Two Lives: Ted Kennedy versus Eunice Kennedy Schriver

This column by Ross Douthat, the token conservative at The New York Times, is an excellent comparison of the lives pro-life liberal, Eunice Kennedy Schriver and Ted Kennedy, who died within 13 days of each other in August. The money quote:

"What the siblings shared — in addition to the grace, rare among Kennedys, of a ripe old age and a peaceful death — was a passionate liberalism and an abiding Roman Catholic faith. These two commitments were intertwined: Ted Kennedy’s tireless efforts on issues like health care, education and immigration were explicitly rooted in Catholic social teaching, and so was his sister’s lifelong labor on behalf of the physically and mentally impaired.

What separated them was abortion.

Along with her husband, Sargent Shriver, Eunice belonged to America’s dwindling population of outspoken pro-life liberals. Like her church, she saw a continuity, rather than a contradiction, between championing the poor, the marginalized and the oppressed and protecting unborn human life." . . .

For abortion opponents, cruel ironies abounded in this sibling disagreement. 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. 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."

It is well-worth reading- excellent writing and a strong point. For the rest go here.

Andrea Mrozek is not surprised the Kennedy woman was pro-life and the Kennedy man was pro-abortion.