These Children Are Special and Loveable, Except When They're Not

I read many different doll blogs, that offer news and reviews of many different dolls. A couple of those reviews have featured dolls from Extra Special Dolls. What makes these dolls special is that they are all modeled to look like children with Down Syndrome. Not only are the faces sculpted to look like children with Down Syndrome, the dolls also have other physical characteristics of someone born with this genetic disorder. These include things like a single crease in the palm, lower set ears and a tiny curved pinky finger. Your doll can even be created with things like custom scars, as Down children can suffer with things like heart issues, that need surgery.

I admire the woman who first got the idea for these dolls because her own daughter has Down Syndrome. She's worked hard to bring her dream of creating these dolls to life. It's a great story, and I hope the dolls bring lots of happiness to every child who receives one. But on the other side, we have stories like these, where a mother killed her own toddler with Down Syndrome.

That's the sad part of all this, that while some people treasure life, even of those who may have health issues or genetic disorders or physical handicaps, there are some, like that toddler's father, who think that children like his son are better off dead. Despite how "lucky" she was to be the toddler's mom, this Erika Wigstrom decided it was her choice to kill him.

But then again, why shouldn't she? "An estimated 92 percent of all women who receive a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome choose to terminate their pregnancies," according to a pediatric geneticist in Boston. In other words, most children who have Down syndrome never even make it out of the womb alive. If it's okay to kill those unborn prenatally, because they will be inconvenient or inexpensive or if a parent is not "strong enough to raise a child like that," what if they become too much to deal with out of the womb? Please cut out the nonsense about how your "kid is so cool God wanted him." If God wanted him, God would have taken him without you choosing to poison him. No, all these people just want to play God, want to have control of their own lives, want to get rid of everything which isn't "perfect" or that means hard work.

And as the ABC article notes, many more women are conceiving babies with Down syndrome because they are waiting so much longer to try to have a child in the first place. What a schizophrenic society we live in, where we treat Down syndrome children as unique, special blessings for a family, and on the other hand most of them are aborted because they are not wanted by their parents.

What's in a Name

More Hollyweird stuff! This time it's a Rebecca Romijn, who says eventually she's going to change her last name to her husband's, because she predicts that eventually, her daughters will wonder why they don't all have the same last name (they're four.) Which led to several people in the comments insisting that you don't have to have the same name to be a family, darn it! Yes, it definitely feels good to be all inclusive and open and accepting of everything. But considering that many of these same people are probably also fine with the break-up of the family via divorce, or the aborting of a family member, should we believe them? Or are too many people just parroting the standard phrases of the day because they've been told that's how the "right" people think? After all, is the family stronger overall right now, or weaker? How often have you heard "straights" have already messed up marriage so much, that gay marriage won't damage the institution any more?

I happen to think that the name *does* make a difference. We are the Evil Genius family, and in being so, we are part of something greater than ourselves. By birth, I am linked by blood to all of my female forebears. But I am also tied to all the women who produced the men in my husband's lineage, by name. I am one of a long line of Evil Genius women, and sometimes I am sorry there will be no more Evil Genius women directly after me. But my daughters will take their identities of what the Evil Genius family shares, the things that make us the Evil Genius *family*, and carry that to their new families. They will still be part of their father and I by blood, but part of their new family, the family they create, by name.

So Very Tired

So Plan B, the "morning after" pill, is approved for over the counter purchase to girls as young as fifteen. And I'm sure you've heard lots of arguments why it's a bad idea. It is ridiculous that I as a forty-four year old woman have to show my ID to buy cold medicine, but my teenage daughters, with their still maturing bodies and minds, can buy, with no oversight, a medication with a much greater chance of complications, even when it is taken as directed. I had to show my ID to my own sister-in-law when my daughters got their ears pierced, because we got them pierced through the jewelry store that she works at, and she had to have proof that I, as a parent, had given permission. Because ear piercing is so much more dangerous than making your body abort a pregnancy, and messing with the hormones of a girl which are not completely settled to begin with.

But honestly, I expect no less from this government. What discourages me, and makes me tired, is I would expect the majority of people in this country to either, 1. still heartily approve, or 2. not have any idea this happened. And the second group bothers me more than the first, because the second group is more likely to disapprove, and thus, there might be a chance of changing the way we treat the unborn in this society, and the inconsistent way we grant "freedoms" to citizens. Plus, some people might wake up to how little they are aware of things. Maybe? I'm considering running a little experiment and asking moms of some of the teens I know, if they have heard about this ruling. Just to see how little some people pay attention.

