In October, Barack Obama signed a new law that prohibits the U.S. government from referring to the “mentally retarded” in any of its laws and regulations. The term to be used instead is “intellectual disability.” Given the harshness with which it strikes the ear, the word “retarded” has long since dropped out of common usage, but it still survives in official policies.

The law is called Rosa’s Law, after a nine-year-old Maryland girl with Down’s syndrome. Her official classification at school was “mentally retarded,” which struck her mother as hurtful. The U.S. Congress passed the law in response to Rosa’s case, but also in response to a long campaign by the Special Olympics to end the use of the “R-Word,” as their campaign puts it.

Timothy Shriver, president of the Special Olympics, was on hand with several special Olympians for the signing ceremony. All of which brought to mind another White House ceremony—the one in which President Reagan conferred on Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Timothy’s mother and founder of the Special Olympics, the Medal of Freedom. It was 1984, sensibilities were different and the president praised Ms. Shriver for her heroic labor “on behalf of America’s least powerful people, the mentally retarded.” Ms. Shriver—whose character and achievements far surpass those of her more celebrated brothers, JFK, RFK and Teddy—did more than anyone else to bring the mentally disabled out of the shadows and into the light. She long used the language of her day, of course, but latterly campaigned against the use of the R-word. Yet it was her willingness to use it that began to break down the stigma and shame around mental disability.

She wrote a landmark article in 1962—while JFK was president—in The Saturday Evening Post in which she put the matter starkly: “Rosemary [Eunice’s and JFK’s sister] was mentally retarded.” In 1962, the frank admission that there was, in the most glamorous American family, a mentally disabled daughter was a major milestone.

“Like diabetes, deafness, polio or any other misfortune, mental retardation can happen in any family,” she wrote. “It has happened in the families of the poor and the rich, of governors, senators, Nobel Prize-winners, doctors, lawyers, writers, men of genius, presidents of corporations—and the president of the United States.”

It was Eunice’s love for Rosemary that motivated her to improve the lot of the “retarded” children of her time. Six years later she would found the Special Olympics. That 1962 article illustrates the urgent need for her work then, so great was the shame around mental disabilities.

“Even within the last several years, there have been known instances where families have committed retarded infants to institutions before they were a month old—and ran obituaries in the local papers to spread the belief that they were dead,” Ms. Shriver wrote. “In this era of atom-splitting and wonder drugs and technological advance, it is still widely assumed that the future for the mentally retarded is hopeless.”

It’s hard to imagine that parents would send their mentally disabled children away and pretend they were dead, rather than bear the blessed burden of raising them. If Rosa had been born in the 1950s, she would not be in a regular Maryland school, classified—as she is now—as intellectually disabled. She might well have been shuttered in an institution, thought to be dead.

Yet today, Rosa’s situation is even more remarkable. Approximately 90% of all babies diagnosed with Down’s syndrome in the womb are aborted. The technological advances that Ms. Shriver thought would help the mentally disabled are now employed to prevent them from ever seeing the light.

We insist that harsh words are not used in regard to the mentally disabled, but the most lethal words today in medicine are those that announce Down’s syndrome. It is far better to be diagnosed with terminal cancer as an adult than to be diagnosed with Down’s syndrome as an unborn baby. No cancer has a 90% death rate within a month.

In 1962, there were live children and fake obituaries. In 2010, there are dead children and no obituaries. The late Ms. Shriver did not consider that an improvement.

If Rosa is like almost all Down’s syndrome children, she is probably preternaturally gifted at showing love and transmitting joy. Those who know such children would be horrified to speak of them in anything but the gentlest language.

If, that is, they get a chance to speak of them at all.

Fr. Raymond de Souza is a Queen’s Alumnus (BA honors in economics and a master’s degree in public administration). He also holds a master’s degree in economics and politics from the University of Cambridge, England. Subsequently, he began studies for the priesthood, earning a Licence in Sacred Theology from the Santa Croce University in Rome. He was ordained to the priesthood for the Archdiocese of Kingston in July, 2002. Fr. Raymond is a frequent contributor to various publications, including the National Post, The National Catholic Register, and First Things. This article is reprinted with permission of the National Post and Fr. de Souza, and first appeared in the National Post on December 16, 2010. To view this article, visit http://www.nationalpost.com/Retarded+more/3984583/story.html.

Lord Jesus,

You who faithfully visit and fulfill with your Presence
the Church and the history of men;
You who in the miraculous Sacrament of your Body and Blood
render us participants in divine Life
and allow us a foretaste of the joy of eternal Life;
We adore and bless you.

Prostrated before You, source and lover of Life,
truly present and alive among us, we beg you.

Reawaken in us respect for every unborn life,
make us capable of seeing in the fruit of the maternal womb
the miraculous work of the Creator,
open our hearts to generously welcoming every child
that comes into life.

Bless all families,
sanctify the union of spouses,
render fruitful their love.

Accompany the choices of legislative assemblies
with the light of your Spirit,
so that peoples and nations may recognize and respect
the sacred nature of life, of every human life.

Guide the work of scientists and doctors,
so that all progress contributes to the integral well-being of the person,
and no one endures suppression or injustice.

Give creative charity to administrators and economists,
so they may realize and promote sufficient conditions
so that young families can serenely embrace
the birth of new children.

Console the married couples who suffer
because they are unable to have children
and in Your goodness provide for them.

Teach us all to care for orphaned or abandoned children,
so they may experience the warmth of your Charity,
the consolation of your divine Heart.

Together with Mary, Your Mother, the great believer,
in whose womb you took on our human nature,
we wait to receive from You, our Only True Good and Savior,
the strength to love and serve life,
in anticipation of living forever in You,
in communion with the Blessed Trinity.

I have been teaching on sexuality for many decades. When I started, nearly three decades ago, even though promiscuity was in full swing even then, I could generally count on young people agreeing with me that sexual intercourse was meant to be an expression of love. In fact, “making love” was a euphemism for “having sex,” but who says that anymore? When I would speak about “sex” they would naturally think of an act performed by spouses. Some argued that if you were in love and intending to get married, it could be moral to have sex before marriage. Even so, there was also fairly widespread agreement, that if you weren’t ready for babies, you weren’t ready for sex. Few were arguing that it was moral to have any kind of sex.

How things have changed since then! Now, when I speak of “sex” people think of a profoundly pleasurable sexual act that has no connection to love, commitment or babies. Young people are a bit surprised when I maintain there is a natural connection between sex, love, commitment and babies.

Why has this change come about? Well, as I have argued incessantly for years, the introduction of the contraceptive pill changed everything. Suddenly people thought removing the baby making power of the sexual act meant they were free to engage in sex without a second thought about any new life that might be conceived. And then we all went wild. As a result, 41% of babies are now born out of wedlock; one of four pregnancies is aborted; and nearly 70% of all children in the United States grow up in households affected by divorce or unwed pregnancy. Worldwide, millions of people are dying of the HIV. And the media continue to fixate on condoms as a solution to all these problems?

TV morality

I blame the media, and to a great extent, the entertainment world. It is a rare parent who doesn’t find the media to be tremendous threats to forming their children well, especially when it comes to sexual morality. All of us are bombarded daily with seductive sexual imagery and the glorification of sexual immorality, from advertisements to nearly every TV show and any nonanimated film. Some films do show the terrible life consequences of irresponsible sexuality, but most entertainment presents irresponsible sexuality as normative and falsifies the all-too-common consequences.

Why don’t reporters harass script writers and producers and others responsible for what appears in the media, instead of further harassing the Holy Father? Why don’t they ask questions such as, “Aren’t you concerned that the way you portray casual sex as exhilarating and satisfying will lead young people to engage in sex recklessly?” “Don’t you feel responsible to some extent for all the unwed pregnancies, abortions, sexually transmitted infections, broken hearts and broken lives?” This would focus our public debate on how those who create our cultural icons are tearing down family values brick by vital brick.

There is also a dearth of reporting about the consequences of unwed pregnancy for the people involved, for the economy and the culture. There is a lack of reporting about the reality of the homosexual lifestyle; the number of lifetime partners, of anonymous sex, of shortened lifespans. Without full information, people can’t make good choices.

If any food or drug led to the amount of disease, poverty, and general human unhappiness that is caused by reckless sexuality, there would be a full-fledged media campaign attempting to alert people to the danger. Is global warming a worse danger than reckless sexuality, which may be said to create an imbalance in our personal and culture moral “ecosystem”? Is overeating a worse danger than reckless sexuality, resulting as it does in a warped and cynical self-image? Is lack of recycling or oil spills worse than reckless sexuality, which trains us to disrespect and ignore our bodily dignity?

Why can’t the media see what is in truth one of the worse threats to human happiness that lurks right under our noses? Why do they continue to fixate on the Pope and condoms, when the world needs to hear about sexual responsibility? Why?

* * * Janet E. Smith is the Father Michael J. McGivney Chair of Life Ethics at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit, Michigan. She is the author of “Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later” and “The Right to Privacy,” and editor of “Why Humanae Vitae Was Right: A Reader.”

