The blogosphere is abuzz about a CNN story that details a surrogate mother's decision to not abort her child despite the baby's biological parents offering her $10,000 to do so after ultrasounds showed that the baby had major issues including a heart defect and a cleft palate.
While many have strong feelings on this issue, looking at the comments left on the woman's site from "pro-choicers" is an absolute horror. These comments were placed on the woman's personal blog just today. I present to you the defenders of "choice":
How unfortunate for everyone that you decided to bring a child into the world that was not yours, either legally or ethically, and has little chance to survive to adulthood except through numerous surgeries and much pain. Selfish, that's what you are.
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You must have gone through an unimaginably difficult time with fluctuations in your resolve to keep this child or proceed with the abortion, as the CNN article describes. The reason why I believe you made a poor emotional choice (almost cruel) is because this child is now condemned to very difficult life, full of hospital admissions, surgeries, pain and suffering. It is tragic that this child will not even be able to communicate her needs, her pain to caretakers due to cognitive problems.Since you also didn't have the financial means to pay for the C.S. Mott hospital bill yourself, you gave yourself the liberty to decide for the rest of the state of Michigan and the federal government to pay for the medical care (easily on the order of millions of dollars). This kind of behavior is every "mama bear" like indeed and I regret to say that your intelligence and critical reasoning isn't too far from that either.
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I'm a graduating medical student very familiar with the pediatric cardiology service. I don't know what medical condition your girlfriend's son has; pediatric congenital disease is a wide spectrum, ranging from simple cardiac anomalies to life-threatening ones requiring serial surgeries throughout life (and with often unknown long term prognosis in the later decades of life, since many of these surgeries have been pioneered in recent history). I can tell you, however, (and I guess you'll have to take my word on this unless you're a physician), that holoprosencephaly is devastating condition and this baby's multiple problems spell out a life of tremendous struggle and suffering in one of the most hostile places in the world: the hospital. I'm so happy your girlfriends son has overcome his challenges. Also, as a Michigan tax payer and resident, I disagree with this mother's decision, but unfortunately I am paying for it without a choice. And so are you.
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I read your article in CNN. As a scientist, I considered both sides of the story and refrained from making judgement until the end after all facts had been presented. Throughout the article, I admired your courage to fight for the baby's life and I thought "wow, this woman is so selfless to want to keep and raise such a baby that's not even hers, knowing how much it would cost to her own quality of life."Then I read the line where you decided you wouldn't raise it - and my opinion of you instantly turned 180 degrees. Sadly, I must tell you are incredibly selfish, heartless, stupid, and above all, a hypocrite. You fought tooth and nail to make a point, to stand up for something you believed in (or wanted the world to believe you believed in), only to talk the talk without walking the walk at the end.
Basically, you claimed that you wanted to save this poor baby that everyone else had given up hope on and abandonned, yet, what did you do in the end? You just dumped it on someone else. Why? Because you know you don't have the money nor ability to care for it. Because you DON"T WANT care for it. You just want to be the hero on newspapers who fought to save a baby but want none of the consequences.
What does that make you? Uttterly selfish, cruel, stupid, and hypocritical. Heroes own up to their actions. You're not a hero.
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You are a monstrously evil, self serving extortionist piece of trailer park trash. I hope you give your children up for adoption, because God knows they could find a better mother anywhere. There's a nice couple in Connecticut who'd love to have them, but they'd have to offer you the right price, right?...
Your choice was based on some pretty weird morality. You apparently think that condemning someone to a life of suffering is preferable to ending it early before a sense of consciousness even develops.
You also very conveniently washed your hands of this mess by letting someone else deal with it. Basically, you were too scared to go through with the abortion because of some religious brainwashing and you were a coward yet again once you realized you couldn't care for the baby. All this to "save" her "immortal" soul.
Pathetic.
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I will only call you brave if you are there to watch every one of Baby S's terrible surgeries. If you are there to watch doctors chop and restitch her tiny little body like a piece of meat, again and again. If you are there to wipe the drool and piss and feces from her body, even after she's old enough to be able to do it herself. If you are there to watch her final death agony, life squelched from her lungs by her crippling deformities. You DON'T get to take the high ground, until you do. You don't get to spend a mountain of money that isn't yours, bring a doomed child into the world, walk away with your hands clean, and call it all an act of love until you have seen first hand the consequences of your actions....
I do have a personal investment in this story. I pay taxes, and the federal government is financing, via medicaid, the baby's fruitless surgeries. What a ludicrous, ignoble waste of resources. Yes, human lives have a price. And the price of prolonging this baby's inevitable demise is dozens of other children that COULD be helped, but weren't. Have you ever seen the slums of the third world? Have you seen the heart wrenching, grinding poverty of New Delhi? There are legions of children that are in otherwise perfect health who die of simple things like malnutrition. To see immense resources spent on a hopeless case while a hundred lives could otherwise be saved with that same energy and resources drives me mad. Those are real lives that could be saved. Lives that have a fighting chance.
This is hardly all of them. I read them until I felt sick. There's more hatred. But if you needed any evidence that pro-choicers aren't actually pro-choice at all but pro-abortion I think this is sufficient evidence.
