To be perfectly fair and honest, I didn’t watch the Oscars. I didn’t actually know the show was airing last night, in fact, until I logged on to Twitter and noticed an ABC thread detailing all the goings-on at Hollywood’s latest back-patting party for the Rich and Famous.
To paraphrase Ilhan Omar, some people won something. I largely didn’t care.
But even broken clocks are right twice a day, and at least one bright moment came out of what was otherwise another self-laudatory night in the Tinsletown bubble. And it happened after actor James Martin, who starred in the film “An Irish Goodbye” which won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film Sunday night, took the stage with his costars and got an even bigger surprise than the little golden statue they handed him.
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You see, Martin here has Down syndrome. In fact, just a few months before he was holding the entertainment industry's most coveted award, the 31-year-old was working at a Starbucks in Ireland. And in addition to being Oscars night, Sunday happened to be his birthday – and his costars didn’t want to pass up the moment to celebrate.
An unexpected moment of wholesomeness at the #Oscars: The entire audience singing 'Happy Birthday' to James Martin from 'An Irish Goodbye' moments after the film won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film pic.twitter.com/l8NuASxqYQ
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) March 13, 2023
Ironically, Martin was being serenaded by a gilded room full of bejeweled celebrities who, nearly to a person, openly support the right of women to abort babies diagnosed in utero with Down syndrome or other physical or cognitive conditions. In fact, Planned Parenthood, for which many Hollywood elitists stump, has taken a public stand against any state law that would protect healthy babies from being aborted solely on a fetal Down syndrome diagnosis:
REMINDER: Several anti-abortion bills have been introduced this year alone in the Pennsylvania legislature — including a 6-week abortion ban, a fetal remains bill, and a down syndrome abortion ban. #BansOffOurBodies
— Planned Parenthood PA Advocates (@PPAdvocatesPA) December 1, 2021
But Martin’s life is valuable, and his presence onstage at one of Hollywood’s most illustrious awards shows proves that not only are people with Down syndrome priceless human beings worthy of life, but they are no less capable or talented than anyone else in the room for having a chromosomal difference.
Including the plenty of able-bodied abortion supporters sitting there without an Oscar.