Update: A Facebook commenter writes:
“Friends of mine were advised by Yale medical to abort their baby because he had a heart defect. He’s doing quite well in a graduate program at Purdue University right now.”
Wow.
***
Last year I listened to a pregnant caller on Dr. Laura’s radio show, who carried a baby diagnosed with a heart defect. The doctor told her the baby likely would be stillborn or would die shortly after birth. Specialists offered no hope. Despite the diagnosis, the woman and her husband decided to carry the baby to term.
The thought of losing the baby was heartbreaking, of course, but the couple wanted to give their child a chance at life.
A Twitter follower sent a link about a couple who chose to give birth to a baby diagnosed with a genetic disorder, Trisomy 13, a condition that results in abnormalities like a cleft lip or palate, close-set eyes, extra fingers and toes, etc.
Instead of killing the baby in utero, the couple endured the worry and heartbreak to give their child a chance at life. The baby, named Thomas, died, but his mother and father did an invaluable and unimaginably painful thing: they protected his life so he’d have the opportunity –yes, opportunity– to struggle for precious life. It was his struggle to make.
The older I become, the more I find it puzzling how unrepentant people who kill their babies, especially for convenience, and the so-called doctors who do the killing, live with themselves. Even in an unsaved state, my conscience would have eaten me alive until there was nothing left but an empty shell, my humanity having fled the moment I allowed it to happen, sorrow and regret filling the vacuum.
But that’s just me.
Dramatic? Probably. So is life. Then again, I have done things I deeply regret, and at one point, I thought sorrow would overwhelm me. But the more I trusted Christ, the lighter the burden became. Any woman who’s had an abortion, sought forgiveness, and is now touched by grace knows what I mean.
