killed. In fact, he was killed twice: they tried to kill him once while he was inside the womb, by abor­tion, and when that didn’t work they actu­ally did kill him once he was out­side the womb, by refus­ing him med­ical treatment.

We do not know this baby’s name, but in God’s eyes he has a name. For God, and in order to cel­e­brate the dig­nity of this baby, let’s give this baby a name. Let’s call him “Leif ” (in honor of the brave explorer, Leif Ericson).

Like Trig, Leif was beau­ti­ful. Like Trig, he had many gifts to bring to the world. And like Trig, Leif had Down Syn­drome. But our coun­try, in spite of its great trea­sury of love and com­pas­sion, felt there was no room for Leif. Our coun­try allowed him to be killed. He was legally aborted.

Leif the fighter

But Leif was amaz­ingly strong, and a bit lucky. He sur­vived the abor­tion. He made it out­side. He was born alive. But he needed help. Instead, he was taken to a util­ity closet to be left to die. We have not seen Leif. But some­one did. A nurse named Jill Stanek spot­ted Leif, being car­ried to the trash closet. She was shocked at what had been done to him. She asked the other nurse to give Leif to her. This occurred in a hos­pi­tal in Illinois.

Jill was not allowed by the hos­pi­tal to do much for Leif. All she was allowed to do was hold him, try­ing to give him at least a moment of love.

Deci­sion to do something

As the baby died in her arms Jill decided to do some­thing. She would tell the world about this baby. She would try to save at least some babies like him. Within a few months, Jill began to lobby for a law that would at least allow med­ical atten­tion for babies who had sur­vived an abor­tion. She thought that at least our coun­try could agree about that.

Killed by fear

Jill Stanek actu­ally suc­ceeded in bring­ing this law to the Illi­nois leg­is­la­ture. She was even allowed to tell the story of Leif to the full assem­bly. Yet, sur­pris­ingly, her bill was killed.

Sadly, one of the key oppo­nents to her bill was Mr. Barack Obama, who is presently favored to become our next pres­i­dent. Mr. Obama is an ardent sup­porter of abor­tion. He feared that approv­ing this bill would open the door to out­law­ing abor­tion in our country.

Out of defeat, victory

Thank­fully, Jill per­se­vered in her work to edu­cate peo­ple, and she got oth­ers involved. Her bill was pre­sented on a national level: it was brought before the US Con­gress. In 2002 it was approved almost nan­i­mously by the US Congress.

The drama continues

Although jus­tice was even­tu­ally done with the pas­sage of the Born Alive Infant Pro­tec­tion Act in 2002, abor­tion is still legal, and the next Pres­i­dent and Sen­a­tors will be appoint­ing and con­firm­ing the next Supreme Court jus­tices. These jus­tices will be decid­ing on the con­sti­tu­tion­al­ity of restric­tions on abor­tion, and hope­fully some­day will again decide whether abor­tion itself is pro­tected by our Constitution.

The elec­tion of mem­bers of Con­gress presents a fur­ther dra­matic choice for the cul­ture of life. Dur­ing the next ses­sion of Con­gress, abor­tion pro­po­nents have vowed to push for pas­sage of the Free­dom of Choice Act (FOCA) which would make abor­tion even more per­ma­nent in our land.

Not one issue, but THE issue

Dur­ing this elec­tion abor­tion is again an issue. In fact, for well-​​informed Catholics, it is THE issue. This is not a mat­ter of clos­ing our­selves to other issues. This is a mat­ter of the very foun­da­tion for a just soci­ety. With­out the right to life, all other rights are null and void.

Mis­un­der­stood compassion

Our coun­try cor­rectly prides itself on its love and com­pas­sion. Unfor­tu­nately, love and com­pas­sion can be mis­un­der­stood or even manip­u­lated. This is often the case in abor­tion, when peo­ple talk about “a woman’s right to choose.”

Free­dom yes, mur­der no

Yes, every woman has a right to choose. This is called free will. Free will is given to every man and woman by God. We all have the right to choose. But before choos­ing some­thing as a coun­try, we should ask our­selves a few questions.

