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So says columnist Nicholas Provenzo, the latest asshat in a series of asshats to make attacks on Sarah Palin using her son Trig.
As everyone in the United States knows, Sarah Palin found out early in her pregnancy that her son would have Down’s Syndrome. Rather than aborting Trig, she went through with the pregnancy and now has a five-month-old beautiful baby boy. Even if you are pro-abortion, it’s a good story, right? Every woman has the right to “choose”, as they like to say. Except you’re supposed to choose what liberals tell you to choose.
Provenzo isn’t the first to suggest Trig should have been aborted. But he is the latest, and here’s some excerpts from his disgusting column:
Like many, I am troubled by the implications of Alaska governor and Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s decision to knowingly give birth to a child disabled with Down syndrome. Given that Palin’s decision is being celebrated in some quarters, it is crucial to reaffirm the morality of aborting a fetus diagnosed with Down syndrome (or by extension, any unborn fetus)—a freedom that anti-abortion advocates seek to deny.
A parent has a moral obligation to provide for his or her children until these children are equipped to provide for themselves. Because a person afflicted with Down syndrome is only capable of being marginally productive (if at all) and requires constant care and supervision, unless a parent enjoys the wealth to provide for the lifetime of assistance that their child will require, they are essentially stranding the cost of their child’s life upon others.
So while anti-abortion commentators such as Michael Franc of the National Review sees Down syndrome’s victims as “ambassadors of God” who “offer us the opportunity to rise to that greatest of all challenges,” for many, that opportunity for challenge is little more than a lifetime of endless burden. In this light, it is completely legitimate for a woman to look at the circumstances of her life and decide that having a child with Down syndrome (or any child for that matter) is not an obligation that she can accept. After all, the choice to have a child is a profoundly selfish choice; that is, a choice that is an expression of the parent’s personal desire to create new life.
And most parents seek to create healthy life; in the case of the unborn fetuses shown to have severe developmental disabilities, one study reports that over 90% of these fetuses are aborted prior to birth. But if you notice, the anti-abortion zealots try to attach a dirty little slur to these abortions, labeling them a form of eugenics.
…
[W]e need the mentally retarded to teach us how to better sacrifice our lives and divest ourselves of our self-interested ways more than they need us to care for them. At Noodlefood, Diana Hsieh condemns such a stand as “the worship of retardation.” Given that Palin had complete foreknowledge of her child’s severe disability yet nevertheless chose to have it, it is hard not to see her choice as anything less.
Pretty vile stuff.
So, I guess in this guy’s mind, we should have no Helen Kellers or Franklin D. Roosevelts; no Lord Byrons, Lord Nelsons, or Beethovens. Is that the argument? That unless you’re 100% “healthy” — and by whose standards is “healthy” defined anyway? — you don’t have a right to live? And what gives this guy the right to decide?
And just so you know, this guy is no small potatoes columnist either. He’s written for the Washington Times and the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He’s been on Bill Maher’s show. He isn’t some minor-league columnist who no one knows and has never heard of.
Views such as his are despicable and indefensible. I can only imagine how families with disabled children must feel upon reading this. Not only does this man think that it’s wrong to proceed with a pregnancy that will bear a child with a disability, but he thinks you are selfish and irresponsible. That child’s life is not a blessing to him, but a burden. And not only is his position the correct position, but it’s the moral one!
How crazy can you get?
What’s so ridiculous is that this isn’t his child to be upset over. It was Todd and Sarah Palin’s decision to have Trig, and no one else’s. To them, Trig’s birth was not a burden. So what is he complaining about? I guess you could say that maybe a family that is not as well-off financially as the Palins’ might see a disabled child as a burden — but if they don’t see it that way, then what’s the problem?!
It’s sad that someone can’t see anything but hatred and negativity in the beauty of a child with a disability like Down’s Syndrome. (And FYI, Nicholas, Down’s Syndrome does not automatically mean a lifetime of care and supervision with zero productivity, asshat.)
