The Daily Mail has two articles out this week that caught my attention. The first one is by a mother, writing under the pseudonym Sara Carpenter, who chronicles the heartbreaking story of her unborn son’s diagnosis with spina bifida. She assumed she’d have the child, but then started imagining what his life would be like:
I pictured him watching from the sofa, frustrated and immobile, as his sisters turned cartwheels and somersaults in the living room. I envisaged trips to the park, where he would sit on the sidelines as other children clambered over climbing frames and kicked footballs ... I tried to shake away the image I conjured in my head of a little boy, lonely and friendless, robbed of the most basic human functions.
Notice what a clear, specific image there is of the future. These mental pictures, combined with comments like the one from her sister, who said that Ms. Carpenter should “spare us all the suffering and have a termination” led her to choose to have an abortion at 18 weeks gestation. She writes of the event:
My baby was being forced into the world long before he could survive in it, and it felt unnatural—completely at odds with my instincts as a mother. My body seemed to be doing all it could to hold onto him, and the labour went on and on.
At one point, in the grips of what felt like a panic attack, I became hysterical. Gasping for breath and screaming, I demanded that Andrew tell me why we were doing this and why it was the right thing for our son. He calmly described the kind of life we were trying to spare him from, and that we were loving parents, doing what we felt was best.
In an article listed on the site’s “Related Stories” feature, Elle Editor-in-Chief Lorraine Candy writes about her dilemma about getting sterilized upon the birth of her fourth child. In favor of having the procedure done, she argues:
We know how lucky we are, the toast has landed jam side up for us nearly four times and I don’t want to tempt fate further. I’ve already run the gauntlet of hideous nightmares and fear of Karmic retribution with this fourth pregnancy. ... I’ve cried for each of the high-profile women who’ve miscarried late in pregnancy, sensing only the tip of the iceberg of their pain and then selfishly wondering if I’d be next. I am not emotionally equipped for another nine months of living this fearfully. No, this is it. The last one. The full stop for the chapter marked ‘Pregnancy’.
On the other hand, she considers why she may not want to have the procedure done:
Last week, as I sat in that darkened room looking at a scan of my new child wriggling, the grimmest of ‘what ifs’ flashed through my mind. What if something happened to all my children, what if I lost them in an accident, what if someone took them? Where would I be then: childless and sterile? [...]
The question of sterilization brought all those illogical emotions to the fore for me. It frightened the life out of me, truth be told. It also made me question my own mortality. ... If I am beyond child rearing then I am not young. And I don’t want to think about it, not out of vanity but out of another fear: the limited time I may have left with my babies. I am half way through my average life expectancy, after all.
My heart breaks for both women, especially Ms. Carpenter. What strikes me about both of their stories is just how much fear was the driving force behind their thought processes. I have no doubt that both women love their families, their children, and have truly tried to discern what the best course of action is in these life-and-death dilemmas they have faced. It’s all the more tragic, then, that they seemed held back from even considering the realm of positive outcomes to their situations.
Just last week my children went to a birthday party at which they had so much fun that I have been assured that any of my feeble efforts at celebrations shall no longer be deemed in the same category of the awesomeness they beheld that day. And the joyful guest of honor, with whom they laughed and played and frolicked, was a child with spina bifida, who cannot walk. With Ms. Candy’s situation, there are just as many possible positive outcomes as there are negative: Maybe she would be able to avoid pregnancy through other methods until menopause, and thus avoid the trauma she admitted she’d go through if she were to be surgically sterilized. Or maybe she’d have a surprise pregnancy and the child would have a rich life and would be a tremendous blessing to her family, even if he or she had special needs. Obviously, nobody has a crystal ball one way or the other, but what’s striking is that hope simply did not seem to be part of the equation in either case.
Sadly, I think that decision-making based on fear is increasingly common as secularization sweeps through Western society. Some of the key tenets of the secular worldview are that this world is all there is, suffering is the worst evil, and each person can and should be completely in charge of his or her own destiny. If all of those things are true, then it starts to make sense to imagine the worst case scenario of suffering, and manage your entire life around avoiding it. Without a solid belief in an eternal afterlife, the redemptive nature of suffering, and the sovereignty of a loving God, it is the rare person who can engage in hope-based decision making. And unfortunately I think that women are most exposed to the temptation to let fear control their lives, since there is never more at stake than when we contemplate bringing new life into the world.
