Ok, get the tissues out... I made the mistake of watching this without any handy, and ended up having to dry my eyes using my sleeves (which are now sopping wet!) Twitch of the mantilla to Esther...
The cynic in me thinks that this option is going to get harder and harder for Catholic married couples, because with the SORs, the Adoption Agencies are going to have to fill their "quotas" of homosexual couples wanting to adopt (to prove that they're not discriminating against anyone on the basis of their sexuality... though it'll be ok to discriminate against Catholics!) and the increase in abortions means that fewer and fewer babies are placed for adoption...
...how can anyone think that it's better to kill a child than give it up for adoption? That seems so like the dog-in-the-manger attitude: if I won't have the baby, then no-one else will!
We have to pray for a change of heart.
Many years ago my wife fell pregnant and there were, so we both thought, a whole host of reasons why it was not a good idea for matters to progress to their natural outcome. We investigated the steps to be taken and an appointment was made but at the last moment we looked one another in the eye and knew we couldn't pursue this course. 23 years ago on Tuesday week a little girl was born. She is now an exceptionally beautiful young woman and it is unimaginable how close I came to saying she couldn't exist.
ReplyDeleteIn our case the question of adoption didn't arise but there are, as we all know, circumstances in which it is difficult or even impossible for a young mother to care properly for her child. Under such circumstances it is without question in my mind immeasurably preferable for such a child to be adopted by a stable homosexual couple than for that child to be killed before it draws an independent breath. Of course these are usually not the only options but it is sometimes helpful to juxtapose extremes in order to discern the the unvarnished nature of ultimate right and wrong.
Stephen, it is my understanding that there are more than enough heterosexual couples around who are desperate to adopt...
ReplyDeleteAnd yet, so I understand, there many children who are for a number of reasons unable to find adoptive parents. The analogy of world hunger comes to mind: plenty of food but inadequate means of distribution.
ReplyDeleteIt is, in fact, older children who are difficult to place, as they have often been fostered out for many years first. Most people want to adopt babies.
ReplyDeleteWhich only goes to endorse what I say about the means of distribution. Older children who 'have been fostered out for many years' were small once.
ReplyDeleteAll of which takes us further away from the point I was originally trying to make which is that even solutions to the problem of parentless children which may otherwise seem reprehensible pale into insignificance when compared with killing them.
Yes, but Stephen, they often weren't put up for adoption when babies - and I've often heard people say "Oh no, I could never put my child up for adoption. It would be better never to have been born..."
ReplyDeleteBTW your hunger analogy re adoption was pretty much spot-on!