An open letter to Bernard Goldberg

Talking with Bill O'Reilly, conservative media commentator Bernard Goldberg offered the following account of why liberals have come to dislike Sarah Palin:

She has 5 kids. Liberals don't have 5 kids. One of them has Down Syndrome. Liberals certainly don't allow that to happen.

Goldberg later clarified these remarks on his website.

So on Bill's show, I said I thought liberals (I should have said "many liberals" or "elite liberals") dislike her so much because she didn't go to Harvard, Yale or Princeton and instead bounced around a bunch of schools before landing at the University of Idaho - a crime against humanity to many of those elites. Then I said I don't think they're too happy with her either because she had five kids ... and gave them names like Trig and Track and Bristol, Willow and Piper. Then, I uttered the words that touched off the accusations that I was a "nasty" human being. I said I thought that because she made a choice ... to knowingly and willingly have a baby with Down Syndrome ... that some liberals detested her for that too.

I come to this a bit late, but I hope Mr. Goldberg still responds to this public letter:

Dear Mr. Goldberg,

As an emphatic liberal who is also a guardian of a cognitively disabled man, I find your initial comments and your clarification appalling.

I and almost every other liberal disagree with Sarah Palin on many issues. In fact, we are quite angry with her. We still wish her and her son the best in addressing the challenges he is likely to face. My very first column about Governor Palin criticized John McCain appointing such a strident and green running-mate. Yet I also wrote:

I want to offer a nod across the aisle, one person to another touched by the disability issue.... A tough election should not blind us to our common humanity. Anyone who walks the walk in the service of her personal beliefs deserves my friendship. So congratulations, Governor. You don't come close to earning my vote, but you are welcome in my home, any time.

Many friends on the Obama campaign agreed with me. I just can't identify a single prominent liberal who has expressed disdain or has questioned Governor Palin's decision to raise a child living with cognitive disability. Perhaps you know of someone. If so, you should identify him.

During the 2008 campaign, I co-chaired a large advisory subcommittee of public health professionals supporting then-candidate Obama. I also participated in an informal blogging group of health activists serving the same goal. In both group, a conspicuous number of people became politically engaged because they themselves live with a disability, or because they care for siblings, children, or others who live with serious disabilities, including Down syndrome.

Many of us got involved in the current health reform fight because we saw the impact of ungenerous or ill-conceived public policies on people we love. I'm proud to have criticized the handful of bloggers who trafficked in stupid and hurtful rumors about the Palin pregnancies or who wrote ignorant things about cognitive disability.

You assert that we liberals disdain Palin because of her small-town roots or her unusual biography. Plenty of liberals come from similar circumstances. We are dismayed by her intolerance. We are dismayed that she aspires to high office without pursuing the expertise or the sustained record of achievement appropriate to these ambitions. We are dismayed because she peddles crude untruths about death panels. I am especially dismayed that she quit her day job as Alaska governor, when she could have used that platform to help many other Alaska families who face the same challenges her family does, yet lack her family's resources.

You owe many of us a simple and straightforward apology. More than that, I hope that you reconsider your willingness to peddle sweeping and malicious stereotypes about people with whom you disagree. The politics of abortion and cultural resentment poisons everything it touches. Can't we argue about Iraq, health care, tax policy, and the rest without poisoning this, too?

Sincerely,

Harold Pollack

 

Comments

[RealityRocks]

While Mr. Pollack cares for a disabled adult, that's very different than the choice presented to parents who must make a decision about a child they will have to parent for the rest of their lives (unless they choose adoption, there is virtually no wait time for babies with DS in the system, they are THE most adoptable child in the U.S. foster care system). Mr. Pollack could much more easily walk away from the man he cares for than these parents could. It's obvious that he cares deeply for this person, and he likely would'nt make the choice to walk away, but he could, if he chose.

Add into the mix that a "miscarriage" is easily explained with very little stigma, and Doctors who generally frown upon delivering anything but "perfect" babies due to wrongful life scenarios, and you have a 90% plus abortion rate in these pregnancies. The statistics don't lie, liberal cities and states have much much higher rates of abortion for fetal defect. But with a 90% plus abortion rate, it would be more honest to say "Most AMERICANS certainly don't allow that to happen." The ones that do, like Mrs. Palin, represent the minority, and should be honored for their choice as loudly as anyone who chooses the alternative.

[RealityRocks]

I happen to be a professional who often counsels parents who receive unexpected news regarding their pregnancies. I am very aware of the many reasons decent people make the decision to abort pregnancies when the fetus is found to be carrying a birth defect.

I also am well aware that the rate of abortion for prenatally-diagnosed infants is much higher in more liberal areas than it is in more rural, conservative areas. People are not just political because they want an R or a D beside their names, their politics reflect their outlook on life. Prolife people are generally not Dems, and Prochoicers are rarely Republican. If you tend to be prolife, your outlook on a prenatal diagnosis will reflect that, and if you are prochoice, you are much more likely to be ok with aborting in general. Thats why the party lines are so clearly defined, and we all know that abortion is the great divide between us as a nation.

Speaking from experience, it's much more likely that an "intellectual" liberal-minded couple will abort than not. Liberals value intelligence very highly, and in my experience are very often going to abort for Down syndrome.

cont'd

[Harold Pollack - Huffpost Blogger]

I appreciate the thoughtfulness of your reply.

You may be correct about the preferences of individual parents facing this issue themselves. Of course, this is quite different from saying that liberals disdain or disapprove of the decision to bring a pregnancy to term.

[RealityRocks]

How is it different, Mr. Pollack? Parents make the decision, parents who may be one political persuasion or another. In my experience, liberal parents are often more inclined to decide against continuing to term than are conservative, prolife people. That is a reflection of their overall stance on life, which is usually personified by a certain political bent. Nothing wrong with that. It would seem counter- productive to argue that liberals do not lean towards a prochoice point of view, as that is the gist of their belief system. The Liberal community is not made up of automatrons, it is made up of people, parents and nonparents, whose individual decisions are informed by their politics, their values, and their morals.
I don't think anyone was saying that " liberals disdain or disapprove of the decision to bring a pregnancy to term". I think it was far more specific, that Liberals do, indeed, generally choose not to carry Down syndrome pregnancies to term. That is a fact. My point is that it is nearly as sure that all Americans will not carry such a pregnancy to term.

[iamarivergirl]

Mr. Pollack; Thank you for the letter. It encompasses all that I feel as well. I, as I'm sure of many liberals, do not care where SP finally graduated. I am also convinced that having a downs syndrome child has absolutely no bearing on whether you are Republican or Liberal. I know many liberals with disabled children. I agree with all your reasons for disliking SP, I am just glad you put it clearly and concisely. So Thanks again! BTW I am NOT pro abortion. I just think the government has no place inside a womans body.

[Harold Pollack - Huffpost Blogger]

Thank you.