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Showing posts with label poor prenatal diagnosis. Show all posts
Showing posts with label poor prenatal diagnosis. Show all posts
Monday, June 25, 2018
Does anyone care about God's opinion?
We all have defining moments in our lives. Usually they are moments marked by the birth of a child or sadly by the death of a loved one….maybe a new job, a move to a new state and so much more.
One of my most defining moments can be said in two words “Kunta Kinte.” For some of you that will immediately bring to mind an image of a young LeVar Burton in the tv mini series Roots and for others you may not be familiar with that TV show, but for me it was and will forever be heavily marked on my heart and in my mind.
I loved learning about history in 4th and 5th grade. I think because history is truly people’s stories in life’s journey and how our stories impact people, nations and the world, that history has always captivated my attention as at a young age, even though not a Christian, the value of each soul was impressed upon my heart by God in a way that people’s stories and people’s pain impacted me in a very profound way.
I had learned about slavery, of course, as any grade school student does as I studied our American history and while it impacted me, the reality of it did not hit me until I found myself watching a new TV series that would hit the air waves in 1977 while I was still in grade school. That was Roots. Kunta Kinte’s life and the lives of both the slaves and the slave owners would forever impact my life. To this day the images that I tried to erase are still clearly marked on my heart and mind.
Even as a young girl, I sat there in disbelief that any human being could justify in any way treating ANY other human being as if they were/are not human. It made no sense to me. TRULY MADE NO SENSE TO ME. I mean of course logically I had learned the sick rationale that was used to enslave people but I could not wrap my mind around how any human being could go along with something so clearly evil beyond words. I would wrestle and wrestle how anyone could ever not only do this but allow this and allow this on a level of actual legislation supporting this in our nation and in our history.
Fast forward to my college years….Jesus reached down and saved my undeserving soul. While I saw Him merely as fire insurance in that moment so to speak initially and did not really start following Him and engaging in a vibrant relationship with my Savior until my mid twenties, instantly I knew that being pro choice, which I had been in college, was wrong and I immediately said I would never vote for a Democrat again and would always support Republicans with my vote as I knew that Republicans by in large voted pro life. Outside of voting though I did very little to show any evidence that I was pro life. I was in word but not in deed which truly leaves one to question if I was really pro life at all as my lip service apart from any real actions hardly qualified me to call myself pro life.
It was not until my husband and I found ourselves facing three top doctors at a top hospital in IL that my eyes were truly opened to the reality of abortion in America and how much it was and is a part of the very fabric of our nation. I remember clear as day as if just yesterday that utter feeling of horror and shock that people in medicine not only suggest, that is bad enough, but insist on parents killing their child and not only killing their child but the reasoning being because the child is sick. Since when did/does being sick become a crime and become something worthy of being killed over???? Of course, in utter shock that this would even be suggested we kindly argued with and took a STRONG, BOLD yet kind stand against this and today we have a beautiful, KIND beyond measure 20 year old daughter that lights up every room she enters and impacts lives with her kindness.
But it would not stop there the education on abortion God was revealing to me. I was about to get an even bigger and most unexpected education yet again within a community I had always viewed as truly safe and truly pro life as I had once viewed the medical community.
I started to learn that EVEN IN the pro life community there were factions of people that did not really believe in PRO LIFE at all as they would advocate for or succumb to fighting for some lives but not ALL lives. This, just like with the utter shock of those in the medical community seeing abortion as a very real “solution” and “option,” was just as shocking to me that there were people within pro life life that held the same stance. I was in utter shock! And what is this stance within the pro life community where some who profess to fight for life would relegate some lives to less valuable than others…..THE EXCEPTIONS……
Just like with Roots, as a young girl, as I sat in front of the TV screen in utter shock and disbelief with tears running down my face uncontrollably, I would sit before God with tears running down my face asking how could this be. I fully understand the deception of someone who does not follow Jesus buying into the lie of abortion as a solution, as that was once me before I encountered Jesus. BUT …..to find out that professing believers, professing followers of Jesus Christ, professing pro life people would say that abortion is ok in any circumstance or being willing to go along with it for some so that others could live was nothing short of knock me on my bottom shocking to me.
It would forever take me back to slavery in our history. Professing believers not only supported slavery and had slaves but would go along with legislation to support that and legislation that dehumanized an entire people group. Professing believers would justify slavery because of the economic benefit to so many which well outweighed the cost to the human lives of the slaves….sound familiar…….benefiting the many even though at great cost to the few????? Abortion…..EXCEPTIONS…….
As a believer, there will NEVER EVER, let me repeat this in kindness and love but so boldly, that there will never be a time that SIN IS THE SOLUTION TO ANYTHING THAT AILS MAN. The sin of slavery may have seemed like a solution to the South’s economic woes and a way for great prosperity for many but in God’s economy is SIN EVER THE SOLUTION??? Praise God enough people were willing to be hated, put their lives on the line and accept no compromises and fight for the complete end to slavery. It was a defining moment in our history……Today is no different.
Sin is still never the solution even though from a human standpoint it can be rationalized and not even called sin…..but as with slavery….as with the compromise of some states being free and others slave states-that would never be God’s way to say, “Well at least some states are free even if some still allow slavery.” NO! God never condones sin…because SIN HURTS ALL INVOLVED…….God does not compromise and neither should we……..Pro life legislation with exceptions is sin before a holy God….it is no different then when our nation made compromises allowing for some free states….That may have seemed generous and like a win win but when an entire people group was still dehumanized and enslaved in the slave states that compromise was of man and never of God.