Just a little personal story: my brother worked at a summer camp for children with disabilities, right up until weeks before he passed away. I can tell you with complete and total honesty that he loved doing it. He got so much joy out of being with those children. Some of them were mildly disabled and completely capable of taking care of themselves. Others were severely disabled, requiring constant 24/7 supervision. My brother worked his way up to the severely disabled kids, and loved every second of it. He never complained or thought it was too hard. And I can tell you he certainly never saw any of “his” kids’ lives as a waste or a burden. He loved those children, heart and soul. And when I say loved, I mean it. He truly and sincerely loved them. I don’t think he would have been prouder of anything else he had done in his life.
But to this guy, people like my brother, and Sarah Palin, and other parents and friends and caretakers of people with disabilities are idiots who are not only dumb and selfish, but immoral. How sickening.
To close, does all the talk about Trig Palin needing to be aborted simply because he has a disability remind anyone else of Hitler’s talk of a perfect Aryan race?
Oh, but wait. I forgot. These guys are the “tolerant” ones.
Hat Tip: Newsbusters
Matthew says: I find this particularly chilling. If my mom had known that I would be born with an enzyme deficiency probably due to a genetic defect, I feel absolutely sure she would’ve kept me.
I’m thankful I was in her womb instead of any of the feminist’s wombs.
Chris says: Much of the pro-abortion push originally came out of the eugenics movement of the 1930’s. The notion of improving the human race is shared by the racial purity programs (encouraged breeding of “superior” people and disposal of or forced sterility of “inferior” peoples) of the Nazis. The fact that the “superior” people inevitably were white and without any genetic deformities (the definition of deformity varied with the speaker) was a feature, not a bug.
I doubt many leftists think in these terms consciously, but they do seem to be prisoners of the rhetoric of the eugenics origins of the pro-abortion movement. Any mention of “burden to society” is easily read as “geneticly inferior” and abortion is simply a “final solution” to people that doesn’t require the stinking furnaces of camps. It’s easier on their conscience, but doesn’t change the ultimate goal of their actions.
Also, it reveals one of the base notions of leftists. All children are really the property of the state, and the state should have proper control over which ones are of sufficient value (able to produce wealth the state can confiscate, which is the ultimate reason for having children, after all) to be allowed to be born and brought to adult age.
Personally, I’m starting to think that leftists don’t love America, no matter what they say. I think they love a vision of what they want to change America into, which is an all-powerful state, that controls almost every aspect of it’s subjects’ lives, all people live and die according to the whims of whoever controls the levers of governmental power. I think abortion as a means of “improving” the race isn’t the only thing leftists have in common with Nazis (though I hesitate to take the argument too far, historical comparisons are too frequently taken to rediculous extremes).
Yeah, this writer’s screed is disgusting to anyone with a built-in conscience, but leftists too frequently don’t have such a compass, depending as they do on the notion of morality coming from the state to the people, rather than the reverse, which is the American norm.
Anyway, thanks for the good reading on this blog. I rarely comment on blogs (nearly anything I want to say in comments is usually said by someone else, eventually), but thought I’d add my $.02 worth. And I apologize for any spelling errors, I’m too lazy tonight to check via my word processor.
It’s really damned peculiar when you start looking at other issues: The people who support these kinds of eugenics — that’s exactly what this guy is talking about — are the same ones who are constantly working at making people as expensive as possible, once they are here.
The minimum wage has to be automatically boosted. Everything’s gotta be a union shop. The “workers” deserve more vacation time, more medical benefits. Welfare benefits aren’t extended enough. You have the RIGHT…to family and medical leave, to sue your employer for looking at you funny, to sue him for not firing someone else who looked at you funny, to sue that guy who owns the house you were breaking into when you hurt yourself, to inspect the coins jingling around in your pocket and not see those horrible letters G, O, D.
Wouldn’t it be more logical if we were divided according to — make this enormous smorgasbord of rights available to every baby from the moment of conception…versus…people cost too much, so let’s cut these rights to the bone *and* institute a draconian code of eugenics. That kind of a divide would make a lot more sense. But instead, it’s flip-flopped. And these lefties are all twisty like a Mobeus strip; they say you have this enormous buffet of “rights” legislated in, a handful at a time, in response to random populist rage. But only if you make it across that vaginal finish line. Until then, you don’t get your vacation time, you don’t get annual bonuses, you don’t get the Bill of Rights, you don’t get to live and you aren’t even entitled to a humane demise…because you don’t exist.
It’s like they know. Their enormous accumulations of artificial “rights” are so expensive, that after awhile they can only be afforded if strict controls are put in place regarding who’s entitled to live in the precious utopia they’re trying to construct. Abortion is like the turnstyle to their precious little domed city.
Frank White says: Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Diane Feinstine are burdens to society and should have been aborted.
Ryan Aubin says: Everyday I read more of this unbridled hatred (I must be a glutton for some sort of punishment) of Sarah Palin, her family, and especially her baby boy and I just cannot understand it. How can actual human beings think this way? There is more hate against this woman than there is against George Bush. And if this is the case now, what will it be like when she is VP? So you disagree with Sarah Palin and the way she lives her life. Is calling for her families abortion necessary.
I try not not to think the same way about the left, I really do. But they make it so hard. At least I can take comfort in the fact that I believe Palin can handle it. And what does not kill her, will make her stronger and more powerfull. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
RA says: If being a burden on society is reason for the death penalty then all welfare recipients and all disabled people should also be killed. How about really fat people? Come to think of it all liberals are a severe burden to a free, prosperous America. So they should be executed too. Certainly all environmental wackos , like Algore must go.
I’ll bet the person who thinks Trig should be murdered because he is a burden, never dreamed that logic could be applied to them.
Larry Grant says: Cassy, these people don’t use the word, but they are eugenicists.
I R A Darth Aggie says: And what does not kill her, will make her stronger and more powerfull.
That’s actually a misquote. The original quote is That which does not kill me, has made a tactical error.
HTH. HAND.
Robert Patrick Moscato says: One of my neices is disabled. I know that if my sister had known she would have a daughter who would have special needs she would still do the right thing and have her anyway. It is beyond disgraceful that so-called decent human beings would advocate the killing of a child all in the name of conveinece. Sarah Palin should be comended for having Little Trig knowing what challenges lie ahead.
Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Diane Feinstine are burdens to society and should have been aborted.
Come to think of it all liberals are a severe burden to a free, prosperous America. So they should be executed too.
Good call. I don’t support abortion, but they do. It is discrimination that they only impose it on the unborn. Maybe we should impose post-natal abortions on these asshats.
Lori says: I think it’s about time we start “aborting” some of these left wing nuts who have taken over our country.
J David says: One of the first things to attract my interest to politics (besides history, of which I was already an avid reader) at the age of 10-11 years (around 1973) was the furor surrounding the Roe v Wade decision in evangelical circles into which I was born. The predictions of the deleterious effects, long term, upon society, including the euthanasia of the sick, old, and “inferior” unborn are ALL coming true. Hitler’s Germany is coming to America thru Liberalism.
Shannon in AZ says: Leftist PBS has a poll asking whether Palin is qualified to be governor or not http://www.pbs.org/now/polls/poll-435.html . Please go and correct the discrepancy folks.
As a parent of a downs child I’d like to bash that bitch in the head for her little comment. Downs children are such happy and loving people. I dont know why any one would say such things. Oh yeah damn Liberals!!!!!!!
Matty says: That disgusting man is treading a think line there. Chilling visions of GATTACA flashed through my mind. He stops just short of saying there should be laws to terminate the pregnancies of women carrying children with mental or physical defects. For the life of me I can’t understand the cognitive dissonance of someone who claims to be for the “right to choose”, but then thinks even that should be taken away if their choice might influence someone else. What a sad man.
Paul Hsieh says: First, Nick Provenzo has responded to the many misrepresentations of his views in a followup post at:
http://ruleofreason.blogspot.com/2008/09/fundamental-right-to-abortion.htm
Second, I’m going to speak up to support Nick Provenzo’s *moral* defense of the 90% of women who have learned that their fetus has DS and who eventually chose to abort.
If a woman takes a serious look at the consequences for her life of having an abortion vs. raising that child, and she decides that an abortion would best foster her happiness in the full context of her life, then that is her legal right. And more importantly, she would also be making the *morally* right choice for herself.
Of course, if a woman chooses to have the DS child, that is her right and I genuinely hope that things work out as well as possible for the child and the family.
But to uphold the 10% women who choose to have the DS child as automatically morally superior to the 90% who choose to abort is wrong.