In popular culture there’s been plenty of approval of Western society’s increasingly godless worldview, but I think that we haven’t even begun to see the full ramifications of these titanic changes—the first among them being that when God leaves the picture, so does hope.
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The ramifications of our culture’s outlook on the value of each and every human life are indeed saddening. My wife is currently 20 weeks pregnant with our 6th child, and this week we received the news that our baby has Trisomy-18. The baby’s prospects are not good. Thankfully the doctors and genetics counselors that she spoke with didn’t outright mention the “termination” option, but probably only because she beat them to the punch. At this point everything is in God’s good hands. We will now learn the sex of our baby so that we can name her, and pray fervently that if it be God’s will, that the baby survives to full term so that as a family we can meet and embrace this beautiful soul. We are also dealing with the additional challenge of being a Navy family, since I am currently deployed overseas and not scheduled to return home until one month prior to the baby’s due date. But again, we put everything in the Lord’s hands.
We have to walk by faith and not by sight in this world. It is scary and getting scarier but we have to keep looking to Christ. If Mary were pregnant today out of wedlock our culture would push her towards an abortion. Can anyone imagine how much worse this world would be if Christ had never come among us, suffered, and died for us? Life has no guarantees. It is an adventure to be lived. There are lots of people who suffer in this world but for the most part they would rather have the life they have than to have never been born. Friends of mine have an adult brain injured child. The pregnancy was perfect but during delivery the doctor screwed up and she suffered the consequences. Sure they would rather of had a “perfect” child but ask them and they will tell you that her brain injury has been filled with blessings. So many people have entered and enriched their life that they never would of known otherwise. Their younger sons are grateful for the lessons they have learned from their older sister.
These stories are truly tragic. Its sad that we let fear make so many of our decisions. I find the spina bifida story particularly sad. Back when I was in college, there was a girl who was confined to a wheel chair because of spina bifida. You know what? She played ping pong and could beat more than a few of those of us who had no ‘handicap’. Also lets not forget that childhood is only part of life, and running around and climbing are only part of childhood. Even if a child can’t do those things, there are tons of other things they can.
Ms. Fulwiler, thank you for writing this. Ever since I’ve been reading what you have to say on a regular basis and doing some thinking myself, I do know what it’s like to be in the grip of fear. I’m not yet a mother, but I’m preparing for marriage. And I’ve only recently learned to pray more frequently for the strength to conquer fear as opposed to entertaining an ongoing bunch of what-if, worst-case scenarios. I’m constantly amazed at how much the Catholic worldview has so many things covered—that so many things that the secular worldview tells us will only lead to unhappiness really aren’t the end of the world.
God bless you.
“If Mary were pregnant today out of wedlock our culture would push her towards an abortion.”
Indeed, Maggie. You might even have noticed that pro-choice advocates may carry signs that say things like “if Mary had had an abortion, we wouldn’t be in this mess!” That was one of the most chilling things I’d ever read.
And indeed, we need to walk by faith as opposed to sight in an increasingly secularist culture that rarely has any patience for anything that isn’t a part of the material realm. Not only is this a lack of imagination, it’s the lack of ability or willingness to see. To have faith is to force yourself to see more broadly and deeply. I think I have a better appreciation now for what Einstein meant when he said: “imagination is more important than knowledge.”
Wow - does this hit home . I often lament the sterilization route we took after our fourth child. It was the biggest mistake I ever made.
And yes, I was afraid - love casts out fear, and I should have let love prevail.
“watching from the sofa, frustrated and immobile, as his sisters turned cartwheels and somersaults”
This seems to be to be a pleasure to watch, I have End Stage emphysema and would enjoy watching such things greatly. I watch birds fly gliding over head knowing I will never do that does not bother me. I enjoy watching and share in their pleasure.I watch squirrels scamper up trees no you and I can’t do that either but we can enjoy watching and take pleasure in Gods greatness by the wonder of these seemingly small things. It really is dependent on your attitude some people have great athletic abilities and are never satisfied. And I have little in comparison but see enormous Grace that God has given me and thank Him for more than I could ever be worthy of.
