A blogger’s discovery of her unborn daughter’s problems has been on my mind all weekend. I live in deeply buried terror of something similar happening to me and my unborn baby as well.
If something did happen to my baby, it would be awful. I would grieve deeply and probably take some time to recover. And then slowly, surely, eventually I would go on. I know because I’ve done it before. In 2002 my son Raphael was born still at 23 weeks gestation. His story is on my side bar. So when my doctor recommended that I have a Level II ultrasound to look for fetal abnormalities because of my advanced fetal age (read because I’m older than dirt and my eggs have passed their recommended shelf life) I declined. I want to live in blissful ignorance. I know the odds of having a healthy baby are slimmer at my age. But if this is my last pregnancy I don’t want to spend it fears, tears and worry. If something is wrong we’ll just deal with it, when and if we have to.
So I’m monitoring the baby between appointments the old fashoned way – with kick counts and talking to him and rubbing his little back through my stomach etc. I want all of this baby’s siblings to get use to talking to him, and feeling him kick. I want my husband to be able to feel those little feet on his back in the morning too. And I want that to be exciting and happy, not filled with dread and misgivings because this baby might have a fatal deformity. I want to appreciate him NOW for who he is NOW. Maybe that’s very Scarlette O’Hara of me “tomorrow is another day,” but that’s my theory and I’m sticking to it for now!
I guess I am savoring the life within me while it is in me, and not knowing that something terrible is awaiting me around the corner is helping me to do that. There is one lesson I learned from Raphael’s birth and death, is that as long as this child is within me, I can love him, care for him, talk to him, take him to the Eucharist etc. in a way that will be impossible when he is physically gone, possibly buried in the sacred ground of the cemetery. And I treasure every second Raphael was within me before he was finally born.
I think what I have just stated is rather revolutionary. Our culture is big on trying to numb and control pain and discomfort. It certainly has in our reproductive lives with the widespread use and acceptance of contraceptives and abortion. We should be able, according to our culture, to have a baby or avoid a baby whenever we want on our terms. We should be able to schedule those deliveries too. So when all does not go according to plan, it is seen as somewhat of a failure- something we have to numb ourselves too and control.
Last year a story broke that two Catholic Hospitals, while not performing abortions, were basically causing the deaths of unborn children with birth defects.
The reason for induction, Father O’Callahan said, is to “try to ward off the physical complications of bringing to term a child who is not going to live anyway.”
Dr. John Gianapolous, a maternal-fetal specialist at Loyola, said the overriding concern is for the mental health of the woman. “Quite often, she can’t go on knowing” that the child in her womb will die at birth, he said.
Supposidly this was for the good of the mother but this article mentions how this could even be detrimental to the mother’s future health.
Even fatally ill babies, left to develop until term, give their mothers the gift of lowering their risk of breast cancer. Contrarily, mothers who abort dramatically increase their risk.
Aborting mothers also stand a much greater chance of ending up in hospital high-risk maternity departments next time they get pregnant. Their forcibly stretched cervixes will have difficulty keeping subsequent babies inside until full term.
What the U.S. Bishops Say
45. Abortion (that is, the directly intended termination of pregnancy before viability or the directly intended destruction of a viable fetus) is never permitted. Every procedure whose sole immediate effect is the termination of pregnancy before viability is an abortion, which, in its moral context, includes the interval between conception and implantation of the embryo. Catholic healthcare institutions are not to provide abortion services, even based upon the principle of material cooperation. In this context, Catholic health-care institutions need to be concerned about the danger of scandal in any association with abortion providers.
47. Operations, treatments and medications that have as their direct purpose the cure of a proportionately serious pathological condition of a pregnant woman are permitted when they cannot be safely postponed until the unborn child is viable, even if they will result in the death of the unborn child.
49. For a proportionate reason, labor may be induced after the fetus is viable.
— U.S. Bishops’ Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care
Services
Hence, it is clear that before “viability,” it is never permitted to terminate the gestation of an anencephalic child as the means of avoiding psychological or physical risks to the mother. Nor is such termination permitted after “viability” if early delivery endangers the child’s life due to complications of prematurity. In such cases, it cannot reasonably be maintained that such a termination is simply a side effect of the treatment of a pathology of the mother.