BURGOS, Spain, July 14, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The Archbishop of Burgos, Francisco Gil Hellín, has issued a call to Spanish Catholics to resist the country’s new abortion law, which he says is no law at all.

In a statement published on the bishops’ Catholic Information Service, Gil Hellín laments the recent promulgation of the law, an “evil law which is directly opposed to right reason and the most elemental justice. Such is the law that establishes that the Spanish have the right to kill the unborn, as long as they do it before 14 weeks.”

“Let us diagnose it with total clarity: this law is no law, although it is presented as such by some political and legislative bodies. And it isn’t because no one has the right to eliminate an innocent. For that reason, it doesn’t obligate. Even more, it demands a head-on opposition without reservation. Right reason cannot admit as a right the killing of an innocent person.”

The new abortion law, which is being contested before Spain’s Constitutional Tribunal, abolishes penalties for all abortions during the first 14 weeks of pregnancy.  It also allows minors to obtain abortions without parental permission, although they must first inform their parents of their intention to do so.

The archbishop rejects arguments that claim the law is somehow valid because it was passed by the legislature and approved according to the required legal processes.

“It is a fallacy to affirm that this law has been approved by the majority of the Parliament and that this represents the majority of the citizens, or to say that if the Constitutional Tribunal decrees its conformity [with the Constitution] it would be disobedience to oppose it, and would deserve a punishment. The fallacy consists in attributing to politicians, judges, or citizens a right that they don’t have, and no one has the right to legislate that an innocent can be killed.”

“What society would continue if it declared that is the right of citizens to kill innocent persons by majority [vote]? In the best scenario it would be converted into a tyranny, against which upright persons would have to react, according to this advice by Gandhi: ‘As soon as one understands that obeying unjust laws is contrary to his dignity as a man, no tyranny can dominate him.’”

The archbishop’s strong statements were made only days before the Constitutional Tribunal is to decide if the law will be suspended while it is under review.

A previous ruling of the Tribunal in the 1980s decreed that the right to life of the unborn child is paramount except in certain cases, including danger to health, rape, or fetal deformity.

Steven W. Mosher, Population Research Institute

Prophecies of Humanae Vitae

By Father Paul Marx, OSB

On July 25, 1968, Pope Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae re-affirmed the Catholic teaching on life, love and human sexuality. In that document, he listed the consequences of life lived outside Catholic teaching.

He predicted that:

1.    Contraception would lead to conjugal infidelity.

2.    Contraceptive practice would lead to a “general lowering of morality.”

3.    Contraception would lead men to cease respecting woman in their totality and would cause them to treat women as “mere instruments of selfish enjoyment,” rather than as cherished partners.

4.    And finally, widespread acceptance of contraception by couples would lead to a massive imposition of contraception by unscrupulous governments.

In other words, Pope Paul VI predicted that contraception would evolve from “a lifestyle choice” into a weapon of mass destruction. How dreadfully his prophecy has been vindicated by population control and coercive sterilization programs, fertility reduction quotas and the promotion of abortion literally everywhere in the world.

Contraception’s destruction of the integrity of the marital act—as unitive and procreative—has dire consequences for society and for our souls. Contraception, in other words, is a rejection of God’s view of reality. It is a wedge driven into the most intimate sphere of communion known to man outside of the Holy Sacrament of the Mass. It is a degrading poison that withers life and love both in marriage and in society.

By breaking the natural and divinely ordained connection between sex and procreation, women and men—but especially men—would focus on the hedonistic possibilities of sex. People would cease seeing sex as something that was intrinsically linked to new life and to the sacrament of marriage.

Does anyone doubt that this is where we find ourselves today?

Anti-abortion march attracts thousands

‘The hands of South Africa’s lawmakers are dripping with blood.’ said Archbishop Buti Tlhagale to more than 2,000 anti-abortionists who marched on Saturday 13 March with the Archbishop from the Cathedral of Christ the King to Constitution Hill where officials from the Department of Health accepted a petition addressed to the Minister of Health calling for an end to abortion.

South Africa is a young democracy – said the Archbishop – yet those at the helm have wasted no time in ‘binning God’. They tolerate religion so long as it is practiced in private. South Africa’s law makers deny that God is the source of all freedom. The Act simply frees a person from moral responsibility, from the dictates of their conscience. Since abortion is approved by Government legislation it cannot be wrong is the reasoning which sees morality reduced to a personal preference. The debate around moral regeneration is simply that – debate. There is no search for elusive moral value, not much conscience. In the debate there are no absolutes, no non-negotiables.  For Christians God is the author of life and we have to answer to Him on the issue of abortion. Yes, there are tensions between individuals and tension between the church and politicians who have legislated the killing of life in the womb but society is far too lazy to search for the truth, to do what is moral.

