If this child is truly anencephalic (and I do not know if that is actually the case here), he will not now, or ever, feel anything or have any emotions. A "smile," if it in fact occurred, means nothing. He will never think a single thought.
While I oppose late term abortions, anencephaly is one case where exceptions should be made.
Flame away.
As someone asked above, is there a soul when there is no brain/mind/thought process?
Why get an abortion? In the cold practical sense, the child's going to die anyway, so the woman's heart has to be broken (if she didn't want the baby, she'd have aborted it already). Why take the chance that God will consider it murder, or that she'll come to believe that herself? I don't have a problem letting nature take its course.
In rare cases that can be misdiagnosed as well.
I read of an account where a baby was diagnosed with this condition and it turned out to be the force of the fluid on the brain that flattened the brain enough to make it not detectable in an x-ray.
Since the baby had some function, a shunt was installed and the parents had to make sure that the fluid was draining almost continually, with only the hope of saving his life, but not of much more. As the pressure was relieved, the baby improved dramatically and started showing signs of normal development.
When the mother went back to see one of the doctors who had not followed the case after the birth, about a year later, the baby was in his stroller, popped his bottle out of his mouth and said a cheery *Hi!* to the doctor. They about had to pick him up off the floor.
In this case, I can’t help but wonder how the child survived. If the baby didn’t even have a sucking reflex, how did the baby manage to eat?