In the meantime, I've had to tell my daughters to be aware if they hear someone they know has taken, or is going to take Plan B. Just in case something does happen.

Innocent Blood

So now scientists are saying that as early as 28 eight weeks gestation, babies may be able to tell different syllables apart. We learn more and more about the unborn, and about infants, and what they are able to perceive and learn. And yet there are people still defending Kermit Gosnell, an abortion practitioner going on trial, who among other atrocities killed viable infants who survived abortion. Don't go over to that link unless you want your stomach to turn.

I've grown to understand the mentality of a society that on the one hand continues to learn more and more about how complex even the unborn are in their ability to learn and process information, and on the other hand looks the other way when those same miraculous creatures are killed in horrific manners and body parts preserved in jars. The truth is, not only does evil exist, but too many people have been so swayed by emotional appeals that they overlook evil. Certainly, gruesome abortion details do create an emotional reaction on the other side. But go beyond that and think about why an unborn child deserves to be killed at all, and all of the ways to kill the unborn are pretty gruesome, when even science is telling us how, dare I say it, human, these little ones are?

Consequences

If you give the government almost unlimited control because you agree with them, you may find out that they are using that control to do things in private that you may not agree with. Like give birth control pills, IUDs, NuvaRings and the Plan B pill to minors without parental consent. I was able to find one doctor after a quick search who disagrees with the plan to distribute birth control to students without parental consent, even though it is the Evil Fox News. The doctor has a point, however. Birth control can have serious side effects, which necessitate a thorough medical evaluation, and simple birth control does not prevent STDs. How is it right to give a minor medication, without any medical supervision, which could possibly cause blood clots, high cholesterol or high blood pressure? The NuvaRing has indeed caused blood clots which might potentially be fatal. Actually, I take this news pretty personally, because over seven years ago, my husband and I lost a friend due to a blood clot that entered his lungs. We didn't know at the time that I wrote that post what had killed him; we discovered at the funeral that time spent in bed with kidney issues caused a blood clot to move. So yes, blood clots can be fatal. No matter how hard we try, intercourse is not consequence free, no matter how much people wish it was, and risking lives to try to sweep the consequences under the rug is criminal. Risking minors' lives without the consent of their parents is even worse.

Oh, and a great couple of lines from the original article. Referring to Mona Davids, parent of the NYC Parents Union: "Davids, who is black, noted that most school-based health centers are in poor neighborhoods. 'This was population control on blacks and Latinos without our knowledge,' she said." Somewhere, Margaret Sanger is saying, "Duh."

I Wonder If

a society that on the one hand treats babies like props and spends hundreds of dollars to purchase a realistic baby doll with all of the cuteness and none of the work, is actually compatible with a culture that on the other hand aborts them and throws them away. In either case, infants are not seen as individual, human souls, but as an abstract. What do you think?

The Least of These

The more I think about the whole abortion issue, the more I disagree that it is ever a good idea. Christians have tried to be all compassionate and understanding about women who have had an abortion for at least the devasting reason of rape and incest. What has happened with this compassion and understanding, however, is a culture that considers a human life something that can be thrown away for any reason, at virtually any time before a viable infant arrives in the world. Even after a viable infant is born,if the mom panics and abandons the child by himself somewhere, we are supposed to feel more pity for the young adult forced to make such a horrible choice, than for the baby who may or may not pay for it with his life.

Women and girls who do face a surprise or unwanted pregnancy do need help and support. What a lot of right-to-death proponents gloss over is the fact that many pro-life people are providing help and support right now. Sadly, not everyone can get the help they need. However, not everyone finds, say, the mental health help they need either. Suicide is the final result far too often. Even having money and connections does not always make struggles easy. How many Hollywood stars have self-destruced, often due to awful things that happpened to them as they rose through the ranks to stardom? With the money for the best counseling and mental health retreats, some people still can't completely rid themselves of their demons. And again, the result is death.

I used to have at least a sort of sympathy for those who claimed they were only in favor of abortion until the baby was viable outside of the womb. I wanted to meet them halfway, hoping that they would develop into people who were pro-life for even the youngest and most vulnerable of those in the womb. Vulnerable. Even the infants that are born full-term are horribly vulnerable. How can we welcome some of these, and essentially tell others that they have no right to live, after being given life without their consent or their will? Look at the picture here of a developing human only seven weeks after conception. He looks a little odd, but he is undeniably human. Not a clump of cells. Not a bunch of tissue. Human. And one's belief in a God or gods or no deity at all does not change this. If you are not afraid of being punished by a deity for killing the life of a unique individual whose body is daily growing and taking shape, does that mean that life does not matter if you find it an inconvenience? The story below is where we end up, and it does not and will not end there. What kind of a society do we want to be? That is our true choice.