Those women who have made the difficult decision to abort do not deserve to be tarred with the label “murderer” for choosing their own happiness. And anyone who would attempt to saddle those women with an unearned guilt should be ashamed of themselves.
Hi. I’m Nick. And I’m not an asshat. I see that you linked to my post affirming abortion rights. But I do notice that you contradict yourself.
You say:
> Every woman has the right to “choose”, as they like to say.
That would imply you recognize the right of a woman to choose abortion. And yet you later say:
>[This Nick fella adocates abortion] unless you’re 100% “healthy” — and by whose standards is “healthy” defined anyway? — you don’t have a right to live? And what gives this guy the right to decide?
That would be a straw man. I didn’t say that, and your claiming as much is a lie. After all, you yourself quote me as writing:
>[I]t is completely legitimate for a woman to look at the circumstances of her life and decide that having a child with Down syndrome (or any child for that matter) is not an obligation that she can accept. After all, the choice to have a child is a profoundly selfish choice; that is, a choice that is an expression of the parent’s personal desire to create new life.
So which is it? Do you support the right of a woman to choose abortion (and by extension) my affirmation of a woman’s right to abort in the case of physical or mental disability, or do you claim that women *must* carry a disabled fetus to term, even if they decide themselves unable to live up to the responsibly?
I’m sure the +90% of women who choose abortion in the case of sever retardation await your answer (and perhaps more pressingly), Gov. Palin’s.
I’ll field that one.
Nick, the subject under discussion is Sarah Palin, a woman who chose to carry the child to term.
Your hypotheticals have to do with women who, of their own free will, would choose to abort. That is how you are molding and shaping Cassy’s position — forcing a woman to carry a child to term.
Therefore, it is *you* who are lying and erecting straw men.
Back to the subject at hand.
Gov. Palin chose to carry her child to term, and you expressed your concerns. I don’t think it’s exactly going out on a limb to say you disapproved.
Like many, I am troubled by the implications of Alaska governor and Republican Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s decision to knowingly give birth to a child disabled with Down syndrome. Given that Palin’s decision is being celebrated in some quarters, it is crucial to reaffirm the morality of aborting a fetus diagnosed with Down syndrome (or by extension, any unborn fetus)—a freedom that anti-abortion advocates seek to deny.
There, in a single paragraph, you twist the discussion away from the freedom to carry a child to term vs. being forced to abort, to the freedom to abort vs. being forced to carry the child to term. It seems you can’t quite keep your mind on the topic you’ve chosen to discuss.
This decision your making on behalf of these women, that they should be reviewing the pregnancy for a possible abortion based on perceived birth defects, *easily* leads to eugenics. Actually, I don’t want to speak for Cassy or others, but many of us would say you’re already there. Meanwhile, if you’re arguing about a woman’s right to choose abortion vs. carrying the pregnancy to term — then the question naturally arises, what is the point of your column in the first place?? Why be concerned? A woman chose. All’s right with the world, according to your own worldview, in the Palin household.
tasteslikechicken says: MK Friedman having attended to the other part already, I’ll react to the line about “worked his way up to the severely disabled kids.” I did that, too, on my first job out of college. I am still proud of that, and appreciate the beauty your brother found in the situation.
Mike_M says: Well since Provenzo shut down his comments, I’ll have to hope that he takes a peek.
I challenge him to go make this argument the next time the Special Olympics are held. Walk right up and tell everyone that they are marginally productive leeches and that aborting them would have been the “moral” thing to do.
I wonder if he has the intellectual consistency to do it?
Kate B says: that man sounds like a modern-day eugenist, next thing he’ll say is that she shouldnt be elected VP because the doesn’t have blonde hair or blue eyes
I’m so busy applauding that I don’t know what to say..
My heart is simply overwhelmed with pain for those who don’t understand the great gift of Down Syndrome persons to our world.
If we lose our ability to show compassion, what have we become?
How dare we presume that those with Down Syndrome do not “contribute” to the world in a meaningful way?
Mike says: “Much of the pro-abortion push originally came out of the eugenics movement of the 1930’s.”
Which were pretty much universally supported, even by doctors and churches.
Get yer history straight, kiddo.
As for the lunatic remarks about pro-abortion: I’m anti-abortion, but I loathe the thought of the government enforcing moral choices based on religious belief.
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