{"id":12359,"date":"2009-08-31T17:18:49","date_gmt":"2009-08-31T21:18:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.firstthings.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/?p=12359"},"modified":"2015-03-13T20:14:06","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T20:14:06","slug":"douthat-does-kennedys","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/theanchoress\/2009\/08\/31\/douthat-does-kennedys\/","title":{"rendered":"Douthat does Kennedys"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Over at the NY Times Ross Douthat does the Kennedy(s) Story better than anyone has<\/a> in the past week.<\/p>\n

\nLiberalism\u2019s most important legislator probably merited a more extended send-off than his sister. But there\u2019s a sense in which his life\u2019s work and Eunice\u2019s deserve to be remembered together \u2014 for what their legacies had in common, and for what ultimately separated them.<\/p>\n

What the siblings shared \u2014 in addition to the grace, rare among Kennedys, of a ripe old age and a peaceful death \u2014 was a passionate liberalism and an abiding Roman Catholic faith. These two commitments were intertwined: Ted Kennedy\u2019s tireless efforts on issues like health care, education and immigration were explicitly rooted in Catholic social teaching, and so was his sister\u2019s lifelong labor on behalf of the physically and mentally impaired.<\/p>\n

What separated them was abortion.
\n\u2026
\nFor abortion opponents, cruel ironies abounded in this sibling disagreement. Because of Eunice Shriver\u2019s work with the developmentally disabled, a group of Americans who had once been marginalized and hidden away \u2014 or lobotomized, like her sister Rosemary \u2014 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I never read something in the NY Times and wish I\u2019d written it. This, I do; you\u2019ll want to read the whole thing<\/a>. Well done, indeed.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over at the NY Times Ross Douthat does the Kennedy(s) Story better than anyone has in the past week. Liberalism\u2019s most important legislator probably merited a more extended send-off than his sister. But there\u2019s a sense in which his life\u2019s work and Eunice\u2019s deserve to be remembered together \u2014 for what their legacies had in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,44,61,62,93],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12359","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-america","category-catholicism","category-crucible-of-faith","category-culture-of-lifedeath","category-euthanasia"],"yoast_head":"\nDouthat does Kennedys<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Over at the NY Times Ross Douthat does the Kennedy(s) Story better than anyone has in the past week. 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