The first ques­tion is: do we have the right to choose sim­ply any­thing at all? The sec­ond is: what is being cho­sen in an abor­tion? And the third ques­tion is: does per­mit­ting abor­tion truly help a woman? Does it truly bring her last­ing joy and peace?

The answer to the first ques­tion is “no”: we do not have the right to choose sim­ply any­thing at all. For exam­ple, we do not have the “right” to choose to steal our neighbor’s car, even though we have the pos­si­bil­ity to do so. Free­dom is not a license to do evil.

Thus, the sec­ond ques­tion: what is being cho­sen in an abor­tion? The sad truth is that we are choos­ing the mur­der of an inno­cent baby. We do not have a right to mur­der any­one, much less inno­cent children.

More pain and sorrow

The sad answer to the third ques­tion is also “no.” Abor­tion does not help women. They expe­ri­ence sad­ness, sor­row, and pain as a result of their choice. And often this sad­ness lasts the rest of their lives.

A woman only has an abor­tion when she is left alone to expe­ri­ence all the dif­fi­cul­ties of a cri­sis preg­nancy with­out the sup­port and love of those around her. The deep­est part of a woman’s heart never wants to have her baby killed. By allow­ing abor­tion, we are hurt­ing women.

Abor­tion is a crime against women, against the deep­est part of a woman’s nature: that capac­ity for love and com­pas­sion, that capac­ity for joy and won­der at the gift of a new human life.

Pro­claim­ing the truth about life

Yes, abor­tion is a ter­ri­ble crime, against a baby and against a woman, but it is often cov­ered up because it hap­pens inside the womb, and because it manip­u­lates a woman in a very dif­fi­cult situation.

Maybe the story of Trig and the story of Leif can expose the cover-​​up. Maybe if peo­ple rec­og­nized that a baby out­side the womb, like Leif, has a right to life, we might begin to awaken con­sciences and ask our­selves a few impor­tant ques­tions: like if abor­tion is really such a great idea.

For the Trigs and the Leifs of the world, this is a good ques­tion to ask our­selves. Espe­cially in these elections.

Bible Blurbs:

“For your lifeblood I will surely require a reck­on­ing.… Who­ever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed; for God made man in his own image.”
Gen­e­sis 9:5-6

“What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is cry­ing to me from the ground.”
Gen­e­sis 4:10-11

“My frame was not hid­den from you, when I was being made in secret, intri­cately wrought in the depths of the earth.”
Psalm 139:15

Pope Quotes:

It is nec­es­sary to wit­ness con­cretely that respect for life is the first form of jus­tice to apply.
Bene­dict XVI, May 12, 2008

Every per­son is known and loved, wanted and guided by him.
Bene­dict XVI, May 12, 2008

Con­tinue on this path (of pro­mot­ing life), in order that the smile of life may tri­umph on the lips of all chil­dren and their moth­ers. Do not be afraid.
Bene­dict XVI, May 12, 2008

Cat­e­chism Clips

2258: God alone is the Lord of life from its begin­ning until its end: no one can under any cir­cum­stance claim for him­self the right directly to destroy an inno­cent human being.

2261: The law for­bid­ding the mur­der of an inno­cent human being is uni­ver­sally valid: it obliges each and every­one, always and everywhere.

2270: Human life must be respected and pro­tected absolutely from the moment of conception.

2273: These human rights depend nei­ther on sin­gle indi­vid­u­als nor on par­ents; nor do they rep­re­sent a con­ces­sion made by soci­ety and the state; they belong to human nature and are inher­ent in the per­son by virtue of the cre­ative act from which the per­son took his origin.

Saints & Heroes

Unloved by some; loved and wanted by God.

“The Lit­tle Shep­herdess” by Adolphe William Bouguereau (Wikipedia Commons)

St Ger­maine of Pibrac, Vir­gin
(Entered heaven in 1601)

Ger­maine was the daugh­ter of poor par­ents who lived in south­ern France. She had poor health as a child, which led to a defor­mity in her hand. She also lost her mother when she was only an infant.