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I couldn’t even read all the comments you posted. They are disgusting and so full of hate. This is what happens when we “play God.”
And I’ll bet that last commenter is doing all he can to help the poor children in third world slums….
It is disingenuous to suggest that anonymous comments to a blog are representative of advocates for choice. Indeed, reproductive choice is about not substituting the judgment of others for the judgment of a pregnant woman.
In this case, the woman has made a choice not to abort a child with severe medical problems. I respect her choice.
On the whole, those of us who argue in favor of reproductive choice are NOT advocates of abortion. Far from it.
It is disingenuous to suggest that anonymous comments to a blog are representative of advocates for choice.
Why?
Anonymous comments in general can be loathsome.But in reading comment boxes for US & European newsites,there is definite support for eugenics evident.With any healthcare rationing, it will only increase.
“What a ludicrous, ignoble waste of resources.”
I would not want to be standing before the Lord @ the hour of my death defending that statement.
http://salesianity.blogspot.com/2013/03/the-blind-monk-who-sees.html
tHE pro=choicers, in short, WANTS TO BE GOD WITHOUT GOD.
With any healthcare rationing, it will only increase.
Count on it. Bending the cost-curve will eventually lead to the ending of lives at all ages. Our impending national bankruptcy will ensure it.
And you can expect that the voices baying for abortion will only get louder and less anonymous as time marches on. Buckle up—interesting times ahead.
This is an interesting dilemma. It was the parent’s faulty genes that allowed this baby to be conceived. The surrogate has constitutional protections that prevent anyone from forcing a medical procedure on her against her will, including abortion. By her decision to carry the child to term, she creates a new dilemma that may illuminate the whole surrogacy issue: If a surrogate chooses not to abort, and the child born has health issues, can the state sue the genetic parents for the care of the child? Can the surrogate sue the genetic parents for failure to perform in the contract (remember: The genetic parents contracted for her to carry the child and they would raise the baby.) Why would they be absolved from their contractual duty? They entered into the contract willingly.
This gets to the heart of the issue: Are babies conceived and carried to term by a surrogate considered property? Even after they are born? Or are they what they should be? A responsibility and a gift to the parents?
This whole issue does what many heresies of the past do: They clarify the unseen or misunderstood issues. In this child’s case, I pray the child is seen as the gift it is. Human beings do not come with guarantees or warranties. The day we see them as such, we might as well let North Korea blow up the world, because we will be better off in the long run.
The unexamined life is not worth living, but the same cannot be said for the unappreciated life. They are usually VERY worth living!
This is a moment for prayer. Let us pray for the child, the mother, the prospective parents, and especially for the commenters who write such sad words. Pray!
The comments shown above are similar to many of the comments to the referenced article as it appears on the CNN website. No, one can’t claim that they are representative of all who call themselves pro-choice, but the view that one should abort a child who is thought likely to be born with a serious mental or physical defect seems to be pretty common. Stories about someone struggling with the decision whether to carry such a child to term or to abort appear on various popular websites from time to time, and for any of them which I have looked at, the majority of comments are in favor of abortion. In many cases they argue that abortion is the only moral choice. It is a sign of the degree to which Utilitarian ethics have infiltrated our culture.
A veritable litany of horror. Put together, none of these commentators appear to be worth as much as a single hair on the head of this beautiful baby. Of course, everyone contains the undistorted image of God within themselves, its just these folk are getting pretty good at hiding it.
Diabolical. Such contempt for the child’s dignity and life - this is a function of dehumanising children and commodifying them via IVF, surrogacy, etc. I pray the little one’s adoptive parents are protecting their beautiful child from this evil. Thank God the surrogate mother resisted the evil intimidation to allow the baby to be killed. She showed herself more of a mother tithe child than the woman whose ovum lead to the baby’s conception. I pray she now understands that surrogacy is intrinsically evil - an abuse of the child and the adults involved. Thank you Lord for this special child of God.
I couldn’t force myself to keep reading after about the 3rd comment. Sick.
I have to agree with David Cary Hart, above; at least, I agree that the comments are not representative of “pro-choice advocates,” per se. They represent the schizoid beliefs that *most* people who have unexamined moral values hold. They also reflect, as pointed out by others, the resurgence of the eugenics mentality, coupled with the triumph of the pragmatism of our age in which health care is talked about as a finite commodity. Throw in the whole “better dead than disabled” prejudice, and the medium of the internet, and there you go.
I applaud this woman’s decision not to terminate her pregnancy because of the child’s handicaps. All life is precious, especially for little ones that suffer. The abortion industry costs taxpayers $50 MM a year. Those public monies should be re-allocated away from abortions to supporting life. The prochoice opinion is evil. However, there is one elephant in the room that no one so far has mentioned. What about the evils of surrogacy itself? This mother can’t undo her actions, but a lesson should be learned here. Holy Mother church condemns surrogate motherhood for a good reason. It removes conception from a loving conjugal act between and husband and wife, and turns it into a business transaction between strangers…akin to prostitution. I hope this situation will cause others to re-think surrogacy as a legitimate occupation.
