Did the Media Trash Sarah Palin Because She Did Not Abort Her Down Syndrome Child?

This is a very sad comentary on American journalism if true. However; having read comments all over the Internet, I would not doubt this at all. JC

A roomful of academics erupted in angry boos Tuesday morning after political analyst Michael Barone said journalists trashed Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, the Republicans' vice presidential nominee, because "she did not abort her Down syndrome baby."

Barone said in an e-mail that he "was attempting to be humorous and ... went over the line."Barone was speaking at the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago, to the 121st annual meeting of the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges, which calls itself the nation’s oldest higher-education association. “The liberal media attacked Sarah Palin because she did not abort her Down syndrome baby," Barone said, according to accounts by attendees. "They wanted her to kill that child. ... I'm talking about my media colleagues with whom I've worked for 35 years.” Barone, a popular speaker on the paid lecture circuit, is a senior writer for U.S. News & World Report and principal coauthor of “The Almanac of American Politics." About 500 people were in the room, and some walked out. Barone did not dispute the accounts of his remarks. Asked about the comments, Barone said in an e-mail that he "was attempting to be humorous and, as many in public do, went over the line."

"Sorry for that," Barone said. "I was trying to focus on press hostility to Palin. I agree with [Washington Post media reporter and CNN 'Reliable Sources' host] Howard Kurtz that the press was much more interested in tracking down negative information on Palin than Obama." Palin’s youngest child, her son Trig, was born in April. Televised shots of him during her convention speech helped endear her to conservatives. During the campaign, she said she would use the vice presidency to help families with special-needs children.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1108/15527.html

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Trig's Breakthough

By Janet Crain

It is really hard for me to understand why often the same people who deplore the Eugenics Movement advocate the destruction of any baby who is less than perfect, and in, fact any baby who is seen as inconvenient.

"What you do unto the least of these, so you have done unto me" - Matthew 25:40

By Michael Gerson

In addition to Barack Obama making history as the first African American to be nominated for president and Sarah Palin taking her shotgun to the glass ceiling, there was a third civil rights barrier broken at the political conventions this year.

Trig Paxson Van Palin -- pronounced by his mother "beautiful" and "perfect" and applauded at center stage of the Republican convention -- smashed the chromosomal barrier. And it was all the more moving for the innocence and indifference of this 4-month-old civil rights leader.

It was not always this way. John F. Kennedy's younger sister Rosemary, who was born in 1918, had a mental disability that was treated as a family secret. For decades Rosemary was hidden as a "childhood victim of spinal meningitis." Joseph Kennedy subjected his daughter to a destructive lobotomy when she was 23. It was the remarkable Eunice Kennedy Shriver who talked openly of her sister's condition in 1962 and went on to found the Special Olympics as a summer camp in her back yard -- part of a great social movement of compassion and inclusion.

Trig's moment in the spotlight is a milestone of that movement. But it comes at a paradoxical time. Unlike what is accorded African Americans and women, civil rights protections for people with Down syndrome have rapidly eroded over the past few decades. Of the cases of Down syndrome diagnosed by prenatal testing each year, about 90 percent are eliminated by abortion.

Last year the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists recommended universal, early testing for Down syndrome -- not just for older pregnant women. Some expect this increased screening to reduce the number of Down syndrome births to something far lower than the 5,500 we see today, perhaps to fewer than 1,000.

Cont.here:

http://twp.com/detail.jsp?key=276294&rc=op&p=1&all=1

Palin raises hope for parents of disabled kids

Monday, September 08, 2008
Palin raises hope for parents of disabled kids

By SHANNON McCAFFREY

Polishing off his strawberry-banana yogurt, Jacob Moore races to his keyboard with a whoop, picks his way through "Pop Goes the Weasel" and gives his mom a high five. This is the average stuff of childhood, and it has not come easily to the 8-year-old with Down syndrome.

For his mother, Heidi Moore, achieving average "is like climbing Mount Everest." The family has been clambering up with the help of therapists, 15 surgeries, prayer and a tight-knit community of parents whose children live with the disorder.

That network is abuzz with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's arrival on the national scene as Republican presidential candidate John McCain's running mate. A little more than four months ago, Palin, 44, gave birth to a son, Trig, with the extra chromosome that causes Down syndrome.

Palin hoisted the sleepy-looking infant into her arms after delivering the biggest speech of her career before cheering delegates at the Republican convention and a television audience of 40 million.

In her address, she had a special message for families with special-needs children: "I pledge to you that if we are elected, you will have a friend and advocate in the White House."

It was an electrifying moment for those parents and their advocates.

Cont. Here:

http://townhall.com/news/politics-elections/2008/09/08/palin_raises_hope_for_parents_of_disabled_kids