Mental Health, Lobotomy, Rosemary Kennedy, Population Control, Polical Career Protection by Joseph Kennedy (Fwd) Where are the Kennedys?

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" Nancy Valko " <nv333

<nv333

Where are the Kennedys?

Date sent: Tue, 11 Jan 2005 23:06:51 -0600

 

Comment: Apparently, this email from Sunday didn't go through so I am

resending it. Nancy V. Sunday, January 09, 2005 10:08 AM

Where are the Kennedys?

 

 

> Comment: Note this obituatry for Rosemary Kennedy, whose misguided

> doctors had recommended a lobotomy that " reduced Rosemary to an

> infantlike state, mumbling words and sitting for hours, staring at

> walls. "

> Rosemary's situation led the Kennedy family to develop the

> Special

> Olympics and promote better opportunities for people with

> disabilities.

But

> where is the Kennedy voice on cases like Terri Schiavo's?

> I've done internet searches and found nothing so far either way.

Perhaps

> the death of his sister could open the hearts of people like Senator

Kennedy

> to the life and death struggle of people like Terri. While I don't

advocate

> being insensitive and bothering grieving families, Sen. Kennedy's

> voice would be a powerful one and a real tribute to his obviously

> much-loved sister. And he is apparently very proud of his

> legislative record on

issues

> affecting people with disabilities.

> What do you all think?

> Nancy V.

> http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/08/obituaries/08kennedy.html?pagewant

> ed=all Rosemary Kennedy, Senator's Sister, 86, Dies By THE

> ASSOCIATED PRESS

>

> Published: January 8, 2005

>

> WASHINGTON, Jan. 7 (AP) - Rosemary Kennedy, a sister of Senator

> Edward M. Kennedy who was born mentally retarded and lived most of

> her life in an institution after undergoing a lobotomy, died Friday,

> her family said. She was 86. Ms. Kennedy, the inspiration for the

> Special Olympics spearheaded by the Kennedy family, had been a

> patient since 1949 at St. Coletta School for Exceptional Children in

> Jefferson, Wis. She was the third child and first daughter of Joseph

> and Rose Kennedy, born a year after her brother John. In 1941,

> Joseph Kennedy was worried that Rosemary's mild mental

retardation

> would lead her into situations that could damage the family's

> reputation, and he arranged for her to have a lobotomy. She was 23.

> " Rosemary was a woman, and there was a dread fear of pregnancy,

> disease

and

> disgrace, " Laurence Leamer wrote in his book " The Kennedy Women: The

> Saga

of

> an American Family " (Villard Books, 1994).

> Mr. Leamer wrote that Rosemary, whose retardation possibly stemmed

> from brain damage at birth, had taken to sneaking out of the convent

> where she was staying at the time. Eunice Kennedy Shriver,

> Rosemary's younger sister, recalled that doctors

had

> told her father that a lobotomy, a medical procedure in which the

> frontal lobes of a patient's brain are scraped away, would help

> Rosemary. But the operation reduced Rosemary to an infantlike state,

> mumbling words and sitting for hours, staring at walls, Mr. Leamer

> wrote.

>