| Subject: Re: Possibly having to choose to terminate or not |
Author:
Pat
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Date Posted: 13:10:43 03/19/05 Sat
In reply to:
Heather Bailey
's message, "Possibly having to choose to terminate or not" on 19:24:14 03/15/05 Tue
Hello, Heather,
My heart goes out to you because of your experiences losing children. It is truly heartbreaking to bury one so young. That said, I would like to offer some thoughts.
Everyone's life is worthwhile. I will give you a couple of examples. A friend just recently emailed me. He and his wife lost their daughter of four months' age to SIDS. But in her short life, she had saved the life of another: a man had brought his significant other for an abortion, and when he saw my friend's daughter, he changed his mind. I also had a very dear friend I met online. She was about 18 when I met her. She had a hereditary condition which was fatal in a person's 20's. We don't even know where she got it. She was very sick most of the time I knew her. She was very badly overweight because of the condition, and she had a lot of pain. And recently she did pass away. But my life was immeasurably enriched by her, and she saved many lives also, persuading people not to have abortions, and she also spent a lot of time trying to find out what happened to missing children who had been missing for years. She touched so many lives! And then there is my nephew. He has Down Syndrome. Not only is he brighter than most children (his language development at 3 1/2 was that of a five year old), but he has brought a hurting family together and healed their relationships. He is a wonderfully loving child, and I'm jealous God didn't give him to me instead of my sister!
The other thing is that prenatal diagnosis is NOT reliable. You could choose to destroy a healthy child. While that seems unlikely, I personally would never want to take the chance.
The choice before you is, assuming the diagnosis is correct, whether to accept a child who will die earlier than usual (we all die, and when our children are born, we know they will die someday, and there is always a chance they'll die young), or to actively bring about the child's death, robbing him or her of the short time s/he has. I would never want to rob my child of such a little bit of time, because that little bit of time wasn't enough. If that little bit of time isn't enough, then neither is a shorter time.
I will be forever haunted by the words of a friend who decided to terminate because her child had hydroencephaly (she didn't know about the in utero treatment that had just been developed, and she didn't know that if she had taken B vitamins, he wouldn't have developed the condition). She got to hold him after he was born, but she said to me, "I just wish I had been able to look into his eyes."
I hope you will choose life for your child. Even if this child has the defect, God may still give you a healthy one. But God never makes mistakes. You are carrying this child for a reason, and you may not know why for a very long time, but eventually you will figure it out. I would never, ever want to refuse one of God's gifts. Yes, we live with imperfect bodies and fatal conditions. But love is the real gift: your love, which God wants to grow through these experiences. He has something in mind for you. Please protect your baby!
Hugs,
Pat
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