Anencephaly is not a pathology of the mother, but of the child, and terminating her pregnancy cannot be a treatment of a pathology she does not have. Only if the complications of the pregnancy result in a life-threatening pathology of the mother may the treatment of this pathology be permitted, even at a risk to the child, and then, only if the child’s death is not a means to treating the mother.
The fact that the life of a child suffering from anencephaly will probably be brief cannot excuse directly causing death before “viability” or gravely endangering the child’s life after “viability” as a result of complications of prematurity.
Another article on church teaching here
Fr. Lynch is consultant on bioethics for the Toronto archdiocese and is Dean of Studies and professor of moral theology at St. Augustine’s, a major Canadian seminary.
However, Fr. Lynch was more forthcoming on a question about the moral acceptability of early inducement. He said, “I would think that what you want is not to involve yourself in any kind of responsibility for hastening a death. Even an inevitable death. So I’ve always had a serious problem with this that you would induce for psychological reasons. I see a necessity for serious counseling. In the same way that you would counsel a parent who had a dying child. I don’t see the difference. I see a difference only in location and the concept of the child.
Fr. Lynch questioned the claim that there is no difference since the child is going to die anyway. “You are inducing without the possibility of any sort of improvement or benefit for the child. They would say it’s the same thing whether you induce or not and I would say no it isn’t. You never know if that child could be stronger afterwards or whatever, but you certainly know that you’ve increased the odds that that child will die even quicker. Especially if you don’t give it the kind of care that you would give a healthy premature child which is very intensive neo-natal care and I would venture to say that this child isn’t going to get neo-natal care. So you’re already biased against it on the basis of its disability, a grave, a chronic disability, but a disability and I don’t think that’s a good thing.”
A certified midwife friend of Alicia’s concurs:
There is NO principle of double effect here guys. This woman can be monitored for her health throughout the pregnancy, just as with any other pregnant woman, and with additional testing if needed (blood work and ultrasounds). I know of NO condition that the baby has that would immediately and perhaps fatally impact the health or life of the woman.
As Catholics, we believe that life is precious from the moment of conception until it ends, regardless of the length of that little life.
This comment was made on Anne’s Blog:
No matter when Anne’s baby is born, she will not live. Whether she is born at 22 weeks or 42 weeks, the prognosis is the same. She is not inducing labor because she was told her baby had a condition with which it could live but her quality of life would be wretched. She has been told that her baby will die if she survives to term at all. Her prognosis is terminal.
Very true. However, doctors have been wrong before. The practice of medicine is as much an art form as it is a science. In my heart of hearts I think that regardless of what they “think” will happen, every child deserves to live out the time of gestation if at all possible.
The risks of inducing labor in a controlled environment at this stage of her pregnancy pose less of a threat to Anne’s health AND life then if she were to continue on with the pregnancy.
I’d like to see the studies on this. What are the precise risks and is induction the only way to handle them. The question has already been raised that induction could influence the results of future pregnancies, which is another consideration against early induction.
Anne and her husband are not playing God here by inducing labor. God has made the decision for them.
Then let God decide when the birth will happen!
You may believe that what (they) are doing is tantamount to abortion. You are mistaken. Abortion involves taking the life of a human being who could otherwise live
Abortion is the taking of a life of a human being in the womb period. If this defintion is correct, then all the abortions that are done for similar abnormalities are not abortions, which of course is not the case.
Their baby is alive right now because Anne is alive. Were she hooked up to tubes in the hospital, supported only by a breathing machine and a feeding tube, life support, in this case, would be terminated and nobody would be telling Anne that she killed her baby.
Except that ALL babies at this gestation, mine included are hooked up to their mothers for life support. That’s NORMAL for this point in pregnancy!! It may or may not be the only NORMAL thing about this little one’s existence now.
But more than that, this time in the womb, however brief, and regardless of how it ends is the special time that God has given for mother and child. My brief time with Raphael bonded us. He was my child and I will love him forever. I would encourage any mother in the same situation not to run to shorten or end this life because it is painful and uncertain, but to take the opportunity to mother THIS baby, NOW while there is still the chance and to savor this time together.
This is a terrible ordeal to go through however. All families facing this situation need our prayers.
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