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PAGE 4—The Georgia Bulletin, August 2, 1984
STATEMENT
Jennifer O'Connor
Congratulations to the state of Georgia for
permitting the young life of Jennifer O’Connor to
break the rules.
Already the seven-month-old daughter of
Jerry and Barbara O'Connor of Woodstock has
defied the odds by living beyond her first few
months, when she was expected to die as a result
of complications suffered during labor and birth.
Now she has also been permitted to overcome the
bureaucracy which said her parents could not
receive Medicaid assistance if they kept her at
home -- only if they institutionalized her at more
than twice the cost.
The state Department of Medical Assistance
ruled last week that it would make an exception
for Jennifer and allow Medicaid payments at
home for the child.
It is a pleasant surprise when common sense
and the unique facts of one person's case win out
over “business as usual.” It is such a surprise that
there is a tendency to think that the O’Connor
family has been done a great favor.
But it is they who are doing what is difficult
and making great efforts to keep their daughter at
home and to care for her well despite the physical
limitations she suffers. With the dedicated help of
professional nurses, they are treading the
uncertain path of hope and taking risks on behalf
of Jennifer that give her a greater chance to live
and thrive.
The unprecedented decision by state officials
to allow Medicaid benefits at home enables them
to continue walking that road and holds out hope
that young Jennifer O’Connor may set more
precedents and defy more odds before her first
year of life is through. ~grk
The Week
In Review
NAMES AND PLACES - The Jesuit Superior General
has ordered Father Fernando Cardenal, a Nicaraguan
Jesuit, to decline the post of Nicaraguan minister of
education or face “painful” consequences. Father
Cardenal “cannot be permitted to carry out this
assignment because of its incompatibility with his
condition as a Jesuit,” said a statement issued July 16 at
the Jesuit headquarters in Rome. The decision was
communicated to Father Cardenal through Father
Valentin Menendez, Jesuit provincial for Central America.
The statement also said Father Menendez would suffer the
same “painful consequences” if Father Cardenal refused
to obey.
FIVE JAILED anti-nUclear arms protestors who had
been fasting for 11 days were released at the request of
Williams International, the defense contractor they were
picketing when arrested for trespassing. The protest took
place outside the Williams plant near Pontiac, Michigan.
They were sentenced after violating a court injunction
forbidding them from blocking the company’s driveway.
Williams manufactures engines for cruise missiles.
Faulty Logic
RESOUND
Tough Love
To the Editor:
I fully understand the message directed to Ms. Ferraro
in your statement.
However, the underlying theme of your premise or
wondering if the abortions of a drug addict might be the
“real cause of her present journey to self-destruction
raised the hair on the back of my neck that such an
educated individual could ever wonder for one minute if
that might be the case.
The reason that this woman is a drug addict is that she
is ill. She has an addictive disease that she chooses to
continue (I state this since she has had treatment). Any
clean addict will tell you that you’ve been had,
Monsignor. Those with addictive diseases love to dwell on
all the reasons for their misery rather than concentrate on
getting clean. That’s why addicts treat addicts - you can’t
con a con artist. You can’t elicit sympathy from one
whose story is worse than your own. Tough Love is
needed here. “I care enough about you today to be
concerned about the life you are destroying today. What
can you do about it?”
This is Pro-Life.
Elaine M. McFair
Cartersville
Fence-Straddling
To the Editor:
I want to add a hearty “Amen” to Msgr. Burtenshaw s
front page open letter to Mrs. Geraldine Ferraro in the
July 19 edition of the Georgia Bulletin.
It would be forthright of candidate Ferraro to come off
of the fence she is straddling. One cannot, in good
Christian conscience, say that one is personally opposed
to abortion, and then vote to legalize abortion, and even
use federal money to fund it. This inevitably leads me to
consider an analogy that “I’m personally opposed to
murder, but if you want to do it to your children, that’s
your business.”
Regardless of political affiliation, all other issues pale in
comparison to the abortion issue. I urge all voters who
profess Christianity to find out each candidate’s position
- either “pro-life” or “pro-choice.”
And to you “pro-choice” candidates -- why don’t you
move out from behind your euphemisms and call it what
it really is - the rational, willful killing of unborn babies.
Edward J. Pulver
LaG range
Thank You
To the Editor:
Thanks for your eloquent letter to Geraldine Ferraro. I
hope she received the original. I hope more of us will
express such insights, so as to gradually break through to
one more member of the Body of Christ with the truth in
the matter of abortion.
Kathy DeWine
Knoxville, Tenn.