Her father remar­ried, but the step­mother didn’t like her too much. even­tu­ally, Ger­maine was rel­e­gated to lit­tle more than ser­vant status.

She was kind of exiled with­out being exiled. She had to sleep in the barn, or in a cup­board under the stairs (Did JK Rowl­ing got the idea for Harry Potter’s sleep­ing quar­ters from here?), and when she was nine her par­ents hired her out as a shep­herdess, dif­fi­cult and rugged work for any­one, let alone a nine-​​year old girl with a crip­pled hand.

But she made a lit­tle Rosary for her­self out of knot­ted string, and accom­pa­nied her work with prayer. When she could, she would gather the lit­tle chil­dren of the town in the fields and teach them cat­e­chism. She would never allow her­self to miss Mass. Even if she were already in the fields and the bell for Mass rang, she would leave her shepherd’s crook there in the ground and charge her guardian angel to take care of the flock while she went to be fed by the divine Shep­herd… She never lost a sheep.

Thus she passed her child­hood, per­se­cuted by her step­mother, mocked by the neigh­bors, but bask­ing in the unswerv­ing
love of God.

As she grew older, peo­ple began to change their opin­ion of her a bit, espe­cially one time after she was accused of steal­ing bread, chased out of the house and forced to open her apron. Though it was win­ter, when she opened up her apron, instead of find­ing stolen bread, her step­mother beheld a mirac­u­lous arm­ful of fresh flowers.

Ger­maine died in her sleep at the young age of 22. Forty years later her body was acci­den­tally dug up dur­ing a restora­tion of the church – it was incor­rupt.
(Source: CollegeCompass.org)

Com­pas­sion­ate doc­tor, then doc­tor of souls

St Anthony Zac­caria, Founder of the Clerks Reg­u­lar of St Paul
(Entered heaven July 5, 1539)

Anthony was born in north­ern Italy and raised by his mother; his dad died when he was quite young. She encour­aged him in his com­pas­sion for the poor and the sick (it was sim­ply a hor­ri­ble epoch for the peo­ple of north­ern Italy; rav­aged by unend­ing wars and recur­ring waves of dis­ease), and sent him off to study med­i­cine at Europe’s great­est med­ical school in Padua. He
grad­u­ated when he was 22 and returned home to open up his practice.

Imme­di­ately he real­ized that his long line of patients needed not only phys­i­cal treat­ment, but spir­i­tual care as well. He began study­ing the­ol­ogy in his free time, which was mea­ger con­sid­er­ing how avail­able he made him­self and his ser­vices to every needy body and soul that came knocking.

Four years later he was ordained a priest, and his min­istry became so pop­u­lar that he was asked to set up shop in the much larger city of Milan, just down the road, so he could reach more peo­ple. Soon he gath­ered a small group of priests who shared his ideals of untir­ing and unre­stricted ser­vice to God and man, wrote up a rule of life for them to fol­low, and set about
spread­ing the love of Christ through­out the bulging metropolis.

He ded­i­cated him­self so thor­oughly to his work that he died, exhausted, from a minor ill­ness at the young age of 37. The group of priests con­tin­ued their min­istry, how­ever, receiv­ing Milan’s Church of St Barn­abas as their head­quar­ters, and these Barn­abites are still serv­ing souls and bod­ies today.

All peo­ple, every per­son, need light for their souls, nour­ish­ment for their bod­ies, and love for their hearts. If we base our future on serv­ing the real needs of our broth­ers and sis­ters, our Lord will be able to fill the world with his bless­ings.
(Source: CollegeCompass.org)

