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Posted on 10/17/2008 9:39:59 AM PDT by truthandlife
Five years after a doctor aborted his son, who had been pre-natally diagnosed with Down syndrome, a grieving father, who asked to remain anonymous, spoke with CNSNews.com about the decision to end his child’s life and the aftermath of that decision.
The man and his wife, who was in her early forties when she became pregnant, already had a healthy daughter. For that first pregnancy, the couple did not have pre-natal screenings or testing. But after what “Joe” said was his wife having “an intuitive sense that something was wrong” with her second pregnancy, the couple agreed she would be tested.
A blood screen showed there was an increased risk that the child she was carrying had Down syndrome. The results of a subsequent amniocentesis confirmed that the unborn child had the genetic disorder caused by an extra chromosome that typically results in the child having some degree of mental retardation and certain distinct physical characteristics, including upslanting eyes and low muscle tone.
"Joe" agreed to speak with CNSNews.com about his and his wife's decision to have a doctor abort the life of their son and his experience in the wake of that decision.
CNSNews.com: “Did you and your wife agree on having an abortion?”
Joe: “Well, her case was pretty convincing. She felt that something was wrong, in addition with the child other than just Down’s.”
CNSNews.com: “Did you have proof of that?”
Joe: “No, no. Plus, the fact that we were older. We’re sure that our life expectancy isn’t going to be well into our 80s or anything considering our family background, and it would have been basically our daughter looking after him, making sure he was okay.”
CNSNews.com: “You knew it was a boy? Did that make the decision more difficult?”
Joe: “Any child would make it more difficult. You have to understand this. We spent three weeks from the time we found out the diagnosis and we researched both sides of the issue. What support was there for a child with Down’s? What degree of debilitation they may have? Because it is a throw of the dice.”
CNSNews.com: “But you didn’t know if he would be high functioning.”
Joe: “There’s really no way of knowing if he could be very high functioning. There’s no way you could determine that, based on the diagnosis we had.”
CNSNews.com: “Do you have regrets about this decision?”
Joe: “I always do. I mean, hell, I’ll cup a moth and let it outside without killing it. Don’t you think I would have afforded my son better?”
CNSNews.com: “It sounds like you do regret it.”
Joe: “Perhaps. But at the time it seemed like the right thing to do. We went to counseling before we went through with this thing. We were lucky in that we were well set up to get answers. And the counselor said that whatever you decide, either way, this could be very destructive for a couple if they kept the child and if they did not.
“You know what is the sickest part of all? He was about 20 weeks along. We went through the whole child-birth process after the fact. And when he was born, if you wish to call it that, the doctor that delivered him said there were no visible signs of Down’s. Tell me that wasn’t a knife through the heart.”
CNSNews.com: “What if your daughter came to you 20 years from now and said, this is what I found out (that my unborn child has Down syndrome), what should I do?”
Joe: “Like I’d tell anybody. Just make sure you can live with your decision because it’s irrevocable.”
CNSNews.com: Are you living with your decision?
Joe: “Every day. I’ve only told two of my friends about it and you don’t get that Christian backlash that you are vile, you are an agent of murder. Perhaps I do think that. But they said, ‘Oh no, I wouldn’t bring a child like that into the world.’
“You know what the strange thing is, it just made me pause when I thought about it, that less children are being born with Down’s--of course they are not because the parents are not carrying them to term.
“Believe me, if you would have approached me even before we found out, I would have said, ‘No way. No way. A woman has a right to choose.’ But both parties have to live with the decision.”
CNSNews.com: “It doesn’t sound like you were okay with that decision.”
Joe: “I’ve gone through four years of counseling so far. (My wife) has gone to a support group. I think she’s come a long way with it. But I think she’s surprised that I haven’t come as far as she has. Of course, she has regrets. Things are very sad in her life that she can’t say she’s had two children.”
Joe wasn’t asked another question, but he offered one final comment.
