Read Online Bella's Gift by Rick Santorum - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Rick Santorum
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powerful personal witness to share. The abortion debate was now very personal. It spurred both a passion and compassion. Passion to defend what I now knew firsthand—that child in the womb is one of us, part of our human family—and compassion to help all the wounded women with unplanned pregnancies who had believed the lie of sexual freedom without consequence.
I championed every pro-life bill in the Senate for the next twelve years, including the passage of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act and the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act. I fought for funding for pregnancy care centers that provide care and support for pregnant women in a crisis situation.
To me the pro-life debate was about abortion first and foremost. Then Bella arrived on the scene to teach me a whole new dimension of the issue.
As I previously mentioned, I was horrified that senators wanted to keep late-term abortions legal so parents could kill their children if they found out they were disabled. As the lead sponsor of the bill, I was bombarded by letters from parents of disabled babies in the womb who were outraged because theyhad to go to multiple hospitals to find both an obstetrician and a hospital willing to deliver their babies. Most reported that the hospitals were more than willing to do an abortion but didn’t want to risk the legal liability of delivering a child with severe health complications.
As we became more involved with the pro-life issues, we discovered the battle is also waged at the bedsides of the very sick and disabled. It is one thing to know of parents fighting to get care for their babies or trying to find professionals to deliver their babies; it is another to be a father afraid to leave his child’s side for fear of what may happen when he is away.
George W. Bush made the case for education reform with a devastating line that put the educational establishment on its heels. He referred to the lax attitude and standards of education professionals for minority and poor children as the soft bigotry of low expectations. When it comes to medical professionals and children in the womb with severe mental or physical disabilities, the soft bigotry of low expectations for the disabled is often deadly.
The culture of death is everywhere. Not that the hospitals are crawling with evil mercy killers, but rather, with many people who value human life according to what a person is able to do , rather than on how he or she can love and be loved. Bella, like so many other people with severe disabilities, can’t “do,” but she is loved, and we are especially blessed that she can love. What is more valuable than that?
5
LOVE THROUGH CHANGES
• Karen Santorum •
One sees great things from the valley;
only small things from the peak.
—G. K. CHESTERTON
T en days after she was born, Bella came home from the hospital. Outside the hospital walls, the sun was shining. The weather seemed to be God’s way of welcoming us home. I’ll never forget fitting Bella’s tiny body into her car seat. She seemed lost in the infant seat, with her curly-haired head nestled in the preemie head support. Looking at herbewildered expression and wide eyes, Rick and I smiled. As she tried to stretch but couldn’t seem to move in her little coat, we laughed for the first time since her birth. It felt good to hope. Our little girl was coming home. She had graduated from the NICU. She had survived the combat zone when no one thought she would. No one except us.
Although usually a lead foot in the car, Rick drove slowly. Coasting over the bumps, he took care to make sure Bella wouldn’t wake up. As I watched scenes of office buildings change to trees and sky, I exhaled. I inhaled. The May air was fresh, not sterile or tinged with rubbing alcohol. I heard the hum of the engine and the silence of my own thoughts. Spring was changing to summer. Closing my eyes, with the sun warming my face through the window, I felt like a bird just out of a cage. Fresh
I championed every pro-life bill in the Senate for the next twelve years, including the passage of the Unborn Victims of Violence Act and the Born-Alive Infant Protection Act. I fought for funding for pregnancy care centers that provide care and support for pregnant women in a crisis situation.
To me the pro-life debate was about abortion first and foremost. Then Bella arrived on the scene to teach me a whole new dimension of the issue.
As I previously mentioned, I was horrified that senators wanted to keep late-term abortions legal so parents could kill their children if they found out they were disabled. As the lead sponsor of the bill, I was bombarded by letters from parents of disabled babies in the womb who were outraged because theyhad to go to multiple hospitals to find both an obstetrician and a hospital willing to deliver their babies. Most reported that the hospitals were more than willing to do an abortion but didn’t want to risk the legal liability of delivering a child with severe health complications.
As we became more involved with the pro-life issues, we discovered the battle is also waged at the bedsides of the very sick and disabled. It is one thing to know of parents fighting to get care for their babies or trying to find professionals to deliver their babies; it is another to be a father afraid to leave his child’s side for fear of what may happen when he is away.
George W. Bush made the case for education reform with a devastating line that put the educational establishment on its heels. He referred to the lax attitude and standards of education professionals for minority and poor children as the soft bigotry of low expectations. When it comes to medical professionals and children in the womb with severe mental or physical disabilities, the soft bigotry of low expectations for the disabled is often deadly.
The culture of death is everywhere. Not that the hospitals are crawling with evil mercy killers, but rather, with many people who value human life according to what a person is able to do , rather than on how he or she can love and be loved. Bella, like so many other people with severe disabilities, can’t “do,” but she is loved, and we are especially blessed that she can love. What is more valuable than that?
5
LOVE THROUGH CHANGES
• Karen Santorum •
One sees great things from the valley;
only small things from the peak.
—G. K. CHESTERTON
T en days after she was born, Bella came home from the hospital. Outside the hospital walls, the sun was shining. The weather seemed to be God’s way of welcoming us home. I’ll never forget fitting Bella’s tiny body into her car seat. She seemed lost in the infant seat, with her curly-haired head nestled in the preemie head support. Looking at herbewildered expression and wide eyes, Rick and I smiled. As she tried to stretch but couldn’t seem to move in her little coat, we laughed for the first time since her birth. It felt good to hope. Our little girl was coming home. She had graduated from the NICU. She had survived the combat zone when no one thought she would. No one except us.
Although usually a lead foot in the car, Rick drove slowly. Coasting over the bumps, he took care to make sure Bella wouldn’t wake up. As I watched scenes of office buildings change to trees and sky, I exhaled. I inhaled. The May air was fresh, not sterile or tinged with rubbing alcohol. I heard the hum of the engine and the silence of my own thoughts. Spring was changing to summer. Closing my eyes, with the sun warming my face through the window, I felt like a bird just out of a cage. Fresh
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