August 5, 2013 (Secular Pro-life)
- I gasped the first time I saw her photo. Limbs splayed out across a
metal crib, the little girl's ribs nearly poked out of her chest. Her
striped socks -- the only piece of clothing she wore on her emaciated
body -- nearly fell off her miniature feet. And her thighs and arms!
They looked no larger than my fingers. This girl looked like she had
just crawled out of Auschwitz or Dachau, not a government-run children's
home.
Then I saw her statistics and blinked twice. Sophia, a nearly-four-year-girl from Eastern Europe, weighed ten pounds. Ten pounds at four years old. That's how much my brother weighed at birth, not when he entered preschool!
Then I saw her statistics and blinked twice. Sophia, a nearly-four-year-girl from Eastern Europe, weighed ten pounds. Ten pounds at four years old. That's how much my brother weighed at birth, not when he entered preschool!
As a volunteer with Reece's Rainbow, an
adoption advocacy agency that works with special-needs children all
around the world, I know the statistics, have heard the stories and have
even met the evidence: children who have any special need -- whether it
be Down Syndrome, spina bifida, cerebral palsy, HIV/AIDS, albinism or
even a cleft palate -- often get a raw deal, especially in other
countries. That translates into less food, education, resources and love
for children from societies who simply don't know better. Parents who
birth Down Syndrome kids like Sophia sometimes think the baby is cursed
and better forgotten in an institution. Or, at the very least, they are a
burden and should be treated as such.
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