04/26/24
August 11, 2009
Eunice Shriver, Founder of Special Olympics, Dies : A sister of President John F. Kennedy and Senators Robert F. Kennedy and Edward M. Kennedy and the mother-in-law of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, Mrs. Shriver never held elective office. Yet she was no stranger to Capitol Hill, and some view her work on behalf of the developmentally challenged, including the founding of the Special Olympics, as the most lasting of the Kennedy family’s contributions. “When the full judgment of the Kennedy legacy is made — including J.F.K.’s Peace Corps and Alliance for Progress, Robert Kennedy’s passion for civil rights and Ted Kennedy’s efforts on health care, workplace reform and refugees — the changes wrought by Eunice Shriver may well be seen as the most consequential,” U.S. News & World Report said in its cover story of Nov. 15, 1993. Edward Kennedy said in an interview in October 2007: “You talk about an agent of change — she is it. If the test is what you’re doing that’s been helpful for humanity, you’d be hard pressed to find another member of the family who’s done more.” As an example, Mr. Kennedy cited the opening ceremony of the 2007 Special Olympics World Summer Games in Shanghai, where a crowd of 80,000 cheered as President Hu Jintao welcomed more than 7,000 athletes to China, a country with a history of severe discrimination against anyone born with disabilities. The first Special Olympics brought together 1,000 athletes from 26 states and Canada for competition. In December 1968, Special Olympics Inc. was established as a nonprofit charitable organization. Since then, the program has grown to almost three million athletes in more than 180 countries.
posted by tommytrump to culture at 11:11 PM - 7 comments
.
posted by BornIcon at 08:23 AM on August 12, 2009
I didn't realize how much she had done for those with developmental disabilities. RIP.
posted by bperk at 09:19 AM on August 12, 2009
She was a rampant pro-lifer as well. Just for the record.
She was an Irish-Catholic from three generations ago. Find us one that wasn't. She made a huge difference in the lives of millions of people and made folks more open-minded about developmental disabilities. Let's leave it at that.
posted by yerfatma at 10:06 AM on August 12, 2009
.
posted by irunfromclones at 02:59 PM on August 12, 2009
She was a rampant pro-lifer as well. Just for the record.
You make it sound like she was sticking pictures of fetuses in people's faces outside women's health clinics. As near as I can tell, the extent of her anti-choice activities was to be a signatory to the so-called "New American Compact", which contained the following:
Our moral, religious, and political traditions are united in their respect for the dignity of human life. Only in the most extreme circumstances do they permit the taking of life; both our traditions and our law, for example, forbid killing except in case of legitimate self-defense. And thus, analogously, the laws that protected the unborn prior to Roe and Doe always contained a "life of the mother" exception. Today, fortunately, pregnancy is very rarely a threat to maternal life or health. Nevertheless, a sound abortion policy would provide for the exceptional case of such a threat by permitting medical procedures necessary to save the life of a pregnant women even when such procedures would inevitably result in death or injury to the unborn child.
The goal, surely, is enactment of the most protective laws possible on behalf of the unborn. We recognize that there are disagreements about what is possible and even desirable here. But that is precisely why, as we argued earlier, the issue should be deliberated and decided by the American people according to the democratic processes of persuasion and legislation. [emphasis mine]
Opinions may differ about whether those are the words of a "rampant pro-lifer"...but if that's what you'd label her, I wonder what you'd call a member of Operation Rescue.
posted by lil_brown_bat at 09:25 AM on August 13, 2009
Opinions may differ about whether those are the words of a "rampant pro-lifer"...but if that's what you'd label her, I wonder what you'd call a member of Operation Rescue.
A rampant anti-LeRoy Carhart demonstration?
posted by BornIcon at 10:41 AM on August 13, 2009
She was a rampant pro-lifer as well. Just for the record.