Virtue Ver­i­fi­ca­tion

Awaken - to rouse from sleep or inac­tiv­ity; stir up; to make aware of
Cel­e­brate - to honor or praise pub­licly; to mark a happy occa­sion
Chal­lenge - a demand­ing task that calls for spe­cial effort or ded­i­ca­tion
Change – trans­form, undergo a mod­i­fi­ca­tion. There can be good changes, and there can be bad changes. Some cri­sis or dif­fi­cul­ties in life can pro­voke good change. Oth­ers can pro­voke bad change. Use of the virtues of wis­dom and pru­dence are nec­es­sary when mak­ing changes in our lives.
Com­pas­sion – sym­pa­thetic aware­ness of oth­ers’ dis­tress with a desire to alle­vi­ate it.
Con­science - a knowl­edge or sense of right and wrong, with an urge to do right
Entrust - to assign the care of; turn over for safe­keep­ing; to charge or invest with a trust or duty
Free will - the free­dom of the will to choose a course of action with­out exter­nal coer­cion but in accor­dance with the ideals or moral out­look of the per­son
Gift – some­thing given vol­un­tar­ily and with­out charge; present
Joy – 1. A state of hap­pi­ness or ful­fill­ment 2. One of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Joy, as a fruit of the Holy Spirit, is the result of see­ing things from God’s per­spec­tive and doing things the way Christ would do things 3. The high­est and most com­plete joy of which man is capa­ble is the joy of see­ing and being with God.
Love – 1. A pro­foundly ten­der, pas­sion­ate affec­tion for another per­son. 2. Kind­ness, respect, and gen­eros­ity towards oth­ers. 3. Devo­tion and desire for God as our supreme good. 4. Love for oth­ers from God’s point of view. 5. God’s pas­sion­ate love, regard and con­cern for every human being.
Peace – One of the fruits of the Holy Spirit. Peace is tran­quil­ity of soul, flow­ing from aware­ness of God’s love and friend­ship. Liv­ing in the state of grace (free­dom from mor­tal sin) is the most pow­er­ful source of peace, because of the inti­macy with God that this allows.
Per­se­vere - to con­tinue in some effort, course of action, etc. in spite of dif­fi­culty, oppo­si­tion, etc
Priv­i­lege – an advan­tage or favor granted to some­one
Right to life – A right is some­thing that one has a just claim to. The right to life is given to every human being by the mere fact that he or she is a human being. It is based on the fact that every one of us has infi­nite value in our­selves because we are crea­tures with spir­its (with immor­tal souls). The right to life is a value that is “self­evi­dent”: sim­ply by rec­og­niz­ing the won­der of what a human being is does it become obvi­ous that every human being has absolute value. This right to life is not based on the deci­sion of any other human being. Ulti­mately, the right to life is based on the
fact that every human being is made in the image and like­ness of God. How­ever, some­one does not have to believe in God to rec­og­nize the absolute value of every human being. He or she sim­ply has to rec­og­nize that, because of man’s spir­i­tual or intel­lec­tual nature, every man and woman has infi­nite value.
Strength - the power to resist attack; the power to resist strain, stress
Sup­port – to help or com­fort; to give courage, faith, or con­fi­dence to some­one.
Won­der – awe awak­ened by some­thing amaz­ing; a per­son, thing, or event that causes aston­ish­ment and admi­ra­tion; marvel

Anti-​​virtue exposure

Manip­u­late - to man­age or con­trol by shrewd use of influ­ence, often in an unfair or fraud­u­lent way.

Dis­cus­sion questions

1. Have you seen Trig Palin and his fam­ily on tele­vi­sion? What does see­ing Trig tell you about the impor­tance of respect for life? What does it tell you about his par­ents and broth­ers and sis­ters? Do you think uncon­di­tional respect for human life is an impor­tant issue in these elec­tions? How impor­tant is it?
2. Can you name some Chris­t­ian virtues that the Palins lived when they learned Trig would face spe­cial challenges?
3. Why do you think doc­tors often exert pres­sure on par­ents to abort their child when they find that the baby may have some dis­abil­i­ties? Do you think this is right? How would you help par­ents in this sit­u­a­tion? What words of encour­age­ment would you offer? What would you be will­ing to do to help them?
4. Does hav­ing a dis­abil­ity mean that a child will nec­es­sar­ily be mis­er­able? Does hav­ing a dis­abil­ity decrease the dig­nity and worth of a child? What gifts do chil­dren with dis­abil­i­ties bring to fam­i­lies and the world?
5. Why do you think women have abor­tions? Is there any­thing we can do to help women in dif­fi­cult preg­nan­cies? What sort of things?
6. What do you think of the work that Jill Stanek has done to pro­mote respect for life? Do you think it was worth­while? Do you think it was dif­fi­cult? What sort of strengths of char­ac­ter did she have to show in doing this work? Why do you think she did it?
7. Mr. Obama has said that he would not like to “pun­ish” his daugh­ters with a child if they face an unwanted preg­nancy. Do you think this kind of atti­tude truly is the most help­ful to a young woman and to every­one involved in a cri­sis preg­nancy? Do you see a pos­si­ble mis­take in this think­ing? How would you help your daugh­ter (if you had one) if she had an unwanted or cri­sis preg­nancy? How would you char­i­ta­bly explain this to Mr. Obama or his daughters?
8. Do you ever pray for the women who have had an abor­tion? Do you pray that God will heal their heart and help them know his for­give­ness and love? Do you pray for their babies as well, that they will one day be able to meet and embrace their moth­ers? How does prayer help us over­come resent­ment and anger at injus­tice? How does it help us to be more char­i­ta­ble? What do we learn when we pray?

