A healthy baby despite abortion recommendations

UPDATE:Bob Ellis has a great post on this at Dakota Voice.

This is a great story from the UK’s Telegraph about a couple who twice didn’t give in to the “expert” advice of their doctors to abort their baby because he might have some abnormalities if he was born.

Gaynor Purdy was warned her first child could have a fatal chromosome defect and a life threatening heart condition.

But she rejected two suggestions to terminate the pregnancy and she and her husband Lee are celebrating life with their “perfect” ten-month-old son.

Mrs Purdy, 28, a quality control inspector, said: “We refused to give up on him, and decided throughout the pregnancy that as long as he was fighting, we would continue fighting with him.”

Four months into the pregnancy doctors told them that part of their unborn child’s heart was narrow and underdeveloped and would mean open heart surgery if the baby was born.

They were warned the condition could worsen and around Christmas last year, an immediate termination should be considered.

Further tests conducted a few days later on New Year’s Eve suggested the baby could also have Edwards Syndrome – the presence of an 18th chromosome – with a life expectancy of only up to four months if birth is survived.

Consultants again recommended the couple consider aborting the baby, fearing he would little to no quality of life once he was born.

One side of his heart was slightly bigger than the other which may need an operation to correct in the future, but regular tests have been showing the condition is constantly improving.

Mrs Purdy added: “Doctors told us he was a little miracle baby. They said his heart must have been mending itself.

“Last year we were still on a knife edge thinking things would go wrong. But now he’s out of the woods we are delighted that 2009 will be Kai’s year.”

So when doctors detect something like they did in this case, why don’t they err on the side of life and say, “Hey, the odds might not be the greatest, but there’s a chance he will be okay”? By recommending to end the baby’s life, the doctors are not even giving him a chance. I hate to sound cynical here, but could it be that the hospital’s policy is to err on the side of saving money? To simply abort the baby, the hospital would be avoiding potentially many costly procedures.

If you read the entire article, you get the impression that the doctors in this case really pointed out the “incoveniences” of trying to keep the baby. At the end of the article, the hospital says they try to “offer prospective families the full facts and options”, but if they’re making a recommendation to kill the baby, how much impartiality are they really showing?

Canadian Doctors Worried More Moms Will Choose Life

So I was reading the transcript from Rush Limbaugh’s show today and noticed his mention of this article at Life Site News. Seems that Canadian doctors have their panties in a wad worrying about the popular reaction in the U.S. to Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin’s decision to not abort her baby, Trig, who has Down Syndrome.

Dr. Andre Lalonde, executive vice-president of the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada (SOGC), told the Globe and Mail yesterday, “Palin’s decision to keep her baby, knowing he would be born with the condition, may inadvertently influence other women who may lack the necessary emotional and financial support to do the same.”

“The worry is that this will have an implication for abortion issues in Canada,” he said.

Under the facade of “freedom to choose”, Lalonde said that “popular messages” about women like Palin, who choose not to kill their unborn children, “could have detrimental effects on women and their families.”

“We offer the woman the choice. We try to be as unbiased as possible,” Lalonde said. “We’re coming down to a moral decision and we all know moral decisions are personal decisions.”

It’s all about choice, isn’t it? As Rush says earlier in his transcript, for liberals, you’re only pro-choice if you choose abortion. If you choose life, they refuse to let you call yourself pro-choice. So really, as Rush says, pro-choice means pro-abortion.

As for Lalonde’s last statement, he’s not really saying anything, is he? “Moral decisions are personal decisions”? Of course they’re personal decisions. Anytime anyone makes a decision, they are personally making that decision–unless, of course, they’re shaking a magic 8-ball. Lalonde implies that a personal decision only impacts the person making that decision and that no one should limit that person’s options. So what about a person’s decision to shoot someone? That is a moral decision that someone personally makes. So why should the government be able to curb a person’s ability to shoot someone? Using Lalonde’s logic, it shouldn’t be able to.

Our society has to have a set of values that are universally accepted and enforced, no matter if some individuals might disagree with them. Without a standard, chaos will reign, and there will be no respect for anyone. This is what we’re starting to see. It has started with the killing of innocent babies still in the womb in the name of freedom of choice and convenience. Other countries have legalized “mercy-killing” of elderly and chronically ill people, and they’re now struggling with the definition being broadened to apply to more and more people. What makes us think this won’t happen in the United States?

SD Doctors Must Obey State Law

And now for the good news. The Christian News Wire is reporting that the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that doctors must obey a law in South Dakota while the consitutionality of the law is litigated in court.

This decision requires abortion providers tell women, in writing, that the abortion procedure “will terminate the life of a whole, separate, unique, living human being.”

A spokeswoman for the Intervenor Alpha Center, Kimberly Martinez, said, “We are delighted by the Court’s decision. Alpha Center exists to tell South Dakota women the whole truth about their pregnancies. Thanks to today’s decision by the court, women are now going to be given the truth by abortion providers, who have been fighting to avoid doing so for years.”