We are on a cause of life. We march today because the Church is duty bound to raise its voice; duty bound to value life, especially life in the womb. South Africa’s lawmakers deny life and offer abortion on demand.  In this country child rape, brutal abuse of women and children, drugs, violent road deaths are common. Amidst this everyday violence the gospel calls us to protect and revere life. ‘Thou shalt not kill’ is unambiguous. Life is of unassailable, inestimable value and abortion is a deplorable crime.

Doctors and nurses are pledged to serve life, not death. How long will it be before the South Africa’s constitution protects life?

The Archbishop called on young people to respect their bodies, respect life and speak out. Silence means complicity.

‘Love God, love your neighbour.’ he urged the assembly. ‘Protect and defend life – life from its inception!’

Permission for the march was withheld until Thursday. Nevertheless it was well attended and marchers were well disciplined. Some carried graphic photos of aborted babies, others images of the Virgin of Guadalupe, patroness of the unborn.  SAPS and Metro police accompanying the march were redirected from the ‘Old Fort’ entrance to the Con Court entrance.

The Bill proposes that the 1996 law be amended  “so as to ensure a woman or child is able to make a fully informed choice regarding the termination of her pregnancy.”

The bill proposes that all facilities that perform abortions should provide access to proper counselling, as required by the regulations of the Act. The reality is that most facilities do not provide sufficient counselling and information about alternatives.

The bill suggests that all abortion facilities should:

(a)     have access to ultrasound equipment which must be used (i)  accurately to determine  the gestation period prior to TOP and, (ii) to provide relevant information as to the state of the development of the unborn child thereby assisting the mother to make an informed choice.

(i)   gives access to counselling which:

(i) must comply with Regulation 7 of the Regulations made under the principal Act

(ii) provides full opportunity for discussion and questions;

(iii) provides sufficient information, including electronic pictures, or diagrams and photographs, to enable the woman or child to understand the development of the unborn child;

(iv) includes discussion of the extent of the risks involved in continuing the pregnancy as set against the risks involved in terminating the pregnancy including breast cancer, depression and future difficulties in conceiving and bearing children and

(v) available alternatives to abortion including adoption and state and other support available to the mother.

For more information please contact

Cheryllyn Dudley, MP: 082 890 6520 or

Liziwe Ndalana, ACDP Parliamentary Media Liaison

Tel: 021 403 3307 / 072 103 8899

If we proceed from the assumption that, after birth, human infants are beings with moral status (who therefore enjoy a right to life), the onus is on pro-abortion advocates to show how the nature of a newborn infant is different from the foetus before birth; in other words why birth represents a morally significant dividing line.  It is clear that birth does not change the nature of the being in question in any morally significant way.  To make this event the marker of the infant acquiring moral status is irrational and arbitrary.

One can now ask whether there is any point in pregnancy (or characteristic of the foetus which is developed during pregnancy) which represents a morally significant dividing line, in other words, which changes the nature of the foetus in such a way that it becomes a being with moral status, when it was not such a being previously.  South African law makes no reference at all to the nature of the foetus, but implies that 20 weeks is such a dividing line, as conditions under which abortion is legal are extremely limited after this point.  If 20 weeks is a morally significant dividing line, the onus is on lawmakers to show why this is so.  If one cannot say why his point is morally significant, the decision to disallow abortion after this point, while allowing it before this point, is arbitrary.

Characteristics which have been considered relevant in this regard are quickening, the ability to feel pain, or viability.  However, none of these characteristics can be shown to be morally significant.  The inability to move, feel pain, or survive independently cannot be rationally defended as characteristics which deprive a being of moral status (they do not count as such after birth – imagine the implications if they did).  It is impossible to identify a point in pregnancy which represents a morally significant dividing line, apart from conception, when a new being comes into existence.  Therefore we are logically left with two options – acknowledge that the foetus has moral status from conception, or deny that it has moral status, and accept the implications of this, which is that infanticide is acceptable.  As the second option is morally repugnant to most people, and is not accepted in South African law, we must logically accept that the foetus has moral status from conception.

It would still be possible to defend abortion if one defends the proposition that the mother’s right to bodily autonomy supersedes the foetus’ right to life.  However, if the foetus is a separate being with moral status, who therefore has the right to life, this is a far more fundamental right than the right to bodily autonomy, and this defence therefore does not hold.