May the pro life community and may pro life legislators who know Jesus as Lord and Savior filter exceptions in pro life legislation through the lens of Jesus the same way that the abolitionists who would tolerate no compromises filtered their stand and their fight through the lens of Jesus. We can do what seems right to man and compromise and for a moment in time, it may appear to be the loving thing, but God will never allow anything HE does not call love to be called love and when HE calls ALL life valuable then our job is not to make excuses, not to compromise, not to make exceptions but to respond to HIS Heart and do the same by calling all life valuable as well….with no exceptions. We must not settle for exceptions…the same way those that truly took a stand against slavery would not settle for at least some states being free states, we must not settle for at least some babies being saved while others die…….
Suzanne Guy
Save the 1 speaker and blogger
Thursday, February 2, 2017
Hope Has Become a Liability Risk in Cases of Poor Prenatal Diagnoses, by Andrew T. Bodoh, Esq.
As a lawyer, I appreciate the legal quandary doctors face when they
discover an unborn child with a significant health issue. As a father who has
experienced a poor prenatal diagnosis for a child, I sympathize with both the
parents and with their children.
I am a plaintiff’s litigation attorney in Virginia. In short, I sue
people for a living on behalf of clients. In my practice, I have learned that a
person does not have to do anything wrong to be sued. After all, our society (for
better or for worse) uses lawsuits to resolve conflicts between people, and we
all know you do not have to do something wrong to find yourself in conflict
with another person.
Because you don’t have to do something wrong to be sued, doing
everything right is not always enough to save you from a lawsuit. In high-risk
situations, you have to do more. After all, we all want to avoid being sued,
even if we win in the end.
If a person really wants to avoid being sued, there are four things he
or she should do. First, avoid situations where someone can later ask “Why
didn’t you?” Second, avoid conduct where there will be big, provable damages.
Third, if there is a risk of harm, confuse the source of the harm. Fourth, get
consent for what you do.
In medicine, using these and similar methods is called “practicing
defensive medicine.” In ordinary cases, it may mean the doctor performs a test
or a procedure which carries with it an economic or emotional cost, even if
there is a disproportionately small risk that process will have a health
benefit. In this way, they can avoid a lawsuit which essentially asks the
question, “Why didn’t you?”
Unfortunately, when a doctor sees a significant problem in an unborn
child, the best means of avoiding liability is to recommend abortion.
First, the doctor has to discuss abortion with the expectant mother. In
the U.S., abortion is typically a legal medical option for the mother through much of the pregnancy where
there is a poor medical diagnosis for the child (at least up to a point), and
the mother generally has the final say on this matter. Moreover, most of the medical
profession considers abortion to be a relatively safe medical procedure for the
woman to undergo. Failing to discuss abortion raises the question “Why didn’t
you?” if a complaint is filed with the medical licensing board. In
approximately half the states, doctors can be sued for failing to recommend an
abortion.
Second, if a child is born with a serious medical condition, it is not
difficult to prove the costs of caring for the child. On the other hand, if the
child is not born, there are generally no big provable damages.
Third, if there is physical or emotional harm from the abortion, the
proximate cause of that harm is difficult to pin on the doctor recommending the
abortion. If there is harm from not having abortion, the treating physician can
be blamed.
Finally, a mother’s consent to the abortion becomes a large obstacle to
legal liability. If you consent to a legal procedure, it is much more difficult
to sue.
As a result, doctors have an incentive to recommend abortion when they
discover a serious prenatal abnormality.
So how does this play out in practice?
Building from my own experience, at the end of a long, exhausting, and
stressful day of tests, the parents are called into a small room where their
hopes for this child's future are torn down with a technical explanation of the
child’s condition, and often with a very bleak prediction of what is to come. To
say the family, and especially the expectant mother, are emotionally vulnerable
is like saying Mount Everest is a bump on the map. The word “abortion” will
probably never come up.
In my case, they actually used my daughter’s name as
they talked about terminating the
My daughter Elizabeth was diagnosed with bilateral schizencephaly when
my wife Joyce was 22 weeks pregnant. Basically, Elizabeth was missing a large
portion of her brain. We were advised that she would likely need lifelong care
in a medical institution, if she survived long enough to leave the hospital. We
were devastated, but abortion was out of the question for us. Later, my wife
and I reviewed the available medical literature. We formed our own opinion that, while the data was not favorable, it did not support the doctors’ dire prognosis.
In our journey since that day, we have met remarkable people both
inside and outside the medical profession. We met a doctor who opened his heart
about his own daughter who he lost after birth in similar circumstances.
We met the wonderful nurse who has made it her career to care for families with
a little one who will not leave the delivery room or NICU.
By the grace of God, and with the help of some wonderful medical
professionals, Elizabeth was born five weeks early. A month later, she received
a VP shunt. She has low vision, serious developmental delays, ongoing seizures -- and a smile that lights up the world.
I do not know what life will hold for Elizabeth. I know she has taught
me more about love than some people learn in a lifetime. I hope for the best.
In our society, hope can be a liability risk. As a result, vulnerable
parents are ushered into a
(Photo right - Andrew holding daughter Elizabeth, and wife Joyce holding their second daughter.)
BIO: Andrew Bodoh resides in Virginia with his wife Joyce and two daughters, where he is a
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