Posted on 12/13/2005 7:49:21 AM PST by Rutles4Ever
A mother who found out she had cancer after becoming pregnant sacrificed her life for her unborn baby by refusing an abortion and chemotherapy, a British newspaper reported.
Devout Catholic Bernadette Mimura, known as Milai, shunned the potentially life-saving treatment because doctors told her it would kill the child, the Northern Echo regional daily reported Friday.
The 37-year-old, a native of the Philippines who lived near Stockton-on-Tees in northeast England with her British partner, Adam Taylor, survived long enough to see the birth of their son, Nathan.
But soon after seeing him baptized, she was transferred to a hospice and died about a week later.
"Being a Catholic, for her abortion was out of the question," Mr. Taylor told the newspaper. "It was a tough decision, but the decision was we could not give up on Nathan."
The boy, now 4 months old, was premature but was born fit and healthy.
Father Alan Sheridan, who performed the baptism, told Britain's domestic Press Association news agency: "Bernadette said the most important thing was the birth of her baby and she would not do anything to harm him.
"Having an abortion was never a consideration. I know she talked it over with Adam and because she was a Catholic, there was no way she would have done it.
"She had to judge which life was more important and she just prayed there would be a cure for cancer." Father Sheridan is spearheading an appeal to raise $6,490 to repatriate Mrs. Mimura's body to the Philippines for burial. Money left over will help her other three children from a first marriage.
The priest said he hoped the Manila government would help with a grant to fly the three youngsters from Britain for the ceremony.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
"Partner" is the new "Ms"--a word used to not convey the marital status (or the gender/sexuality) of the people designated. It's another step that started with the stripping of people's ethnicities in news reports. We may not like it, but it's the code that news is being written in, and if we are to understand the news we need to learn the code.
Good deeds without repentance are not meritorious. We don't "buy" our way into heaven by being good.
When was this? Back in the 1800's when Craniotomy was all the rage in medical treatment for hopeless pregnancies? You know, what we now call partial-birth abortion?
Nobody said that what else she does is immaterial, and I didn't see anyone here say that she HAS to die. And nobody said she has no worth outside of being "an incubator." You're taking things out of context and exaggerating. Most of the people here agree that it is NOT morally wrong to treat the mother, even if it will have the unfortunate side effect of hurting the baby. Nobody would force that decision on a woman and very few people would blame her. So I don't know where you are getting this "she is on an incubator and nobody cares if she dies" bs. Sounds like something NOW would say to misrepresent what we are trying to say.
This woman gave her life to save her baby's life.
She is not Hitler.
But since you brought up WWII, what do you think about discrediting heroic veterans from that war? Some of them commited "fornication" while in Europe. Some of them hired prostitutes. Some cheated on their wives. Some lusted after women they saw in magazines or on pin-up posters.
Shall we condem them too?
The woman is gone now. Let's celebrate the good she did and leave the judgement to God.
Yes, it's confusing for non-Catholics.
The words "first marriage" were used, without the word "widow". And the father here was clearly not husband #1.
It didn't take long to google this topic and discover she is a divorcee.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/thehealthnews.html?in_article_id=371201&in_page_id=1797&in_a_source=
"It will cost £3,700 to transport Bernadette's body, and any money left over will go to helping her three other children, Nanam, 11, Mika, seven, and five-year-old Miko, whose Japanese father was divorced from Bernadette."
"For I hate divorce," says the LORD, the God of Israel, "and him who covers his garment with wrong," says the LORD of hosts. "So take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously." (Malachi 2.16)
No, its shameful the American Press can get away with calling someone who is shacking up and having kids with a man who is not their husband a "devout" Catholic, simply because they refused to murder their own child!
Neither life is "more important". Its just always wrong to directly kill someone, while it is acceptable at times to allow circumstances to result in the end of your own life by natural causes in favor of another's life.
I agree with it 100%, and have brought it up here on FR many times. These "men" were a total disgrace to our country in the way they behaved personally, overseas. No self-control, filled with lust and evil, using bribery, force, and deceit to have their way with any poor woman they came across and fancied. They brought a whole new meaning to the innocent phrase: "Spazierengehen fraulein?" for countless young German women who found themselves violated at gunpoint after the war.
Shall we condem them too?
Yes. The Nazi's at least shot the rapists in their Army. Can't say that for the Americans, and certainly not for our illustrious "allies" the Soviets.
What business did our Army have handing out millions of condoms per month to our fighting men? What about the Army's mass circumcision campaign to supposedly promote cleanliness from Venereal Disease? What sort of message is being conveyed?
How is it that fighting for our country suddenly excuses a total lack of and loss of moral character? How man innocent American girls back home were infected with incurable diseases by their husbands who returned from 4 years of being "overpaid, oversexed, and over here"?
If you rip all the pages out of your Bible that were written by someone who committed adultery, forinication or lust, you would have a pretty thin book.
If your church kicked out everyone who committed one of the above acts, you might be the only one there on Sunday.
Well, as was pointed out up the thread, this was the British press, and there's a possibility that they use "partner" for every couple, married or not.
The American press lets people like John Kerry and Rudy Giuliana call themselves "Catholics," just because they were altar servers in elementary school :-).
You might try googling some more and find out if the woman obtained an annulment within the Catholic church. The first husband may have been an adulterer, etc.
But that wasn't actually my point. I was talking about the article and what was in the article, not what could be ferreted out by googling. My point was that it was many people's natural inclination to jump to conclusions that put the woman in the worst possible light, in spite of lack of evidence to support it (within the article).
We have become such a pessimissitic society.
Totally irrelevant, but I applaud the author of that quote for writing "whose father" instead of "who's father." A small thing, but so rare these days ...
Where do you get that she committed suicide?
She chose a treatment plan (limited chemo treatments during pregnancy, followed by early delivery of the baby, followed by more aggressive cancer treatments afterward) which she hoped would save both herself and her baby. It didn't work, unfortunately.
This is not suicide. This is a medical protocol which was unsuccessful. Medical protocols are never a sure thing. Don't you understand that?
Bizarre. You've probed this woman's heart and judged her unrepentant?
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