Palin and the Cause of Life -- Part Two of Two

I'm going to leash together two separate but closely related stories. The first is a nod to (of all places) NBC Nightly News for a piece it ran recently on Sarah Palin. The second is what was a reasonably even-handed profile of Gov. Palin that appears in the New York Times magazine until it went off the deep end with a stunningly offensive observation.

No doubt it appears somewhere on the NBC News web page, but I found the piece about Gov. Palin linked on the Los Angeles Times blog.  [http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2008/10/sarah-palin-6.html]. It starts with Brian Williams yammering and then cuts to the report, filed by correspondent Savannah Guthrie.
I won't spoil it for you. Let me say only that it is about "another constituency" that attends pro-life Gov. Sarah Palin's rallies whose love and affection for Gov. Palin extends "beyond politics." Be sure to take a moment to watch the report and pass it along to others.

The New York Times Magazine piece, which appeared yesterday, was written by Cynthia Gorney, a former Washington Post reporter. It drips with the usual condescension, but these people simply can't help themselves.

Pro-Life Gov. Sarah Palin holds her son, Trig.

But condescension is one thing. Mean-spirited ignorance is quite another. What do I mean? This statement.

"Her family dramas hush up any suggestion of hypocrisy. It's been pointed out how differently the pregnant-daughter-and-Down-syndrome-infant narrative would be received if the Palins were black, how foolhardy even the most valiant right-to-lifer would have to be to jump on that bandwagon."

Where to start in deconstructing such balderdash? It would take all-day to correct all the errors, so let me just mention a couple. (I know that you will send me additional comments which I will select from and run tomorrow.)

Nobody "jumped" on anyone's bandwagon when we learned that Gov. Palin had known her now-sixth-month old son, Trig, would have Down syndrome, or when Gov. Palin announced that the Palins' 17-year-daughter was pregnant. The walk-the-walk responses of Sarah and Todd Palin affirmed what many of us had already known about them.

Their actions reminded us that when most people are informed that their unborn baby has Down syndrome, they virtually automatically chose death. And we admired Gov. Palin even more for her candor, her unwillingness to pretend that the birth of a child with special needs did not pose challenges.

As she told a rally in Johnston, Pennsylvania,  "Now, when I learned that my son Trig would have special needs, to be honest with you, I had to pray that my heart would be prepared for the challenges to come. It was a shock I wasn't ready for this. I had to ask for this strength. At first I was scared, and Todd and I had to ask for strength and understanding. But let me tell you a few things I've learned already. Yes, every innocent life does matters. Everyone belongs in the circle of protection. Every child has something to contribute to our world, if we give them that chance. Now there are the world's standards of perfection and then there are God's standards, and these are the final measure. Every child is beautiful before God, and dear to Him for their own sake. And as for our beautiful baby boy, for Todd and for me, he is only more precious because he is vulnerable. In some ways, I think we stand to learn more from him than he does from us. So when we hold Trig and care for him, we don't feel scared anymore. We feel blessed." [See http://www.nrlc.org/News_and_Views/Oct08/nv101308.html]

But worse than that short-sightedness is Gorney's flat-out statement that had the Palins been black, our response would have been otherwise. It's just incredible how tunneled-visioned even ordinarily smart and savvy ex-reporters like Gorney can be.

Who operates the crisis pregnancy centers? Who tells young pregnant black and Hispanic women that there is a better way? Who disproportionately opens their hearts and homes to children with special needs? Planned Parenthood?

PPFA has targeted poor women and especially women of color from Day One. They place heavy emphasis on "serving the needs" of women in economically deprived cities. And can you imagine even one of those tender-hearted people who collectively compose the largest abortion provider in the world ever helping a woman who has just discovered her unborn baby is injured?

You routinely espouse the cause of life in the face of a withering cascade of criticism, demeaning remarks, and a viciousness that is breathtaking. And somehow Gorney thinks you will fail the test, you would be afraid to stand up for your convictions? Please.

The next time you hear something this racist, remember it was in that very same town of Johnston, Pennsylvania, that pro-abortion-and-beyond Sen. Barack Obama told the audience earlier this year that if his daughters were to "make a mistake, I don't want them punished with a baby."

PPFA targets women of color to abort their babies. We help those very same women through the tough times to choose life.

Gorney may think this is "foolhardy." We don't.

Send your comments to Daveandrusko@hotmail.com

Part One