The Epitome of Self-Satisfaction

I've been a bit tuned into the politic scene of late and spend some time watching cable news programs. I was watching Fox News yesterday, tuning in too late to find out who the speaker was, and was appalled when during a critique of Sarah Palin she mentioned Palin "dragging that handicapped child around."

It wasn't that long ago when racial prejudice was rampant and my frequent reply to those displaying it was, "Good thing you chose to be white when you were born." OK, the phrasing was a bit immature (so was I, then), but the point itself isn't. We don't choose who we will be or our place in this world when we're born. Neither is it up to us whether we will be healthy and whole, or challenged physically or intellectually. Yet I find many people in this world that are embarrassed by those who are challenged as though "they" should not be allowed to show themselves in public.

A few years ago I had the privilege of working in a residential facility for people with disabilites. The residents there were all adults from young to senior, and represented many forms of disability. I started my job there hoping to be of help to others and, instead, ending up being helped by them. I learned wonderful, powerful lessons of how they dealt with the life they had. Some were born with challenges. Others had their "normal" lives changed in an instant due to accident, illness or injury. Some people's health was static, others dealt with increasing disability. Some, it is true, were unhappy with their lot in life--like many "able" people are--some used their life circumstance to obtain pity and help from others--once again like many "able" people do. But most just lived their life as normally most "able" people do.

It seems to me that so many women, who in the very recent past were decrying the fact that no woman has yet been elected to highest executive offices in our political system, dislike Sarah Palin for choosing to give birth to and a raise an "imperfect" child. It is as though they are thinking, "this is way we fight to maintain legal abortion, to be free to dispose of any child that might make us uncomfortable or embarrass us to call our own."

Get real, people. There is nothing about our birth situation that we had any say in. And just like race, gender and any other factor we use to distinguish ourselves from others, being born with a disability is simply the hand some are dealt. So is being the parent of a child with disabilities.

Thank you, Sarah and Todd Palin, for making the right choice.