My Opinion

So a friend asked my opinion of Palin, and somehow I couldn't stop typing:

Flat-out, though, I hate Palin! Beyond the fact that she is for everything I am against (she's anti-choice, pro-gun, pro-drilling, etc.), I hate the fact that she's being used as a shining example of what a mom of a kid with DS should be like.

She does NOT represent me, and her child will not be like my child. We will parent differently, we make different choices. And we have different opinions about what other people should have the right to do.

I chose to have a child with DS. David and I had discussed it back when we were dating, and we both knew enough about it to know that DS was not a big problem for us. But we could name some other medical issues where we would have made a different choice. One that, for now, we have the right to make.

Palin would take away that right. And although I know what joy Sofia has brought to us, I would hate to think of the miserable life a child would lead in a family that flat-out did not WANT to have a child with DS; that could not accept the differences; that could not provide the necessary support to help that child grow to his or her full potential.

The rumors last week about whether or not she was really Trig's mom were revealing, too. Ok, so if she is indeed his mom, she still showed an incredible amount of stupidity by flying 8 hours and then driving 45 minutes to a back-water med center when her water was already leaking. If she cannot make sane choices about her own health, how can I expect her to make sane choices about our country?

*****

I have to add more to my position (I've been reading a few other blogs, and feel the need to clarify). I firmly love the fact that the United States of America has separation of religion and state. Or that it's supposed to. While I realize that the majority of people in this country are some version of Christian, there are more than a few of us who follow other religions.

Jewish tradition is clean. The life of the mother takes precedence over the life of the fetus - even during labor. But once the head has emerged, mother and child are equal. (see Mishnah, Ohalot 7:6). This does not give permission to willy-nilly abort for any old reason, but it also does not mean that there is never a reason to abort.