Debate

(Choose a theme.)

1. Is abor­tion a good thing for our country?
2. If abor­tion is not a good thing for our coun­try, who is to blame for it?
3. Can young peo­ple make a big dif­fer­ence in our coun­try in help­ing cre­ate laws that show greater respect for life?
4. Should pro-​​life be the deci­sive fac­tor in mak­ing deci­sions on who you will vote for?
5. Are Catholic politi­cians who are per­son­ally opposed to abor­tion but who vote pro-​​abortion (“pro­choice”) being coher­ent in their faith and in their reasoning?

Activ­i­ties

1. Inves­ti­gate the stand of your con­gres­sional can­di­dates on pro­life issues, and get involved in the cam­paign of those who you think will pro­mote a greater cul­ture of life. Get involved in the Spe­cial Olympics or with Buddy Walk (www.BuddyWalk.org).
2. Visit a child with spe­cial needs and spend an hour help­ing make him or her happy.
3. Inves­ti­gate about the Free­dom of Choice Act which is sched­uled to be debated in Con­gress in Jan­u­ary. Find out where the Catholic Church stands on this issue. Make a plan on how you can edu­cate oth­ers about this issue.

Jour­nal writing

1. Write a let­ter to Leif. Tell him your thoughts about his life, about the things he missed see­ing, about the for­give­ness that his mother and all of us need from him. Tell him what you will do to make this world a place where other chil­dren like him are more welcome.
2. None of us are “the per­fect child” from every stand­point, but all of us are cher­ished and trea­sured by God exactly as we are. Write about a few of your own per­sonal defects. See if you can think of a way that your defects actu­ally help oth­ers some­times. Make some res­o­lu­tions about how you will treat oth­ers when you notice their defects or failings.

Resources

• “Vot­ers Guide for Seri­ous Catholics”, Catholic Answers Action: http://www.CAAction.com
• Video about vot­ing Catholic: http://www.CatholicVote.com
• US Bish­ops state­ments on vot­ing: http://www.FaithfulCitizenship.org
• Infor­ma­tion about the effects of abor­tion on women: http://www.AfterAbortion.org
• Infor­ma­tion on Barak Obama’s vot­ing on the Born Alive Infant Pro­tec­tion Act: http://www.BornAliveTruth.org
• “Our Cher­ished Right, Our Solemn Duty”, State­ment by bish­ops of New York State about the 2008 elec­tions: http://www.nyscatholic.org
• “Trig, Turn­ing the Tide”, Den­nis Teti, National Review Online, Octo­ber 2, 2008: http://www.nationalreview.com
• “A Tale of Two Down Syn­drome Babies”, Paul Ken­gor, National Catholic Reg­is­ter, Sep­tem­ber 21, 2008: www.NCRegister.com
• “Palin the Pro-​​Lifer”, Joel Davideson, National Catholic Reg­is­ter, Sep­tem­ber 21, 2008: http://www.NCRegister.com
• “Ter­mi­na­tion rates after pre­na­tal diag­no­sis of Down Syn­drome…” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10521836?dopt=AbstractPlus