Special Olympics, an Endangered Species?

I was planning on simply using this to talk about an event that is going on here in DBQ today that I feel very strongly about. Then I came accross an article about a UN sponsored event that raised my ire & gave me more proof that the culture of death is still doing its insidious best to triumph.

The event is a fundraiser for the Special Olympics Winter Games. The Winter Games have been held every yr here in DBQ since 1977. It is sponsored by Radio Dubuque & The Bike Shack. Riding for the Special Olympics Winter Games is a 10 mile bike ride in which the riders get sponsors to pledge so much per mile. The money goes to pay for the expenses of putting on the event evry yr. The 2nd part of the event is Rotary Club of Dubuque's Rock n Soul II" Saturday night at the Alliant Amphitheater. 2 bands will be performing with the proceeds from the event also going to fund the Winter Games. The 2007 games will be held 9-11 Jan 2007.

So what are the Special Olympics? Here's what the Iowa Orginization says on their website: "Special Olympics Iowa (SOIA) is a statewide non-profit organization that provides year-round sports training and athletic competition in a variety of Olympic-type sports for children and adults with intellectual disabilities, giving them continuing opportunities to develop physical fitness, demonstrate courage, experience joy and participate in a sharing of gifts, skills and friendship with their families, other Special Olympics athletes and the community.

Special Olympics Iowa has served Iowans with intellectual disabilities for over 38 years. With the founding of Special Olympics in 1968, the first competition in Iowa had fewer than 100 participating athletes. The growth of the program has been dramatic. In 2005 Special Olympics Iowa provided training and competitions in 22 sports for over 12,850 athletes representing each of Iowa’s 99 counties."

The Iowa group is a part of "an international nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering individuals with intellectual disabilities to become physically fit, productive and respected members of society through sports training and competition. Special Olympics offers children and adults with intellectual disabilities year-round training and competition in 26 Olympic-type summer and winter sports."

The above information should be enough to tell you why I think Special Olympics is so important. But, it is more than that. In my High School & College days I was involved in groups that worked with the intellectually disabled. These are human beings who deserve to be treated with dignity because of their inate worth as a human being created in the image & likeness of God.

So, what has got me so upset was a press release put out 21 Aug by The World Congress of Families. The event they were talking about was The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons With Disabilities being held 1-25 Aug 2006 in New York. The convention is supposedly working on a treaty that's purpose is ostensibly to protect disability rights. The press release raises some concerns about the wording of the treay & how it may actually hurt rather than protect the disabled.

World Congress' organizer Allan Carlson said: “Ironically, what is being billed as a treaty to protect disability rights may actually be used to deny those rights, including the most fundamental human right -- the right to life." His evidence: “The treaty’s danger lies in its ambiguous language. For instance, the International Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the U.N. in 1948, speaks of the ‘worth’ as well as the ‘dignity’ of the individual. By contrast, the Disability Treaty speaks only of their ‘dignity,’ but not their ‘worth.’ Since euthanasia advocates use the expression ‘death with dignity,’ there’s a reasonable fear that a convention intended to secure their rights actually could lead to the killing of the disabled.”

He went on to point out: “With active euthanasia sanctioned in a number of countries, including the Netherlands, this concern is far from hypothetical."

Lately I have come accross some articles where people have moved beyond calling for the right to die to calling for the responsibility of the elderly & infirm to die so as to not be a burden on the rest of society. I see Mr. Carlson's concerns as having some strong basis in reality. As objectionable to me as active euthenasia is we are heading into the realm of passive euthenasia. In this view a person only has value when he or she can contribute to society & not be a burden on others. If the person is disabled or infirm in any way so that he or she cannot care for himself, then that peson has no right to go on living.

This is a far cry from the Judeo-Christian Biblical view that all men are created in the image & likeness of God. This was the "natural law" basis for the self-evident truths stated in The Declaration of Independence, "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. That among these are life. . ." Notice it doesn't say only all who can contribute or only all that are healthy or all who have no disability. It says ALL. & all means all without exception.

Today we see the attitude toward the mentally & physically disabled that we say in Nazi Germany. I keep flashing back to a favorite scene of mine in the movie The Hiding Place. In this scene Corrie ten Boom is being questioned by an SS officer. When asked to talk about her work Corrie starts talking about her work catechising mentally retarded children. The officer sees her actions as a waste of time on those with no value. He says that her time would be better spent on those who have some value. Corrie's reply is to ask him how does he know that in God's eyes 1 of those children isn't of more value than he is. Corrie clearly learned the lesson Jesus taught about the value that is found in every human life even the least.

This is a lesson we seemed to have forgotten. When Pope Paul VI wrote the encyclical Humanae Vitae in 1968, he was criticised for not only banning artificial birth control, but for his prophetic stand on the dangerous path along which it would take us. His warnings have been proven true in the yrs that have followed. People who spoke out in support of Pope Paul's position were ridiculed. People who warned of the slippery slope we were on when abortion was legalized were not only ridiculed but threatened, bullied & when they protested outside abortion clinics arrested for doing what the 1st Amendment protects as a natural right of everyone to free speech. Yet, in the yrs since 1968 what has since come to be known as the culture of death has come into ascendance. These prophecies have come to pass.

Now when a women has prenatal testing & the child is found to have a mental or physical defect there is great pressure put on her to have an abortion. Some ethicists are even saying that a newborn child doesn't have a right to live, esp if it has a birth defect. As I already noted, there is now the view that the elderly & infirm have an obligation to die. (See the article A Pact With Death?, linked to below) The call for fetal/embryonic stem cell reseach shows how little the unborn are valued in a culture that allows abortion.

So what can be done? Plenty, Pope John Paul the Great in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae gave us clear guidelines for what to do so that we can stop the culture of death & build the Culture of Life instead. It is not too late to stop this descent. By listenning to & putting into action what Pope John Paul has called us to do, we can turn things arround so that once again every life will be valued. So that those who see that every human being has an inate, God given worth & value from the point of conception to natural death are not the minority but the majority. If the cuklture of death continues to prevail events like the Special Olympics will be banned & then no longer needed because all those who are intelectually disabled will have been murdered because they are seen as a waste of resources rather that unique individuals who do have a VERY VALUABLE contribution to make to society.

Pray, study Evangelium Vitae & Humanae Vitae, ask God what you should & can do. Then do it. Write letters to the editor, write to elected officials calling them to change the laws, support pro-life candidates & orginizations, maybe even run for office yourself. It is not to late. Let's build the Culture of Life.

PS Also support the Special Olympics orginization in your area. They are doing a wonderful job of affirming the value of each & every intellectually disabled person they deal with. If you see a member of the Knights of Columbus selling a candy bar to support programs for the intellectually disabled, buy 1. Here in Iowa a portion of the money raised by the annual sale goes to the Iowa Special Olympics. This is 1 more small way in which you can build the Culture of Life.

Iowa Special Olymics website: http://www.soiowa.org/

Press release by The World Congress of Families: http://www.profam.org/press/wcf.pr.060821.htm

A Pact With Death? (Prison Fellowship)
http://www.breakpoint.org/listingarticle.asp?ID=2826

Humanae Vitae:
http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html

Evangelium Vitae:
http://www.vatican.va/edocs/ENG0141/_INDEX.HTM