Times columnist contrasts siblings Edward Kennedy, Eunice Shriver on abortion

September 01, 2009

Writing in The New York Times, Ross Douthat reflects on the different stances that siblings Eunice Kennedy Shriver and Edward Kennedy took on abortion, recalling that “in 1992, Eunice participated in the last significant effort to push the Democratic Party away from abortion on demand.”

“Because of Eunice Shriver’s work with the developmentally disabled, a group of Americans who had once been marginalized and hidden away-- or lobotomized, like her sister Rosemary-- was ushered closer to full participation in ordinary human life,” Douthat added. “But because of laws that her brother unstintingly supported, that same group was ushered out again: the abortion rate for fetuses diagnosed with Down syndrome, for instance, is estimated to be as high as 90 percent.”

 

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Further information:

• A different kind of liberal (New York Times)