What Are We Doing?

It’s 2012. We have made huge progress in so many areas. A computer in nearly every home. For that matter, a computer in nearly every pocket (oh, and by the way, it also doubles as a phone!). TVs bigger than most people’s windows…

And yet, on other things we seem to be stuck or even going backward! Sadly, these seem to be on things that are really important. I mean, who cares how big your TV is when someone’s life hangs in the balance?

I just read about a sweet little girl who is fighting such a fight. Who is being told she just has to wait to die because her skin is black. Does that make you angry? It should if it were true. But if it were true, you would hear about it everywhere you turn, the radio, the computer in your pocket, that bigger than your window TV…

No, the reason she must wait to die is not the color of her skin. It is something just as uncontrollable for her. It is her brain development. Her mental capacity. Her “quality of life.” Does that make you less angry? It shouldn’t.

It’s 2012. How have we not learned that kids, even if they have “issues,” believe what they are told? In the eyes of the woman carrying the baby, that’s what the unborn child is, a baby. In the eyes of the dr. it’s just a bunch of tissue. In the eyes of this dr, this little girl is just not worthy of his time. In the eyes of her parents and those who know and love her, she’s their princess, worth everything they have. Who do you think she believes?

I have a nephew. In the eyes of his first-grade classmates, he’s handicapped. In the eyes of his parents and those of us who love him, he is a smart-as-a-whip satirist who makes us laugh. All the time. And he knows it. And he’s probably the key to curing the disease that will kill you if you don’t let him grow up to fix it.

What will this little girl grow up to be? Maybe a great scientist or maybe just a simple ray of sunshine in someone’s life. We may never know if this dr has his way. Welcome back to the stone age.

You can read about her here. Now, go kiss your kids, and tell them what they need to hear. They will believe you.

2 thoughts on “What Are We Doing?

  1. This is all too common, and for you mothers, it is a broader issue than precious children. I went through something similar when my father had Alzheimers. He was otherwise healthy as a horse, and used to sit out in the garden with me singing children’s songs after many of his other memories ad faded away. When he broke his hip, it was all I could do to get him any kind of treatment. Dr. Bodner at the old Donelson hospital didn’t think he deserved treatment because he “had no quality of life.” Sure, he had Alzheimer’s, but does THAT define “quality of life any more or less than mental retardation?” It took him several months to die a slow, painful death with me begging for treatment for him. It’s a slippery slope — and this was TWENTY YEARS AGO. Imagine how far down this slope the medical community has slid in those 2 decades while we all sat quietly by and let the Terry Schiavos, mentally challenged and elderly slip away to negligence and a legal system gone terribly wrong.

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