I Can't Tell You How Sick This Makes Me

One of my guilty secrets is reading online forums, even ones where I don't have a direct connection to the forum topic, such as kitchen remodelling. I like reading peoples' stories, good and bad, and seeing pictures of what kind of remodels and crafts and so forth people do. And depending on the forum, mostly people are relatively polite and remain on topic.

But something I read recently made me very sick at heart, and it preyed on my mind for quite a while that evening. A woman was talking about how she and her boyfriend of a year just found out that the boyfriend is a father of a child, the product of a one-night-stand. At which point, a few commenters talked about how it is not "fair" that the woman didn't just abort the child. Well, first of all, as I am fond of saying, life ain't fair. And why supposedly grown adults should still think that any part of life should be "fair" is beyond me. How is it fair that a person should not have to live with the consequences of his behavior?

But the worst part is what easy abortion is doing to people's hearts and minds. People who probably think that they are "good" people are, in essence, saying that there is a baby out there who should not have been born. A human being who should not exist. That someone should not have been allowed to draw his first breath not because of what he had done, but because of what his biological parents did. Not only that, complete strangers on the internet feel free to postulate on whether a child should have been allowed to live. How much more twisted will we become?

Dear Andrea Mitchell

I've done a lot of thinking about this, and you know what? I don't even know why you would presume that you could speak for me as a suburban mom, or even as a woman. I'm everything that you hate. I'm very white, and I'm not ashamed of the color of my skin. I'm not strictly evangelical, but you wouldn't know the differences in Christian doctrine if someone made a coloring book about it for you. I'm a stay-at-home mom. I've homeschooled my children. I've never had an abortion. I want a return to our Constitution and the founding principles of this country. It doesn't matter if you are who you are, a woman who married a wealthy old man and wouldn't be caught dead living the life of any of the suburban moms that I know, or if you were a dirt poor woman living in a ghetto. YOU DON'T SPEAK FOR ME.

Dialing It Down

I am absolutely sick to death of politics. Or, I am sick of everything, everywhere, throwing in politics. I would like to be able to visit a doll board, or a vintage fashion blog, and not have to read about politics. Mostly, the political speech is frightened lefties, which makes me laugh, in the long run. We had the eeeeeevil President Bush for eight years, and did he do ANYTHING that the hardcore lefties projected onto him? Not really. In the long run, he disappointed the right about as much as anything else. Although listening to public figures blaring in the media about how they had lost their freedom of speech was pretty precious.

Certainly, there are social conservatives out there, or socons, who would like to pass very totalitarian rules about sex and alcohol and divorce and etc. There are also people like Alinsky who would like to put people like me in a camp. The socons who are that restrictive are a very small portion of the population, just as, honestly, the Alinskyites are. It's very unfortunate that an Alinsky disciple happens to be in power, but I don't think even all socialists would go so far as to put people in camps.

You see, even though I am a strong socon, I also happen to be a strong ficon, and I'm also big on being left alone. In the long run, politics IS really all about power, but it's as much whether the people have it or the government has it, as who in the government has it at the moment. The more power the government has, the less power I as an individual have, and I will always fight against that state of things. I will admit to being against abortion, because I view it as murder, and because it is, as socons predicted, leading towards euthanasia policies for the elderly, those who are not perfect physically or mentally, inconvenient children who will force you to shop at Costco, or even perfectly viable infants. Other issues, I don't really care about, AS LONG AS you pay for it or deal with the consequences of it yourself. It is not a hardship for you to pay for your birth control if your insurance carrier does not provide it. As a conservative, I would say, go find some other insurance carrier that does. My family has gone through some difficult times. We are going through some difficult times right now, actually, thanks to Obamacare. But we look to ourselves and not the government to help us through. Getting rid of some of the rules and regulations we are forced to live under would help us even more.

So there you are, an Evil Genius' view of the political world. I put it here, because this is my space, and politics is one of the things I choose to discuss here. I won't bring it up on my doll blog (such as it is) or in forums that are not political. Unless you bring it up first. Then, I am working to sharpen my political Breitbart. It seems to be a skill that is more and more required.