Joe: “I think the bottom line is you have to be able to function and live as you did beforehand with the decision you made. In fact, I’m not fully out of it yet and it’s been five years. It’s almost like a Jacob Marley-esque thing that I will drag around with me forever. If I could find some means of redemption I’d like to know how I could go about doing that.”
The story claims this happened only 5 years ago, and the technology to confirm Downs with 100% certainty had been readily available for quite a number of years. The fuzzy "feeling" the alleged father claims his wife had, that "that something was wrong, in addition with the child other than just Down’s", tells me that believing the baby had Downs (despite not bothering to confirm this medically) wasn't the real reason this couple chose to abort. They didn't care whether it had Downs or not, because the mother had already decided, for whatever reason, that she didn't really want the baby anyway.
The Gosslins are on the cover....they have twins and sextuplets...
When she found out she was carrying 6, she was in shock, and her husband crumbled to his knees in the doctor's office, the news was so daunting.
But when the doctor said...'Come to my office and we'll talk selective reduction'....
..TO HER CREDIT, she gripped the edge of the table and pulled herself up...
..and said...NO, WE WILL NEVER HAVE THAT CONVERSATION!!!!!
God bless her...she has 8 healthy children.
I think this is a reasonable analysis. The possibility of a Down Syndrome diagnosis was used as a pretext to justify the fuzzy feeling that something was wrong.
I had a prenatal ultrasound that showed my daughter’s head was four weeks beyond the growth of her body. They were convinced that my diabetes was causing some sort of abnormal growth and suggested *gasp* partial birth abortion.
I told them they were out of their mind. I was scheduled for a c-section anyway, so birthing a large head wasn’t an issue. We were already 35 weeks along and I didn’t intend on killing my baby on a ‘possibility’.
So, had her and she is BEAUTIFUL, although she does have a large head. Not freakish large, but since he body is small, I have to cut slits on her shirt necks. Turns out she is a dwarf. A dwarf. Not a waterhead baby as suggested, but a normal human being who is small. I can buy foot extenders for her car pedals. I have applied for special chairs in class with wheels to be able to pull herself forward for the larger desk. Stools at the sinks in the bathrooms and water fountain. She is a gifted math student and very well liked amongst her peers. Her problem is a pituitary issue that usually starts out with a larger than usual head. Same as over growth hormone show different parts of the body to grow faster than others. We worked physical therapy to encourage the muscle development to hold up her head as an infant. As much as a math whiz she is, she will be in advanced classes next year in third grade. What a shame to have that marvelous brain sucked out by psychopaths who call themselves abortion “doctors”.
Doctors make me sick most of the time. At least mine had the decency to tell me he was sorry and would adjust his advice to future patients accordingly.
Pray to Jesus forgiveness and follow him. He will forgive you for even this. That’s how you will ‘heal’ and fill the void in your heart.
So much for hate the sin, love the sinner, eh?
My OB/GYN doesn’t do “voluntary” abortions. When I was pregnant he asked if I wanted the screening tests for birth defects done. I declined since the results wouldn’t have changed anything, and he didn’t say another word about it.
“You know what is the sickest part of all? He was about 20 weeks along. We went through the whole child-birth process after the fact. And when he was born, if you wish to call it that, the doctor that delivered him said there were no visible signs of Down’s.”
There have been several stories posted here I have read of people being told their child had Down’s and they haven’t aborted it and the child didn’t have it. Conversely there have also been cases where they have, and they find out the child doesn’t have Down’s (like this couples).
I believe there have been problems with false positives with these tests.
The problem is that doctors don’t know everything yet try to always appear confident as to not cause the patient to be concerned about their abilities. They have a lot to learn in their profession. I also probably think there’s a legal/liability issue in the back of their heads all the time too.
Wow! Her quiver sure is full! God Bless Her for telling him NO!! SELECTIVE REDUCTION? What is that, a new method of birth control!? God help us!
