Glenn Beck has received a lot of attention for his inflammatory rhetoric lately. Recently, he shared a personal story about his daughter who has cerebral palsy, which gets to the heart of his fears about health-care reform:
They [the government] will say exactly what doctors said about my 21-year-old daughter: "She may not really have a quality of life. She may not walk or talk or feed herself. But then again miracles happen." The "then again, miracles happen" part of that will be left out of the conversation. And I will not be able to see my daughter's 21st birthday, where I can reflect with her how miracles do happen. Because really, as I was told at the beginning of her life: Well, what kind of quality of life is she going to really have? I don't know, but that's for God to decide, not the government. -The Glenn Beck Program, 8/6/2009
Consider two very close friends of the Sojourners family who recently found out that their unborn baby daughter has a brain tumor. To protect their privacy, we'll call her Milagro -- meaning "Miracle" -- or Mila, for short.
The tumor is the same size as her brain and is causing a build-up of fluid and the enlargement of her head. Significant brain damage is near certain. She's been given a 15 percent chance of survival and then only with a severely impaired quality of life. And yet, they've been told what Glenn's doctors told him: "miracles happen."
Mila will likely be delivered in December. With their current coverage, premiums, deductibles, and out-of-pocket costs for a complicated pregnancy will cost 20 percent of their modest income. But if their total bills exceed $250,000, they must pay all additional expenses. It's unclear how likely this is, but multiple brain surgeries and the additional care Mila may need could spell deep financial trouble.
But their worries don't stop there. Our friends receive their insurance through the mother's university. After she completes her Ph.D. this spring, her coverage will end in August. After that, with the possibility of Mila's severe pre-existing conditions, they may not be able to get any coverage at all.
Our friends do not fear a future where a government bureaucracy forces them to kill their child. Doctors in the current system have already suggested abortion. Their fear is much more immediate: If by some miracle their child survives beyond the womb, will they be able to afford the care she'll need once the insurance coverage ends?
Contrary to Glenn's fears, nothing in any of the proposed legislation would take away the right of a parent to carry her child to term. Nothing in any of the current legislation would deny life-saving treatment to anyone in need.
Those painful decisions would still be left to the families, and ultimately, yes, to God -- just like the choices Beck had with his daughter Mary. It's our current system that does not ensure that families have all the care they need -- before or after the birth of a child.
All of the reform proposals being debated include provisions to cap out-of-pocket expenses, end exclusions for pre-existing conditions, and eliminate limits like our friends' annual $250,000 cap on coverage -- removing the financial pressures that currently lead many families to terminate difficult pregnancies.
Tell Glenn Beck that health-care reform is pro-life -- consistently pro-life.
Lately, Glenn has repeatedly asked his listeners for prayer:
I'm fighting for you and me, my children, your children. I would ask you for one thing. Please, keep me in your prayers, keep my staff in your prayers, for safety, for wisdom, please. --The Glenn Beck Program, 9/8/2009
Tell Glenn you're praying for him -- that he'll choose hope over fear.
Pray that stories like Mila's will help convince Glenn that his fears of a government takeover are dangerous distractions compared to the real-life suffering that Americans are experiencing right now.
Campaigns by other groups have shown that targeting Glenn's advertisers gets real results, so we're including them in this message in order to hold him accountable for his words.
And please pray for our friends' unborn daughter -- that Mila, like Glenn's now 21-year-old daughter Mary, will grow up to be a miracle who lives a long and blessed life, regardless of what happens with health-care reform.
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Jim Wallis is the author of The Great Awakening
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Plus, there is a good chance that the Mormon's will baptize you into the Mormon faith to give you one more change at getting it right. So, no matter what choices you made regarding your personal faith while alive, The Mormon's have the nerve to baptist you as a Mormon when you die.
So, praying for Beck falls is useless. Most likely, he is praying for all of your "lost souls" you haven't seen the light through Joseph Smith.
And since today is International Peace Day, I will happily pray for you all day.
I will say the same prayer I say with my kids every day, but I will also include you, Glenn Beck!
Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for all the blessings we (and Glenn Beck) recieve.
Please help me (and Glenn Beck) remember our function here on earth: To love and to forgive.
Please help guide me (and Glenn Beck) on the path You want us to walk on, and help me (and Glenn Beck) to be the people that you want us to be.
Please send the Holy Spirit in to heal anyone who is sick, or sad, or scared, or suffering, or lonely.
Please bless all of our (and Glenn Beck's) family and friends.
In Jesus' name, Amen.
I will pray no one in his audience listens to a lunatic.
But he's a creep, a raving nutcase, I don't believe him and so I don't care.
I'm with you on your whole post. I sure don't believe Glenn Beck's story. He is such a side show con-artist even if he is telling the truth it's impossible to take him at his word.
If there are any such things as miracles, it's just those occurrences by the roll of the dice that defy the odds on rare occasions.
And a quick question to all the believers out there, if Gawd is the "giver of life", what gave HIM life?
The second is more complicated. The tea baggers and town hollerers are a mixed bag. Leaving out the plentiful gun-nuts, racists and xenophobes what remains is a core of decent people who feel invisible, estranged from modern life. They witness titanic struggles from afar with no understanding of post-millennial political economy. Their sepia toned memory of the past creates the illusion of an America, which they think they undertand. Now they are stuck in a psycholoical trap, clinging to ego defenses that any objective observer recognizes to be counter-productive. Thus they have contracted to a Stockholm Syndrome, bonding with their captors, fearful of any change that threatens their tenuous hold on reality.
I ask myself those questions all the time as well. As someone who firmly accepts evolutionary biology I think a lot of it has to do with fitting in with the crowd. Those who fit in better are more likely to find mates and thus pass those genes to conform onto future generations.
Thus my questions still stands as it has all my life without a satisfactory and logical answer, what/who gave Gawd life? In my own opinion, especially seeing it here in the bible-belt, there seems to be a lot of intellectual and emotional time and energy wasted on the mystical that is diverted from logic and reason and even compassion.
Speaking of time, I need to go mow the lawn now. Thanks for your input.