Bleak

Do you all of you out there know what reborn dolls are? They are mass-produced dolls that are redone using paint (down to tiny veins,) rooted hair, and appropriate stuffing or filling to imitate an actual newborn baby. Magnets can be used to give the baby a pacifier. It's not my thing, but then most people would probably think I was strange for collecting dolls at all, so there you are. But tonight on eBay was a first for me: a reborn baby vampire doll. Creepy! Not to mention, how do vampires have babies anyway? Besides that whole Twilight thing which is probably at fault for a lot of this current vampire craze anyway. I suppose some people would like the sweetness and innocence of a baby combined with the darkness of a vampire--or they want to pretend they have Edward Cullen's love child. It just seems a little too ghoulish for me.

Our culture seems to be ever more fascinated with death, darkness and things that go bump in the night. It may be more of an issue to me because of my illness. If I am not careful, I can get pulled into the abyss easier than most. But thinking of the idea of "the culture of death" that some have thrown around, due to the acceptance, and in some cases encouragement, of abortion and euthanasia, I wonder. Non-Christians have every right to collect a doll created after the Death Tarot card, or be drawn to gloominess and cemeteries. Am I overreacting to wonder if our culture can wonder too far down the path into darkness? What do you see in your world?

Saddened and Confused

I was reading a thread on German royals who were active in the Nazi movement and I had to quit fairly quickly in as I was so disgusted. Over and over, the theme was, "How could people be involved in something so horrible, like killing babies and innocent children?" This coming from people who are cool today with innocent unborn babies being ripped out of their mother's wombs. Who are probably okay with Planned Parenthood telling women that what's inside the uterus "isn't a baby" and that abortion is so much "safer" than childbirth. Well, Nazis were able to do the same sort of moral gymnastics when they killed off Jews and minorities. Never mind that minorities are disproportionally represented among abortion statistics today.

These are people who praise the Crown Prince and Princess of Germany for not hiding away their daughter with Down's Syndrome, while Down's Syndrome is becoming practically unseen today because so many unborn children diagnosed in the womb (it's not 100% accurate) are being aborted. And believe me, these people are not shy about their politics, so either they agree with these things or they're stupid; that is, the politicians they support are definitely not shy about utter and absolute support of abortion at all times. That princess would be lucky to be born today, forget about being hidden from the public. How do people manage these contortions with a straight face?

Things That Make You Go Hmmm

While out and about the other day, I saw a bumper sticker for breast cancer that really gave me pause. It said, "Everyone deserves a lifetime." My first thought was, everyone? Really? What about all the millions of babies that have been aborted? Don't they deserve a lifetime too? Why does someone with breast cancer deserve life more than someone with Down's Syndrome, or even someone who could be born perfectly healthy, had he not been conceived at an inconvenient time? Also ironic is that the Susan G. Komen Foundation, which raises funds for breast cancer research, also financially supports Planned Parenthood. I guess they don't really believe that everyone deserves a lifetime.

While searching through breast cancer paraphernalia to get the exact quote for above, I also found a shirt that was off-putting to me. I do believe that prayers can avail much in our earthly fight against illness and death, but putting a pink ribbon around the cross seems very wrong. Ultimately, Jesus died to take away our sins, not for his cross to be co-opted for the cause de jour. What do you think?

Lastly, while reading a blog's comments, the subject of religion came up, and a member of the Eastern Orthodox church declared that Orthodox believe that Jesus died to destroy death, not to pay the price for our sins. Is this really what Orthodox believe? Does anyone know?

When Murder Becomes an Ideal

This is a chilling article that really brings home the devastation that China's one-child policy is visiting on that country. It also ties in how curtailing the human population has become almost an obsession with certain groups in society. The human sinful condition does mean that there are no depths to which our fallen natures cannot go, yet it is frightening to realize there are those who find the deaths of millions to be something praiseworthy and to which to aspire.

What is also chilling is that in our country we are about to get our most abortion-friendly president ever, who is comfortable even with babies, born alive through an accident, being left on shelves to die. One of his friends, who has admitted since the election that he is indeed a closer friend than they would admit to before the election, has called in writing for concentration camps to be set up to dispose of those who can not be coerced into their way of thinking. History has proven time and again that fellow human beings can become nothing more than liabilities to those whose ideology becomes a fixation, who decide they will literally stop at nothing to achieve their ideals.