Agreed. For us, it’s cystic fibrosis. Our first born has it ; there’s a 1/4 chance with every pregnancy ; we had 5 more after him. I wish I could speak to parents with a prenatal diagnosis, as it looks worse on paper. He loves and is loved. And as converts, our Holy Catholic Faith does indeed have everything covered (as one commenter said ~ love those words!). We don’t have all the answers, but we point him to the Church’s teachings on suffering and leave it to him and Jesus (He’s 16.). Thank you again, Jen, and how DO you find the time for crafting such articles?!
Dave, I will pray for your family. Have you ever heard of perinatal hospice? It is a movement that helps to care for families going through pregnancies like your own - they help support the family through their difficult times and can do wonderful things not only to help them mourn but also to cherish what time - little or great - God might give their little ones. There aren’t a whole lot of such programs across the nation (yet) but maybe there will be one that you could contact somewhere near you. I know that you being overseas must be very difficult for your family at this time, but they will be surrounded by our prayers. Thank you for your service!
Pam - Thanks for the advice, and most especially the prayers. Even though we’ve only started down this path over the past two days, I know that it has already brought my wife closer together than we’ve even been before. While the long-distance conversations with my wife have been difficult, we are already receiving the grace we need to move forward. Finally, there was another point to my comment, and hopefully it doesn’t come across the wrong way. From where my wife and I now stand, we would gladly welcome the prospect of a baby with CF, Down’s Syndrome, or any other condition that our society would generally “terminate.” Not that we welcome our Trisomy-18 baby any less (I use the term “baby” only because we still need to confirm the baby’s gender). He or she is an absolute gift from God and has already blessed us in untold ways. In the end, the this experience has only further demonstrated to us how fragile and miraculous and valuable each and every human life is.
Hi Dave. I just wanted to be sure you didn’t get the wrong idea about what perinatal hospice is, especially since our society is indeed so minded to jump to the idea of abortion in case of a pregnancy with a child with some form of special needs. Perinatal hospice is designed to support parents throughout the entirety of their pregnancy and then to provide help after birth or if the child dies in utero. We could think of it perhaps like a crisis pregnancy center of sorts - the whole purpose is to support the family throughout the course of the pregnancy and afterwards, to help them welcome and remember their little one even if their time together is brief. It is essentially about celebrating the great dignity and value of this little life, even if it is temporally a short one.
I wish I knew of a Catholic group that did this specifically, but here’s a website that might help you to get to know this medical movement.
http://perinatalhospice.org/ The MSNBC article they link to at the bottom of the site is actually surprisingly good.
As before, my prayers are with you and your family. God does somehow bring great good out of even our most tragic circumstances, and I know He is pouring out grace and love to your family at this time.
Dave, and others, I will keep you in prayer. While having a baby with a condition that is most likely fatal is one of the most difficult experiences one could have, the graces involved are huge. Keep in mind the witness you give as you respect the baby’s life-as my Dr said to another who was chastising him for supporting woman who gave birth to babies that were not going to live long, “We all have the right to life, some of us are just here for a shorter time than others.” My last child had Dandy Walker syndrome, which is a rare non-genetic disorder. It was one of the most tumultuous, surreal periods of our life. Even through the dark times I held fast to God. To respecting life. There is more I could share, however suffice to say may God shower you with Grace and blessings, hold you in His Healing Hands and change the hearts around you with your example. (as well, I will pray for woman like those in this article-just so sad. Fear is not of God…turning to God in Trust is one of the best things we could do…).
“Some of the key tenets of the secular worldview are that this world is all there is, suffering is the worst evil, and each person can and should be completely in charge of his or her own destiny. If all of those things are true, then it starts to make sense to imagine the worst case scenario of suffering, and manage your entire life around avoiding it. Without a solid belief in an eternal afterlife, the redemptive nature of suffering, and the sovereignty of a loving God, it is the rare person who can engage in hope-based decision making.”