To the Editor:
I am quite puzzled and distressed at the position of
Geraldine Ferraro, political candidates, or anyone for that
matter who while objecting to abortion personally refuses
to ‘impose’ his or her beliefs on others. Their reasoning is
something along these lines:
I believe X.
Someone else does not believe X.
Living in a democracy with diverse views and opinions I
therefore can not impose my views of X on someone else.
Having studied some philosophy at a Catholic
university, I fail to follow the logic in this syllogistic leap
frogging.
What should be so important now to Catholic
Americans is that the Democratic Party, by nominating
Ferraro for VP, is attempting not only to appeal to the
woman’s vote but in that Ferraro is Catholic they are
attempting to appeal to the Catholic vote. Catholics
should not let the Democrats get away with charade, and
the Church should officially and in clear terms distance
itself from Mrs. Ferraro and her views stating in clear
terms that in the matter of abortion there can be no
equivocation.
Mrs. Ferraro wants things all ways, she is magically
pro-life and pro-abortion. This is a feat that Houdini
himself would envy. Whether she calls it pro-choice or
pro-abortion the end result is still the same . . .
... We hear that Mrs. Ferraro objects to President
Reagan’s supposedly unfair and unjust policies towards
the poor, minorities, the environment, etc. On what
grounds does she oppose them? Personal beliefs?
If so, on what grounds does she intend to correct these
supposed injustices? Certainly not that she believes them
wrong, for that would be an ‘imposition’ of her personal
beliefs, according to her logic. But we know full well that
upon the occasion of reaching office she will support new
taxes, ‘imposed’ on Americans, spending programs
‘imposed’ on Americans, and other asundry programs
‘imposed’ on Americans in line with the liberal agenda. I
would truly like to hear Mrs. Ferraro’s rhetorical escape
work on how these are not impositions and how that
supporting legislatively the unborn’s right to life is . . .
Steven Matthew O’Reilly
Atlanta
AROUND THE NATION - Protestant and Jewish
leaders urged the U.S. bishops to be clear, specific and
hard-hitting in their proposed pastoral letter on the U.S.
economy. In an unprecedented interfaith consultation on
the pastoral, bishops on the drafting committee heard
Jewish and Protestant leaders suggest issues and concerns
that the pastoral should address and ways to give it greater
impact. It is believed to be the first time a committee of
bishops drafting a pastoral letter made such a special,
conscious effort to draw interfaith testimony into their
consultation process. Archbishop Thomas Donneltan is
one of the five bishops on the drafting committee.
THE WHITE HOUSE has issued a policy statement
saying it would deny U.S. population control aid to
non-government groups which “perform or actively
promote” abortion, but it may continue to give
population aid to nations in which abortion is part of the
population control program. One of the biggest losers
would be the International Planned Parenthood
Federation, which could have more than $10 million a
year in U.S. funding withdrawn, or more than 20 percent
of its yearly budget. The new policy statement is to be
presented at the U.N. International Conference on
Population beginning Aug. 6 in Mexico City.
INTERNATIONALLY - South African blacks facing
removal to tribal homelands in the government’s campaign
to relocate white and black areas have sent Pope John
Paul II a copy of the protest they made to South African
Prime Minister P.W. Botha. In the letter, the residents of
Kwangema, a rural community in the eastern part of the
country, told Botha that the land had been promised
them by white leaders as far back as the 19th Century.
“We live in dread. We are landowners who have built up
our lives and history at Kwangema,” they said. “We beg
you not to make us landless squatters in some
impoverished homeland area.” The Southern African
Catholic Bishops Conference has joined the South African
Council of Churches in condemning the government
relocation policy as ‘‘destructive of people and
communities.”
Too Nice
To the Editor:
Monsignor Burtenshaw’s letter to Geraldine Ferraro was
very nice - too nice.
Either we are for life or against it. Is that not the
Church’s teaching - no aibortion. Are we as Catholics,
Christians going to vote for a person, man or woman, who
is pro-choice? I believe that once conception takes place
the choice has been made. This nominee has the very real
potential of becoming President of these United States.
She would Sign bills pertaining to abortion and all its
ramifications. Are we so far gone that we will tolerate a
person heading our country who is for MURDER. Yes,
that is the word.
As Catholics let us speak out and say, “No Way!”
Either she changes her position or no vote. “You cannot
please God and (all) men.”
A woman for vice president is wonderful -- but it is not
enough just being a woman.
Margaret Hoelzer
Rome
(USPS) 574880
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Most Rev. Thomas A. Donnellan Publisher
Rev. Monsignor Noel C. Burtenshaw Editor
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