As Charles Dickens once said regarding one who though he had the ability do choose whose life was “worthwhile”:
“Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man’s child. Oh God. to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust.”
These comments make me deeply depise my culture, a culture that can produce these monsters. By the way, the egg that produced this poor child isn’t even the legal mother’s egg. It was bought from yet a third person who got what they wanted from this sick business deal.
Note that the “original mother” (the woman of the couple who have the other kids, this shouldn’t be that hard to describe) also planned to give the child up for adoption. NOBODY wants this child, who may have some surgeries, may be challenged, and may become a saint, or an ordinary sinner, who knows? Only God knows.
So sad, so sick, and written to be so carefully neutral and non-judgmental.
I don’t like to use the word “challenged” even. Insulated, blessed, certainly. Imbued with holiness and cherubimic. An everlasting sign of God’s love for mankind. We should be jumping for joy that God should deign to heal this wretched land by their very presence. This is how evil is overcome.
I think my favorite comment is this: “Your choice was based on some pretty weird morality. You apparently think that condemning someone to a life of suffering is preferable to ending it early”.
Apparently, refusing to kill people who might need help is “weird morality”. FYI, my sister in-law had a heart condition when she was a child, but she’s now a perfectly healthy woman. And having a cleft palate is a reason to kill people? I’m outraged! “Pro-choicers” are nothing but murderers.
Well said Hat Lady!
I’m confused. Setting aside her ultimate choice, why would this surrogate sign an agreement that included the possibility of abortion? She claims that she sees abortion is immoral—what, then, could spur her signature to a document that lists abortion as an option? According to the CNN article, it seems the answer is money. How devastatingly sad to see one’s uterus as a money-making vehicle. Of course, this case also demonstrates the problems with IVF, which created this embryo and opened the floodgates for possibilities in its “usage.” And people wonder why the Church declares IVF immoral…
This mothers medical issues regarding her child should have been kept private. As a person who has studied behavior modification, one of the worst things you can do is bring attention to it all.
Dh and I had the same thoughts as Grace. The whole situation would be absurd if not for the human life hanging in the balance. The real heroes in this story are the adoptive family. If you read the story you notice that they brought the surrogate mother (along with her 2 children) to Michigan and helped her out, and then said yes when she asked them to adopt the baby. That is what pro-life is!
Maria T. makes a great point. The root of all heresy is the cooling down of love. Heresy is the precursor to unforgivable blasphemy. We need to watch this closely.
Choice!... as long as it always ends up with a dead innocent human being.
Cleft palate can be fixed by surgery—I thought of the Smile Train ads. I too applaud the woman for carrying the baby full term and be willing to raise the child.
Those comments are typical of athiests and liberals. I try to only read websites I agree with because comments from secular websites are so hateful. I know that conservative, secular articles can also have some mean comments but most of them are done with humor (at least the ones I’ve read).
Thank you for alerting us to this story. I went back to read it and watch it. I was very impressed by Ms. Kelley’s ultimate decisions to save the baby’s life. I am praying for her, the bio parents, and this lovely little girl. I love to see God’s mercy in action.
Someone calling a mother who does NOT want to abort her child selfish??? Hello? Abortion, the MURDER of an innocent baby, is the MOST SELFISH ACT in the history of mankind. God bless the mother for not aborting her child and God bless her baby.
fast and pray. I see comments like these all the time and they scare me, actually scare me.
What I don’t see in the article or the commentary is how late in the gestational period the abortion would have taken place. Not that it makes any difference to those of us who are pro-life, but so-called pro choicers are often not aware of the trauma to a mother who experiences a second trimester abortion. In some cases it involved induced labor, so it amounts to the emotional trauma of a still birth. What at awful thing! I know many pro-choice people who deliberately keep themselves ignorant of these procedures so as not to face the realities. God help them.
In Orthodox iconography, Mary’s womb is depicted as a universe within a universe (as a “mandorla”, often three concentric circles of graded blue, the symbol of heaven and the divine glory). In truth, the womb of the Mother of God is “more spacious and wider than the heavens, for whereas the great expanse of the heavens cannot circumscribe the Lord; He is now circumscribed by the Virgin’s womb” (Christopher Klitou, Discovering the Icon).
It is a violation of her contract, cruel and entirely driven by religious scrupulosity. Pro-lifers can make all their self-righteous arguments and defend the Catholic Church’s stand. But it is wrong at so many levels not to end this pregnancy.
Bill,
The pregnancy’s already ended.The mother had her baby.I saw a photo of the little girl on CNN.You can read the story about her there.
Oh. Thanks. I hope the parents step up to the plate and raise her. It is after all their child.
Bill,
If I remember correctly, another adoptive family came forward.
“Kelley was tempted but felt she should be compensated more to do something that went against her religious values. Kelley told CNN that in a weak moment she let the surrogacy agency know that she’d terminate the pregnancy for $15,000.”
A weak moment, my eye. Well, as the article says, both parties behaved badly, and the hero is the one who adopted her.
Bill,
I don’t think anyone in the story shines as much as the adoptive parents.
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