Then why would the believers want to see a doctor to treat a disease? God has given them the immune system to ward off the disease. If it is God’s will then they will get well on their own. Two other possibilities are the immune system fails and they fall into sepsis and dies, or maybe they have to live with disabilities caused by disease for the rest of life, but that maybe God’s will. Either way it is good for them. If they have to live with disability, that should be seen as suffering that God gave to know him; if they die, they have the pleasure of afterlife waiting for them. According to the logic give above, by taking treatment, they are thwarting God’s plans.
manualatheist, that logic only works if Christians in general and Catholics in particular thought suffering was a *good* in and of itself. We don’t. Suffering is not an object good, it is evil. Suffering only takes place when something “evil” - be it a natural evil like an illness or an ecological disaster, or an evil we inflict upon each other like abuse and murder - comes in contact with something good. So suffering is not a good.
The difference is that we do not believe that suffering is the *greatest* evil - that would be Hell. So while a Christian must undergo suffering at times, we know that taking steps to reduce suffering is not wrong if done so in a moral fashion. And we know that because God became man and suffered in man’s flesh to save us, our suffering too can be used for salvation, for ourselves and others. We can join our suffering to Christ’s own and thus is becomes redemptive. Suffering is no longer meaningless but can become meaningful, such that in times where suffering must occur, it can be born. We can carry our crosses even when they are very heavy because we know that after the cross comes redemption.
That is why we can have great hope, because there is something beyond the hardship.
So yes, some choose to forgo a reduction in suffering by seeking out medical treatment or psychological help or what have you. That’s because suffering is evil - it would be good to remove the cause of suffering in a moral fashion to return the broken state to its true form. However, when suffering cannot be removed in a moral fashion - when suffering is caused by a terminal illness, or the death of a loved one, or the tragic news of a little one who will not live what we consider a full and happy life but nonetheless can bring such happiness to the world - we find consolation in the cross and in the life that came after that cross.
Pam:
Medicine and secular worldview has only one aim. To reduce the suffering of human beings and improve their mental and physical well being so that their only life on this planet is most fruitful and productive for them. Even with regard to treating diseases, preventing diseases by screening & vaccination or abortion. But you are free to bring in your theology to support some and oppose other. I just gave my view.
There is no difference between the religious and the secular worlds with the prevalence of fear based decision making. Fear has always been a human condition so please do not scapegoat the secular world for that problem.
I could not bring myself to follow the links provided in order to read the rest of the articles.
But I’m curious: did either author mention adoption?
“It is a poverty to decide that a child must die so that you may live as you wish.” Amen, Bl.Mother Teresa. Amen.
@manuatheist1977: “Even with regard to treating diseases, preventing diseases by screening & vaccination or abortion.”
How does abortion treat or prevent a disease?
Ronald King, there is a very significant difference, actually: in a secular worldview which is more materialist and where one does not have God’s justice to rely on (and thus faith that he will put things right according to what is right) is a worldview where one feels the impending weight of what can go wrong that might go wrong on the individual and on other people. Fear of the Lord, understood in the Catholic sense, is not fearing that God will zap you out of the blue for doing something wrong, or fearing that God’s will is always in competition with yours (Catholics don’t view God’s will that way) but being in awe of him, his justice mercy, and his wondrous deeds. So fear of the Lord and fear of What Might Go Wrong are two very different things.
My cousin’s daughter was born 35 yrs ago and she had spina bifoda. What a wonderful, caring, happy person she was. Underline, HAPPY. She went to college. She lived on her own three thousand miles from her family and taught in a school for the deaf. She even married. When she died a few years ago from a brain tumor, her life was celebrated. She touched so many people. One other thing, she never, ever thought of herself as handicapped. She is so missed by everyone who loved her and our lives are much better because she was a part it.
@manuatheist1977: “Even with regard to treating diseases, preventing diseases by screening & vaccination or abortion.”
How does abortion treat or prevent a disease?
I didn’t say that abortion treat or prevent a disease. Abortion is one of the services that medicine offers among many other services. It is never forced on anyone. It is an option for those who want it. If the believers are ready to look after people with genetic defects, nobody is going to impose that on them. But being a person with secular worldview, I believe that parents have the right to take a decision on abortion. But what medicine is offering an option to the parents to safeguard their mental well being which might be lost in rearing this kid. I can understand your theology here. But that is confined to your religious worldview and all does not ascribe to it.