What also diminishes the worth of human beings is the elevation of other life forms. I listened briefly to Glenn Beck's show yesterday while he played a quote from a television show on the Animal Planet channel called "Whale Wars." A young man who is part of a group actively fighting, on the front lines as it were, the killing of whales, stated in essence that he was happy he had found something worth dying for. Whales, part of God's creation, yes. Whales, worth dying for? As you can see from my previous post, I adore my pets. The loss of one of our feline friends has torn up my heart as well of those in my little family. But I do not understand putting animals above human beings. Why is the death of a whale worth more than the death of millions of human beings, even if you only see them as "fellow animals"? How is it that the lives of animals can become *more* important than the lives of our fellow human creatures?

Natural Consequences

Of course it makes sense that a woman who shoots herself in the stomach and killed her unborn child may not be charged for murder. After all, she could have just had it sucked down a sink without any consequences at all, right? At least, no *legal* consequences. Ironic that a woman is being charged for drowning her two children in the bathtub at the same time. She should have just killed them before they were born. Then she wouldn't have to deal with all this.

Chaste Thoughts

Since I've blogged here before about Dawn Eden and her book, The Thrill of the Chaste: Finding Fulfillment While Keeping Your Clothes On, I'm going to pass on to you this article that looks at women from both sides of the chastity spectrum, from a virgin who is saving herself for marriage, to a woman who claims to have had sex with around 180 men! A lot of the points Dawn makes in her book are brought up here, such as how women generally have a hard time detaching sex from emotion, how parental dysfunction can lead to promiscuity by their children, how having sex outside of marriage can actually derail a relationship. I also wonder if the abortion, which one of the women profiled had, was a further factor in her increased promiscuity, where she was shocked to realize that she had been with 90 different men. I find it interesting that the woman who is saving herself for marriage is quick to stress that she is not doing so for religious reasons, and the woman who has been with only two men and was brought up in a Christian household is emphatic that her parents were not strict. The stereotype still persists that people of religious faith, and specifically Christians, practicing chastity, are strict, no-fun types. Dawn sees herself, as a single woman living the chaste life, as someone who is developing her gifts, taking joy in everything life has to offer, and being a rebel against the current culture. She tries to define her life by what she has, instead of what she does not have. A good way to look at things, wherever you are in life.

Bad Man, Good Man

So once again, a man is charged with two counts of murder in the death of the mother of his child (or children) and the death of an unborn child. When will it strike people as incongruent that right now an unborn child's death being called murder or not murder depends only on the desires of the mother? The mother's feelings change nothing about whether or not the unborn child is a living, feeling human creature. Shouldn't that be what matters? As an aside, it's pretty sad that Bobby Cutts Jr. is only believed to be the father of the unborn child he is accused of murdering. Did the mother not know who the father was, or had the father simply not stepped up and taken responsibility for this child?

On a happier note, my husband brought home a little gift for each of us from his business trip. He looked through an antique prints store for me, not only knowing what era of fashion I am most interested in, but also whether or not the prints he found would be interesting to me (they wouldn't have been.) Isn't he a great guy? I got a pair of earrings instead, made of green crystallized volcanic ash from Mt. St. Helen's. My first pair of earrings since I got my ears pierced!

Life As We Know It?

So we may have found a planet outside our solar system capable of sustaining life. Is this news? To me, it only seems that it would be important from a humanistic, materialistic point of view. That is, that any life on another planet might have something from which we could learn in terms of science. But when we're busy eradicating life on this planet, why care if life exists on other planets? Do we really think there's some "magic bullet" planet there that holds the answers to life, the universe and everything?

Vote Early, Vote Often

Hey, Quipper, did ya see this swell story? At least I don't live in Cuyahoga County anymore, but if Cleveland really tanks, the whole area around will go down with it. :(

Since I mentioned here the story of a woman who, as a teen, gave birth in her bedroom, stabbed the baby to death and dumped the baby's body in a quarry with the help of her boyfriend, I'll update you that she lost her appeal, and her six-year prison sentence was upheld. Oh, if only abortion was legal then! Oh wait. It was.

Oh, and the Northeastern Ohio Synod of the ELCA has just elected the first woman bishop of the ELCA. So much to be proud of here in Cleveland! She wants to "focus on social justice issues and bring minority leaders into churches." I'm choking up just thinking about it.

Sorry to interrupt my fun Christmas stories with this unsavory but important stuff. I promise I'll be back to posting about Christmas in Germany next time.

The Sad and the Stupid

You decide which adjective fits what.

First of all, call me naive, but I don't see how images of aborted babies can be labelled "controversial." If you're going to abort your child, at least have the guts to face what you've done to the child. But then having an abortion is cowardly anyway.

On a lighter note, this criminal is not the brightest bulb in the box.