Um, kanicbird, remember above where I said you seem to be a thoughtful, moderate person? You’ve convinced me otherwise.
Again, can you point to anything but your personal opinion to back your claims up? Saying that ‘well the bible says so’ doesn’t cut it. Neither does ‘if you’re not serving god, you’re serving satan’. Give us real arguments based on some type of factual evidence. Let me remind you that the bible is a mythological, not a factual, historical text. Since this is the third time I’ve asked for an actual argument and evidence from you, I’m simply not going to respond anymore if you don’t step up to the plate.
How about the biological imperative to shitcan any offspring that is doomed to be a resource sink, and will not perpetuate your genes to generation n + 2? Biologically, spending all that time and energy on a child as severely disabled as this is a losing strategy.
Quote from a friend one of whose children has Down’s: “when we found out, I cried. I cried for hours. And then I said to myself: the Good Lord will not give you more than you can take. You can take this.”
Faith helped her find Hope in times of despair. But Love (the foremost of all cardinal virtues) had been with her since she’d first felt the baby kick and, unlike Faith and Hope, doesn’t need to be called… it’s always there.
The doctors made it very clear that having a child with Down’s was Not Anybody’s Fault. That’s the one message that they tried to impart more than anything else: this is not anything that you should feel guilty about.
They could have institutionalized the child; they chose not to (although keeping the option in mind in case it turned out to actually “be too much”) because it was their child and they loved her. Before giving up, you ought to try!
(It’s the Downie lawyer I’ve mentioned in other threads. Definitely not the Reyes’ case…)
Another friend: her sister had polio at 9. For over 50 years she was blind and paralyzed from the waist down. When I met them, Lil Sister lived with Big Sister and her husband, as well as their mother. The mother was placed in the local Old Folks’ Home when she started showing heavy signs of dementia. About five years ago, they institutionalized Lil Sister; she was showing signs of kidney failure so it was best if she was in a place where there are doctors and nurses 24/7 (there is a Residencia in Pamplona that specializes in people with special needs). She died three years ago.
Big Sister never had children; she says she used to get angry when people assumed it was in order to dedicate herself to her sister (it was because it was, period - they did discard adoption in favor of Lil Sister but it’s not like she’s ever had the biggest mothering instincts on Earth, she doesn’t even like children!) but stopped caring decades ago.
Definitely no guilt there, why would it be her fault that her sister had polio? Or that her mother got old? She took care of both to the best of her ability, including when she finally institutionalized both. (Boy, that word is hard to spell!)
AFAIK, Big Sister hasn’t been to Mass for ages. Her husband goes, though (which is rare, usually the women are more religious).