Paul Harvey's The Rest of the Story

[farmboy]

---

IF

When rape results in pregnancy, or when giving birth might cost the mother's life, few women would fail to consider as an alternative:


Abortion.


But let's say you're a doctor--a physician not morally adverse to terminating a patient's pregnancy--and the circumstances are neither frivolous nor dire.


Let's say that on a given day you are consulted by two young women, both pregnant, both doubtful as to whether they should be.


Now, remember: such a choice is ultimately the mother's, but because you are a physician, and because your judgment is respected, and because your patient is seeking guidance, everything you say, regardless of how clinically objective--yes, even the tone of your voice--may sway her decision.


Yours is a position of enormous responsibility. Like it or not, the very expression on your face could save or extinguish a life.


Your first expectant mother is Caterina.

Caterina is unmarried, obviously in her teens, obviously poor.
You ask her age, and she tells you, and at once you realize she has overstated her years by one or two or three.
Caterina is in the first trimester of her pregnancy. You ask if she has been pregnant before. Caterina shakes her head.
Studying her, you wonder. You inquire of her general health; no problems, she says. And the health of the father?
Caterina shrugs; her eyes fall. She has lost contact with the father of her unborn child. All she knows is he was twenty-three, a lawyer or a notary or something like that. He lives nearby, she thinks; she is not sure. The affair was over quickly, little more than a one-night stand. No child was expected--nor now is wanted.

What Doctor, is your advice?


Later the same day, you are consulted by a second expectant mother. Her name is Klara.


Klara is twenty-eight, married three years, the wife of a government worker; she has the look of a woman accustomed to anguish.

Concerned for the ultimate health of her unborn, Klara explains that for each year of her marriage she has had a child--and each has died; the first within thirty-one months, the second within sixteen months, the third within several days.

Disease? You ask.

Klara nods. She suspects that any future child would be equally susceptible. For you see, her husband is also her second cousin. Both Catholic, they received papal dispensation to marry--though now Klara questions their wisdom in asking permission.

And there's something else...


One of Klara's sisters is a hunchback; another sister, the mother of a hunchback. Klara is in the first trimester of her fourth pregnancy. The odds are against the health of her child. Time is running out. And it is only later that you learn--Klara's husband is not, as she has said, her second cousin. He is her uncle.

So what, Doctor, is your advice?

In addition to all immediate considerations--physical, moral, religious--the dilemma of whether to terminate a pregnancy is a philosophical question:

Might this life, if left to live, affect the consciousness or even the destiny of mankind? Yet if the profundity of this question is diminished by the balance which governs all life, there is evidence in the two true stories you have just heard: the unwed mother with unwanted child; the married mother with the graves of three infants behind her.


For if you, as the hypothetical physician, have opted in both cases for abortion--then you have respectively denied the world the multifaceted genius of Leonardo da Vinci--and spared humanity the terror of Adolf Hitler.

They are THE REST OF THE STORY.

[farmboy]

Years ago a hardworking man took his family from New York State to Australia to take advantage of a work opportunity there. Part of this man's family was handsome young son who had aspirations of joining the circus as a trapeze artist or an actor. This young fellow, biding his time until a circus job or even one as a stagehand came along, worked at the local shipyards which bordered on the worst section of town. Walking home from work one evening this young man was attacked by five thugs who wanted to rob him. Instead of just giving up his money the young fellow resisted. However they bested him easily and proceeded to beat him to a pulp. They mashed his face with their boots, and kicked and beat his body brutally with clubs, leaving him for dead. When the police happened to find him lying in the road they assumed he was dead and called for the Morgue Wagon.

On the way to the morgue a policeman heard him gasp for air, and they immediately took him to the emergency unit at the hospital. When he was placed on a gurney a nurse remarked to her horror, that his young man no longer had a face. Each eye socket was smashed, his skull, legs, and arms fractured, his nose literally hanging from his face, all is teeth were gone, and his jaw was almost completely torn from his skull. Although his life was spared he spent over year in the hospital. When he finally left his body may have healed but his face was disgusting to look at. He was no longer the handsome youth that everyone admired.