She’s lucky, but it’s a good idea to “have that conversation” (preferably with more than one specialist, to get different opinions) when dealing with a multiple pregnancy as high as 6. Lots of factors, including the mother’s size and other health issues, influence the outlook for high order multiples. For some women, e.g. w/small pelvis, diabetes, and high blood pressure, the chance of getting ANY surviving babies is higher with selective reduction than with trying to carry 6 to term.
Chorionicity and amnionicity (how many placentas and amnionic sacs are shared) is also a huge factor. It’s never a question of just deciding whether or not to randomly pick X number of fetuses to terminate. The specifics of the placentation and amnionic sacs, and the presence of any interfetal transfusion syndrome between fetuses sharing a placenta, dictates what the options are. If a woman has fetuses sharing a placenta and suffering significant twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, one of those fetuses is already doomed, and deciding to allow it to continue developing until it dies, leaving a very large dead fetus in there with the others (and connected to the circulatory system of one of the others) is pretty much a decision to kill all the others who were not doomed from the start. Sometimes reduction really is the “pro-life” option.
The false positives are from preliminary tests — maternal blood tests and ultrasound — and at least in this country no doctor is going to suggest proceeding with an abortion on the basis of those alone. They can only indicate the probability of Downs, not confirm Downs. If a woman gets a high probability of Downs from the the preliminary tests, she would be advised that amniocentesis is needed to confirm if the fetus actually has Downs. If she declines the amniocentesis, on the grounds that she would try to carry the baby to term regardless of the amniocentesis results, then she has not been told that she is carrying a Downs fetus and should consider abortion.
Virtually all these claims that “my doctor said I should consider aborting because the baby had Downs, but I didn’t, and the baby turned out to be perfectly normal” are false, because they skip over the huge detail that no doctor ever actually suggested proceeding with an abortion, but rather suggested amniocentesis and noted that IF amniocentesis confirmed Downs, THEN the woman might want to consider an abortion. Of course, some of the claims date back a few decades, to when there was no way of definitively confirming Downs, and even gauging probability was much less accurate. No doubt there were cases back then where a doctor suspected Downs and recommended abortion (perhaps after consideration of some other factors as well), and the baby turned out not to have Downs at all.
How in any possible way, shape or form can you possible claim to know for a fact these claims are false? Have you personally interviewed and researched each and every one of these claims? Do you honestly believe there aren't jerk OB/GYNS who would rather take the expedient way out than deal with a potential lawsuit after the birth of a Down Syndrome child? Not to mention the potential lawsuit associated with the risk of CVS? You do know there are risks to the unborn with amnio, don't you?
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A doctor told my friend that her child would be a MONSTER because he hadn’t heard any heartbeat for a while and to abort the baby.....she didn’t and the child was PERFECT!!
Thanks, I have heard similar stories from others here as well.
Expedient??? If a doctor advises a patient to abort on the basis of a suspicion of Downs that has not been genetically confirmed, and the fetus then turns out not to have had Downs (which is VERY easily confirmed post-abortion), that doctor will be sued, the doctor’s insurer won’t even bother going to court and will settle out of court for a huge sum, and the doctor will never be able to get malpractice insurance again, and will thus never be able to practice medicine in the US again.
Even if an obstetrician’s main goal in life is to terminate as many Downs fetuses as possible (an implausible assumption, but to hear some of the rantings on FR, obviously some people really believe there are doctors like this), he’ll have a lot more opportunity to do this with a medical license, doing post-amniocentesis abortions, than after he’s lost his license (at least for a time) and lost his insurability and thus ability to practice medicine legally (and that would be permanent).
That's why I always urge pro-lifers never to argue with someone who's had an abortion. It's impossible to debate logically with a guilty conscience.
Why spread idiotic and obviously false stories like that? If a doctor is claiming that a fetus has no heartbeat, then he’s saying it’s already DEAD, not that it will “be a MONSTER”.
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