Dear [pseudonym Sara Carpenter]
I read the article about your unborn son’s diagnosis with spina bifida and the dilemma you are in at present. However, in the words of your imagination you focus on what you see how your son will be living. But you dont focus on the fact the God in His wisdom will help you to look after your sick son and put in your heart the love and patience and courage to look after His creature. You only rely on your ability and you forget the Divine Providence which accompanies each creature that God creates and send to this life. I know several parents who had disabled babies and I saw the amount of love and care they offered this child. I also felt and saw the amount of love that their disabled child gave his mother and father and he put in their life lot of joy and satisfaction.
The advice of your sister to about your child to save everyone the coming difficulties is an evil advice to destroy the helpless creature in your womb and make you spend all the rest of your life in agony and regret and sadness because you committed murder of a helpless baby.
When you face God after your death He will ask you to give an account of what you have done with the gift He sent you, even if it was a disabled gift. You will answer His question in the fires of hell until end of eternity.
Sara, dont kill your baby and when he is born you will feel the Divine Providence in your life.
Wsquared, I know what you are saying. In my experience I have not seen any difference in what is feared by people of faith and the secular.
My love to Allison and Dave! Wow. What a beautiful article, Jen. So hard. So true.
I have not yet had to deal with a Trisomy diagnosis, but I have had traumatic prenatal situations, and a precarious high-risk preemie situation, which was very painful——and friends with similar diagnoses and traumas. My heart is so full of love and admiration for you all, that deal with this. I DO have experience with the day to day reality of Cystic Fibrosis and the challenge of being open to life with this genetic mutation (and my advanced age now) always a “threat” and a “risk” over our heads. It is HARD not to have fear. But love conquers fear, right? Thanks be to God, another child with CF (after two), another miscarriage (after 3) and a child with Downs or other “defects” at my advanced age, is not deterring me from hoping for a 10th living child at some point!
But not easily. It is a constant battle. Love versus fear. So let us pray for one another. Constantly and unceasingly, that God give us the grace to endure, if He chooses to give us that cross, trusting us with it. God bless to all of you struggling with some sort of (reproductive) fear. And high-risk situation…..including YOU, dear brave Jen, with your vascular issues. XOXOXO
wow that makes me cry. Special needs children need an image makeover for society’s sake. We need to stop buying lies and embrace God’s gifts—there are always the most wonderful roses tied to thorns.
You know, the other day, I was praying and had an image that when we die, we will choose our judgement—where we are faced with purgatory and hell. Purgatory will be burning with flames and incredibly scary but God will be there telling us it is His Will for us and to trust Him. On the other side there will be Hell which will look like Heaven—a lie, a deception, and will seem really good but God will be there telling us what it is but we won’t want to listen and cast ourselves into it unless we recognize God and trust Him fully and want to accept His Will no matter how difficult. The image came in answer to the question why someone would want to choose Hell if God is so merciful and His plan has already redeemed us.
Don’t know if that makes any sense, but it was an aha moment for me. Suffering is so hard, but God gets us through it. And God wants to burn away the bad in a refining fire, but we just buy the lies!!!
Life is ALWAYS always always a blessing. Always. The end.
manuatheist, I’m sorry but your relativism is a huge cop-out. Abortion destroys a human life, that is a fact. You’ve done everything to imply that this is the same as a legitimate medical treatment and then inexplicably deny that you have implied it, meanwhile dodging the broader and still valid question that was put to you. And you are saying that you are okay with a reason so ambiguous as “mental well-being.” Give me a break.
Now if I might return to the topic of the OP…I don’t really understand how people (it’s often the doctors who push it, from what I hear) decide they can see into the future and have somebody else’s entire life figured out, and consequently decide it’s so bad that death looks like a better alternative. Just recently a relative sent me a video of a girl who learned to play the piano, and quite well, despite having no fingers on one hand. It’s unrealistic optimism to expect everybody to beat the odds (“your results may vary”), but there’s no reason for unrealistic pessimism either, and definitely no reason to choose death for someone else and thus completely rule out any chance of having a life.
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