When the young man started to look for work again he was turned down by everyone just on account of the way he looked. One potential employer suggested to him that he join the freak show at the circus as The Man Who Had No Face. And he did this for a while. He was still rejected by everyone and no one wanted to be seen in his company. He had thoughts of suicide. This went on for five years.

One day he passed a church and sought some solace there. Entering the church he encountered a priest who had saw him sobbing while kneeling in a pew. The priest took pity on him and took him to the rectory where they talked at length. The priest was impressed with him to such a degree that he said that he would do everything possible for him that could be done to restore his dignity and life, if the young man would promise to be the best Catholic he could be, and trust in God's mercy to free him from his torturous life. The young man went to Mass and communion every day, and after thanking God for saving his life, asked God to only give him peace of mind and the grace to be the best man he could ever be in His eyes.

The priest, through his personal contacts was able to secure the services of the best plastic surgeon in Australia. They would be no cost to the young man, as the doctor was the priest's best friend. The doctor too was so impressed by the young man, whose outlook now on life, even though he had experienced the worse was filled with good humor and love.

The surgery was a miraculous success. All the best dental work was also done for him. The young man became everything he promised God he would be. He was also blessed with a wonderful, beautiful wife, and many children, and success in an industry which would have been the furthest thing from his mind as a career if not for the goodness of God and the love of the people who cared for him. This he acknowledges publicly.

The young man . . .

Mel Gibson.

and now you know the rest of the story..

[k.A.i]

nindot ang story pero murag dili mana tinood nga si mel gibson na.

The Man Without a Face - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[farmboy]

Lets say youre thirteen years old, born and reared in another country, and youre looking for a fast ten dollars.

Would it ever occur to you to write a letter - simply requesting ten Yankee dollars - to the President of the United States?

It did occur to one thirteen year old.

In fact, the audacity of that letter was so striking that it is retained to this day in the National Archives. The year was 1940, and the rest is the rest of the story.

In the autumn of 1940 he was a boy of 13, receiving a strict private parochical school education.

Now certainly every youngster of that age wants attention. This one wanted prestige. Daily he pondered his anonymity and a way to be rid of it - a way to become a big shot with his classmates.

Then it came to him.

In school he had learned a great deal about the United States, the wealthiest and most powerful and most generous nation in the entire world. What if he could somehow con the President of the United States out of ten dollars?

The idea became an obssession.

He would have to write a letter of some kind, carefully worded of course, a letter requesting the money while dangling a vague promise of something in return. The youngster had studied just enough English to get his subtle point across in writing.

He addressed the letter to Pres Franklin Roosevelt asking outright for ten dollars because "...I have not seen a ten dollars bill green american and I would like to have one of them..."

He went on to hint, almost in postcript, that his country was rich in iron ore - and he knew where the President could his hands on some!

Next day, the letter was in the mail.Proudly its young author announced to his friends that President Roosevelt was going to send him some money.

His friends laughed. Surely, he didn't expect an answer from the President, much less a handout.

The scoffing of the youngsters shook him awake. What if Pres Roosevelt just tossed the letter into the wastebasket? he had boasted prematurely and now he might have to pay for it in ridicule.

But the little fellow did receive and answer. The response was written by an embassy counselor on behalf of the President of the United States:

"The President has directed the embassy to acknowledge, with an expression of appreciation, your letter of November 6, 1940, written on the occasion of his reelection."

No ten dollars.

Nice try.

But when the boy brought that letter of recognition to school, the Roman Catholic sisters were sufficiently impressed to put it on school bulletin board for a whole week.

They did not know their little lad had tried to hit FDR for a fast ten.

Neither could they have guessed that the US State Dept would save the youngster's letter, only to review it with amazement 38 years later.

For the thirteen year old boy who wished only to be important in the eyes of his classmates became important in revolution.

You know him.

Fidel Castro.