A comment and answer
I received a comment today that I am moving up because the An ongoing dialogue post is long and now very close to the bottom of the screen.
My response:
But she wasn't talking about adopting babies. She was talking about older children. She's right when she says there are a lot available for families. Are they unwanted? It is obvious that prospective parents want infants. By the way, I only ask this question because it haunts me. My husband and I have always wanted to adopt, but money and children (we have 8) keep putting it off. Maybe we should have made it more of a priority.
Sharon
My response:
I am certain there are some heart breaking cases of older children awaiting adoption, but that doesn't justify abortion. If it is acceptable to kill pre-born children because they are "unwanted", then it would be acceptable to kill born children because they are "unwanted". That just isn't how we value human life.
My point being, many babies being considered for abortion could be adopted if given the chance to be born. What to do about the older children awaiting adoption is another issue, one really unrelated to abortion.
Actually, I take that back. Many older children are in foster care awaiting adoption because of abuse. Do you know how much child abuse has risen since abortion was legalized? According to the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, in 1973, there were 167,000 cases of child abuse reported in the United States. In 2002, the Department of Health and Human Services reported 1,694,756 child abuse investigations in the United States. In 450,817 cases, the abuse was confirmed, and in another 58,964 it was determined that abuse was “indicated.”
Once children are seen as valuable only when they are wanted, it isn't a huge leap to see why child abuse is on the rise. Thus, more children in foster care. A vicious cycle, it seems.
Thank you Sharon, for allowing me to elaborate on that point.
posted by Renee at Friday, October 05, 2007
4 Comments:
Not commenting on your post, commenting on your blog mssion datement - I love it. I always called my four boys "carbon-based entropy accelerators" (and my girls had destructive qualities of their own, too) even though there were precious few in this small town who understood the words...
Ok, since someone else already went off-topic I will too! I'm such a follower.
Have you read The Kitchen Madonna by Rumer Godden? It's kinda about icons so I thought you might like it. It's excellent (as a children's book as well)!
No, I haven't read it, and I have been actively looking for a copy. Apparently it is out of print. I have heard great things about it though.
Hey, apparently the three of us are entropy fans, yes?
Hi again,
I just came in late to this discussion, but wanted to add my two cents.
As an adoptive mother (of both an infant AND his older--read 9 year old--sister), I am dumbfounded by people who think that what we did was so amazing (or before we did it-such a risk). Life is life, from the tiny baby in the womb to the elderly in our families and communities, and it's ALL valuable. We (as well as multiple families we know who have adopted older children) have great joy with ALL of our children, not just the ones I gave birth to, not just the baby we adopted, and not just his older sister.
Each one of our children fills a special and irreplaceable spot in our family and to assume that anyone of them is less *valuable* based on their means of arrival into our family does us all a great disservice.
Being pro-life means we see this great worth and dignity in ALL of God's creation and are willing to defend it to the end.
And in a side note, to PP supporters, the story's not over yet. I will have information about continued efforts to truly promote the dignity of women and give them real choice.
God Bless,
Jane
Post a Comment
<< Home