She’s my sister. She’s retarded.

In a previous post, I introduced you to my late sister, Jean. My parents discovered, soon after her birth in April, 1961, that she had severe physical and cognitive defects. Jean never spoke a word, walked a step, or as far as we know, had a coherent thought. Mom, dad or one of her four siblings fed her every bite of food she ever ate, bathed her, changed her diapers and dispensed her many medications. She was, for her entire 45 years on this earth, an infant in every way except physical size. The term we used back then, long since abandoned for its less offensive synonym, developmentally disabled, was “retarded.”

“This is my sister. She’s retarded.” My other siblings and I would thus describe her condition as dispassionately as we’d comment on the weather. We weren’t trying to be mean. Quite the contrary; we loved and protected Jean. But the word, lowbred and unpolished as it was, did the job words are meant to do; it shouldered meaning and transported it from one person to another. The word, perfectly acceptable back then, functioned as an adjective to describe someone whose physical and/or cognitive development was delayed, impaired or even, as in Jean’s case, permanently stalled.

Jean, and that word, came to mind this week when I watched a video of Dr. Deborah Nucatola, Senior Director of Medical Services, Planned Parenthood Federation of America.

In what is, by now, a familiar tactic, two pro-life advocates affiliated with the Center for Medical Progress (CMS), posed as employees of a biotech firm interested in purchasing tissue and organ samples from the nation’s leading abortion provider. While enjoying a salad and sipping red wine, Dr. Nucatola discussed – as dispassionately as she’d comment on the weather – how to harvest tissue and organs from aborted fetuses. The conversation was recorded by hidden cameras worn by the two CMS affiliates.

The video is not for the weak of heart or stomach. The casual way in which Dr. Nucatola describes where to grip a fetus with forceps in order to prevent damage to the desired organs is astonishing.

“We’ve been very good at getting heart, lung, liver, because we know that (these are the organs biotech firms want most), so I’m not gonna crush that part, I’m gonna basically crush below, I’m gonna crush above, and I’m gonna see if I can get it (the desired organ) all intact.”

Dr. Nucatola’s nonchalance and emotional detachment are nothing less than ghoulish. Never mind that it is a federal crime to sell the body parts of aborted children. How did we come to a place where such a law was even required?

That’s why this video made me remember the word we used to describe Jean’s condition. If Planned Parenthood’s medical director can blithely discuss, over a salad and red wine, the dissection and dismemberment of babies, maybe it’s time to bring out of retirement a word with enough punch and verbal muscle to match. Our moral development isn’t just impaired. We are not merely ethically disabled. It is not enough to say that our virtue has de-evolved. Our morals, ethics and virtue are retarded. Severely retarded.

The prophet Isaiah recognized that the words we use can become a smokescreen for injustice.

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.  Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine and champions at mixing drinks, who acquit the guilty for a bribe, but deny justice to the innocent. (Isaiah 5:20 – 23).

We no longer have the luxury of using inoffensive words. This kind of evil cannot be confronted winsomely. Neither may we resort to the violence of clinic bombings or doctor shootings. The way of the cross excludes such tactics. But until we call it what it is – sin – we will not know the remedy.

The remedy for sin is salvation – another word worth dusting off and putting back into circulation. Because Dr. Nucatola is a sinner who needs the Savior. The truth is, she’s my sister. And, like me, she’s retarded – morally, ethically, spiritually. Neither of us will see God without Jesus. But if both of us confess who and what we are and throw all our hope on Him, He will save us. Save us both. Save us all. And until He comes, we’ll sit around a table, break bread and sip wine and talk about what He did for us, how He died for us.