The Catholic Church may well be the strongest advocates of the pro-life movement in the world, but a Canadian woman says doctors at a Catholic hospital pressured her to abort her baby.
On the face of it, the charges sound outrageous, even to someone who is pro-choice, but like most of these stories there's always a back story.
What mother Nikki Cooke refers to as a "eugenic abortion," was actually a suggested early induction of a baby carrying Trisomy 18, a a chromosomal defect that claims ninety percent of children by their first birthday. Many don't survive to even be born, which happened to the Cookes - the baby's heart stopped beating a week before Nikki was due to give birth.
The doctors had explained the slim chance that the Cookes' baby would be born alive and that there was nothing they can do. At one point, Cooke says she was told to terminate. One paragraph later, she's quoted saying they were "pressured to have an early induction." Which is it? Because inducing labor on a baby is not the same as an abortion. My daughter was induced, and she's very much alive.
Here's where some of the Cookes' claims could hold weight: Nikki says she was told IF her baby was born alive, the hospital would not resuscitate the baby. If that's true, the doctors in this case may have been legally protected, but ethically, that's absurd. How does a doctor allow a living, breathing child to go into respiratory failure and refuse to respond? Even if the child has a chromosomal difference, it's their obligation to make every attempt to keep that child breathing and the heart beating; at least until it is clear that there is simply no hope.
With Trisomy 18, there is little hope, it's true. But once a child is alive, that ten percent chance of survival is nothing to sneeze at.
The hospital, by the way, denies they would not treat a living baby. From the National Post:
"What is key for them is that labour is not induced until at least 23
weeks, when the fetus has reached viability, so if the baby is born
alive everything possible could be done to save it. And if the
diagnosis was wrong, the child would still have a chance."
It's also important to get back to the initial findings by the doctors - they didn't see the Cookes' baby surviving. They didn't see this baby being born alive, and they were advising a mother that it would be better to get her pregnancy over with sooner rather than continuing to carry around a baby who would not survive. Essentially, there was no hope. It comes to a point, the priest in the National Post article points out, where the safety and health (including emotional) of the mother has to come first.
According to the hospital guidelines in this case: "Medical treatment is permitted to prevent or cure a grave illness in a
pregnant woman that cannot be deferred until the unborn child is viable
even though the pregnancy may be endangered ... even though they will
result in the foreseen but unintended death of the unborn child."
What's disturbing are the attempts by the pro-life movement to use this story as evidence that a mother is being wronged by a doctor making the determination that a fetus is not viable. It's sad for parents when this happens, but faith can't trump science. Sometimes, babies just won't make it. And it's important for parents to face that - as painful as it might be.
These are the same arguments used against women who opt for a D&C after a miscarriage, when the heart has stopped beating, and they are walking around with a non-viable fetus inside of them. They're branded murderers by some in the pro-life movement for what is, essentially, an abortive procedure - even though there is nothing there, there is no life in that tiny body.
You can't kill someone who isn't alive. You also can't call an inducement an abortion simply because the baby will not survive its chromosomal defects.
What do you think? Do you think the hospital was wrong here, or is this blown out of proportion?
Image: National Post
Related Posts:
