There are many things that I am not able to understand. I cannot understand how there could be shadows on the sun. I do not understand how this world could have been created without God, because it seems to me that too long a chain of coincidences would have been needed, and it is coincidence I don’t believe in. And I do not understand how the so-called medical abortions can be considered alright.
Do not think I am referring to exceptional cases, in which the fetus has no chance to survive, in which continuing the pregnancy means the death of the mother or something like that. I leave such cases aside. I am referrring to cases when the baby presents a disability, such as Down’s syndrome, the absence of limbs and so on. It’s like, when you go to the medical examination, you would say to the baby: ‘Are you healthy? Do you have two arms and two legs? If so, we await you open-heartedly. If not, go to hell, `cause we don’t want you!’ Where is the unconditional love that parents should show toward their children?
Some time ago, I saw a news report about ‘the tragedy’ of two media personalities, husband and wife (their identity is not important), that ‘had to’ resort to the termination of a fifth-month-pregnancy, if I remember well, due to the fact that the little boy they were expecting had no arms. Naturally, the two declared on a deeply meditative tone that it was a right decision, because the child could never have had a normal life. This is the excuse of all people that make such a decision. Nevertheless, if a disabled person said that he wants to end his life because he cannot have a normal one, the same people would try to change his intention, strongly arguing that life is a gift from God and is worth living no matter what. Paradoxical, don’t you think? Under the circumstances, I can asume two things: either these people don’t believe what they say, and lie out of politeness, or they are part of that category of people whose intelligence is a servile adviser, helping them understand the truth only when it doesn’t contradict their personal interests. Camil Petrescu tells us about this kind of people through the first-person narrator of ‘The Last Night of Love, the First Night of War’.
I thought that our goal in life isn’t to be normal, because normality is something relative. I thought we had to be special… in the positive sense of the word. And by the way, how special can a boy without arms be… Around 2001, a fourteen-year-old boy jumped into the water of a river after a younger child who was caught in a whirlpool while bathing. The rescuer had no arms. He swam to the child using only his legs, he told him to grab hold of his neck and than swam against the current, managing to bring him safe and sound on dry land. What courage! Where did he find the strength for such a deed, I think only God knows. He took upon himself what, in his condition, could have been rightfully considered a suicidal mission. And not only did he take it upon himself, but he also carried it out. The fourteen-year-old boy was no longer a boy, he was a man. And I don’t believe there could be any solid reason for someone not to be proud of such a son. I know I would be. I must mention that our hero was not born without arms, but lost them in an accident. But if he had had this problem since birth, do you think he would have reacted differently? So why abort a pregnancy just because the fetus’s arms are missing or becausw of another malformation that doesn’t endanger anyone’s life? Despite appearances, the possibilities of such a child are unlimited, even in the case of a mental disability. People with Down’s syndrome, for instance, amaze by the enormous amount of affection they have to offer, and they do not even realize that they have any severe problem, thus they do not suffer. Practically, they remain forever children. Is that so bad? I think this limited world would need more people like these. So why abort? Just because they can never be normal. Well, this summer a teenager drowned in a river and no normal tried to save him, although in the water and on the shores there were hundreds of people that were having picnics. Moreover, the firemen had great difficulties in recovering the body, because about two hundred imbeciles would not understand that they had to evacuate the area and continued bathing in the water on the bottom of which laid a corpse. I heard both cases on the news. Both made a powerful impression on me and I don’t think I will ever forget them. The first one is about a person that deserves to live and a lot more than that, whose behavior makes us feel ashamed because it ponts out our flaws, by being the opposite of the behavior of the enormous majority we are part of. In the second case, we are dealing with individuals that bring shame upon ourselves, just by being members of the same species as we, people that deserve nothing more than to be put in front of a firing squad.
Regretably, I forgot the name of the young rescuer, however, it is not his name that we have to keep in mind, but what he stands for. Nevertheless, I have to tell you what reward he received: a pair of mechanical arms, state-of-the-art prosthesises, worth of tens of thousands of dollars. The money was raised from simple people and businesspeople alike, through an intense campaign intiated by the press. There was even a doctor from Germany who came and donated one of the prosthesis. A proper ending, demanded by common sense, don’t you agree? Too bad that the mother of the rescued child declared she didn’t understand why everyone was making such a fuss about this issue. Further comments are useless.
But it is here where I wanted to end up. Disabled people, children especially, do not suffer because of their disability, as much as they suffer because of the attitude of the people surrounding them. I once knew a little boy in a wheelchair and, from the discussions I had with him, I understood that he didn’t suffer that much because he could not walk. He had been born that way, so he was used to it. But he suffered because some members of his family wouldn’t accept him as the equal of his brother who could walk. He suffered because children wouldn’t accept him to play with them, not even when they were playing a game in which he could have easily joined in. He suffered because, even though he had no intellectual problems, he wasn’t accepted to school.. He suffered tremendously. Those that are like him cannot have a normal life, because some people cannot accept something like this, because they cannot accept something different. So I ask again: why should such a child be aborted? Why kill it? It is intolerance that should be killed, along with indifference. But I am asking for too much, thus this would be the cure of many crippled souls and nothing is more difficult to achieva than this. And how can somemeone ask the world to accept these children, when their own parents reject them, right from the intrauterine stage of life, representing for them a burden that they do not want to carry? Let’s be serious, despite all that chit-chat, behind such an abortion there is no consideration regarding the child’s interests, but only the selfishness of the parents, their desire to get rid of complications. Nevertheless, you should know that complications can occur not only during pregnancy, but throughout the entire life. Accidents do happen…
Before concluding, I would like to tell you the story of a mother I met many years ago. Her son died at the age of fifteen. A tragic accident… He had eaten poisonous mushrooms… When he was in a coma, in a hospital bed, the doctors said the toxines had severely damaged the nervous system and if he survived, he would remain in a wheelchair. The poor woman… She prayed to God to spare his life, even in a wheelchair, just so that she could keep her child close to her. She didn’t tell me how much she had cried when her son passed away, but by the tears she had in her eyes while she was telling the story, I realized she had cried enough for a lifetime. She told me that everytime she saw someone in a wheelchair, she saw her son. These being said, before deciding on the abortion of a pregnancy, out of criteria of normality, please, consider that in the future you may end up sitting close to a child that will be paralysed, without arms, without legs or without eyes and that you will pray desperately so that you can keep him. And consider that, despite all your prayers and shouts of desperation, you may receive only a lifeless body to hold tight in your arms and to mourn for the rest of your days.
