Emily Rapp and her son, Ronan, who has Tay-Sachs disease.
Posted on 03/01/2012 2:44:38 PM PST by NYer
Emily Rapp and her son, Ronan, who has Tay-Sachs disease.
February 29, 2012 (LifeSiteNews.com) - A writer and mother has challenged Rick Santorum’s stance against abortion by explaining that she would have certainly aborted her son if she had known of his disability and attendant suffering before he was born.
“I’m so grateful that Ronan is my child,” Emily Rapp wrote in her column appearing in Slate magazine. “I also wish he’d never been born; no person should suffer in this way.”
Santorum, who has used his GOP presidential campaign to question abortion, contraception and the fallout from the sexual revolution, has pointed to his daughter Bella as a testament to his family’s dedication to the sanctity of life. Bella Santorum was born with Trisomy 18, a genetic disorder that is likely to end in death either before or shortly after birth. However, thanks to the Santorums’ perseverance, Bella has already celebrated her third birthday.
Rapp opens her column, which is headed by an image of herself and her son smiling at each other, by declaring that had she known of her son’s maladies before birth, “I would have saved him from suffering.”
Rapp’s son, who is almost two, suffers from Tay-Sachs disease, a degenerative condition that has left him blind and paralyzed and that will likely lead to his death before long.
“I believe it would have been an act of love to abort him, knowing that his life would be primarily one of intense suffering,” writes Rapp.
The creative writing professor says that she loves her son “more than any person in the world and his life is of utmost value to me,” but adds that she would have aborted him “without question and without regret.”
The fact that she can hold both “truths,” she says, “points to the reductive and narrow-minded nature of Rick Santorum’s assertions” that prenatal testing for irreversible conditions is morally questionable due to its role in increasing abortions.
Rapp, who herself suffers from a congenital condition that caused her to lose one leg at an early age, said that her mother “probably wished she’d had the choice” to abort her, and that it would have been her prerogative to do so, even though doctors gave her incorrect information in predicting Rapp would become mentally disabled or never walk.
“Regardless of the fact that none of the doctor’s warnings had any truth to them, it would have been her choice to make,” she wrote.
Rapp concluded that Santorum’s stance against abortion advocates “a return to that oppressive historical situation where women were punished for having sex, for making any kind of reproductive choice whatsoever, for being women, for being human beings.” “Neither choice is bad or good; neither is this one thing or the other,” she wrote.”
Last October, the New York Times published Rapp’s paean to nurturing a terminally ill child. She described parents in similar circumstances as “dragon parents: fierce and loyal and loving as hell.”
“I would walk through a tunnel of fire if it would save my son. ... But it won’t,” she wrote. “What I can do is protect my son from as much pain as possible, and then finally do the hardest thing of all, a thing most parents will thankfully never have to do: I will love him to the end of his life, and then I will let him go.”
For his part, Rick Santorum has described Bella, the youngest of seven living children, as the “joyful center of our universe” and has criticized doctors for encouraging the couple not to give her medical treatment following her diagnosis because she was not likely to see her first birthday.
In an October campaign video celebrating his daughter’s life, Santorum explains how he and his wife responded when a doctor one day advised the couple on how to care for Bella as she died. “Karen and I looked at each other and said, we’re not going to focus on her dying, we’re going to focus on her living,” he said.
“I look at her and I look at the joy and the simplicity and the love that she emits, and it’s clear to me that we’re the disabled ones, not her.”
I’m sure Ronan would be happy to know his mom would rather have him dead.
There’s this thing called genetic counseling, Ms. Rapp.
Funny, that’s probably what her mother said about her.
As a point of information, ..... While anyone can be a carrier of Tay-Sachs, the incidence of the disease is significantly higher among people of eastern European (Ashkenazi) Jewish descent. Approximately one in every 27 Jews in the United States is a carrier of the Tay-Sachs disease gene.
Essentially, this mother would prefer to disinherit her heritage. I have the greatest respect for the Jews. They are proud of their heritage and tradition. More importantly, they cherish their heritage, both good and bad. This woman should devote more time to embracing the "gift" she has received from God, rather than regretting it.
Wow, that hitlerian bitch should be SHOT
“Regardless of the fact that none of the doctor’s warnings had any truth to them, it would have been her choice to make,” she wrote.
She wishes that she had killed her son and she wishes that her mother had killed her. The Culture of Death.
Wait, she also says her own mother (the grandmother) probably wished she could have aborted her, as well!
Some people thrive on being outrageous to gain attention, this author is one of those people.
Essentially she is totally full of crap, or sometimes a dramatist like her believes their own crapola. What difference does it make? Neither mother aborted their child but it makes for an outlandish article.
I wonder if the person who was to discover a way to eliminate this horrible gene was aborted.
Sorry lady, that's a sick view of the world and it tells your son, who if he lives long enough to read your words one day, that you really do not value his life or existance in this world. That you would rather have him dead, than have him, despite his suffering, have the chance to fight through and live.
You should think a whole lot more before you write, Emily, in support of what is becoming the worst Holocaust in History.
THE ABORTION HOLOCAUST - [Warning: Graphic Photo]
Its all about her and how she has to face to pain of her son dying. Even his pain is to much for HER to endure?
Otherwise, is she saying she wouldn’t have blamed her mother for aborting her if her mother would have known her daughter had a condition that required her to lose a leg?
When the nazis came to power in 1933 the one of their first acts they committed was to issue anti disability propaganda to the public, the nazis claimed that the existence of disabled people weakened societies ability to operate efficiently and that the social and economic problems that germany had suffered during the 1920s and 1930s were partly caused by the burden of supporting disabled people. The nazis stated that the life of mentally impaired and severely disabled were living ‘a life unworthy of living’.The Nazis used posters that showed images of disabled people with captions such as ‘DEFORMED’ and various others to gain support from the german public, later the nazis made a film which was purely propaganda depicting ‘a husband carrying out a so called ‘mercy killing’
on his wife and then using the harsh and twisted nazi arguments to justify why he committed this criminal act of murder upon his wife.’
In July 1933 the Nazis passed a law for the ‘prevention of progeny with hereditary disease’ which ordered the forced sterilizations of all people with conditions the nazis considered hereditary disease and these included:
·Visual and Hearing Impairment... Mental-and-Disabled-Victims-Of-The-Nazis
I’m wondering Emily Rapp’s mom is mad that she didn’t abort Emily when she had the chance, if she knew she was giving birth to such a cold heartless bitch...
Excellent observation!
She would sooner have never seen her child’s face and held him in her arms???? Life is not worth living unless you get a long one?
Incredible
Karen Santorum is in such a different league than people like this. The birth and death of their son changed the Santorums in ways that will not creep into the bitter soul of this woman.
She is the carrier.. perhaps she should off herself.
Is this typical left-wing drivel, or what? Unbelievable.
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