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STANEK: When Baby Has No
Brain
Tuesday, September 21, 2004
By Jill Stanek
(Jill@...)
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Jill Stanek writes today,
"...I shouldn't have to remind so-called Christian hospital
administrators, ethicists, and theologians that they are called to protect, not
destroy, the most vulnerable and sickest among us. They are called to help
parents bear the unbearable loss of a child, not trigger it."
OPINION - I remember sitting
in the office of the vice president of nursing at the hospital where I worked.
She and I began discussing the hospital's induced labor abortion practice,
which I had recently discovered.
I thought I had an ally.
This woman professed to be a born-again Christian. She said she felt called to
her leadership position to be a good example to those around her. She talked
about distributing Christian books to colleagues. She said she felt good to
have been asked to give the dinner prayer at our staff Christmas party.
But then she surprised me,
the first of many Christians to surprise me by their support, and sometimes
participation in, abortion. She became defensive about the hospital's abortions
practices, particularly in regard to anencephalic babies, because "they
have no brains; they're not human."
She was not quite right that
these babies have no brains, but almost. Their handicaps are profound and
terminal. Specifically, according to the National Institutes of Health <http://www.anencephaly.net/anencephaly.html>
:
Infants with this
disorder are born without both a forebrain (the front part of the brain) and a
cerebrum (the thinking and coordinating area of the brain). The remaining brain
tissue is often exposed--not covered by bone or skin.
The infant is usually
blind, deaf, unconscious, and unable to feel pain.
Although some
individuals with anencephaly may be born with a rudimentary brain stem, the
lack of a functioning cerebrum permanently rules out the possibility of ever
gaining consciousness. [R]esponses to sound or touch may occur.
The prognosis for
individuals with anencephaly is extremely poor. If the infant is not stillborn,
then he or she will usually die within a few hours or days after birth.
But my VP boss was wrong
that these babies are not human. It is scientifically impossible for the
created offspring of a man and woman to be anything other than human.
That being so, whether we
understand it or not, the Bible says even little anencephalic babies are
created in the image of God.
Yet, somehow, they have
become the poster children of aborting hospitals and their defenders.
Last week I discussed that
the Loyola and Providence Catholic hospital systems commit the induced labor
abortion procedure.
I'm told Loyola thinks I
painted an inaccurate portrait of its "early induction" abortion
practice because I did not mention it commits the procedure "only... if
the fetus has anencephaly or Potter's disease (underdevelopment of the brain
and kidneys, respectively)," according to its position statement.
There, I hope Loyola feels
better.
Now I'd like to know how any
Christian hospital could possibly say out loud that a child's health affliction
is bad enough to justify ending his or her life.
When I take into
consideration a Bible that says the first shall be last, the last shall be
first, and the foolish shall confound the wise, added to the fact that I know
quite a few adults without brains, I quake at the audacity of humans to take
decisions out of God's hands.
Who do we think we are to
tell God He's too slow?
I shouldn't have to remind
so-called Christian hospital administrators, ethicists, and theologians that
they are called to protect, not destroy, the most vulnerable and sickest among
us.
They are called to help
parents bear the unbearable loss of a child, not trigger it.
Instead they counsel mothers
to force their sick little babies from their warm, quiet, comforting uterine
homes into a cold steel world of bright lights, loud noises, and rough
handling, worst of all withdrawing their nourishment, hydration, and
oxygenation, solely to cut their little lives shorter than He in His infinite
wisdom intended.
This week, I debated a
blogger defending the Catholic hospitals' position. I compared early labor
induction to euthanasia, because it is.
I asked if he would deprive
his dying grandmother of food, water, and air to speed up her death, because
that is exactly what is being done to handicapped babies who are aborted by
"early labor induction."
The blogger responded,
"No, but if my grandmother's brain had been removed and her body was being
sustained artificially I'd have the machines removed."
The blogger forgot one
thing. The uterus is not an artificial life support system. It is God's life
support system.
I thought "a time to be
born and a time to die" was for God to determine.
One of us has to reread
Ecclesiastes.
© 2004 IllinoisLeader.com --
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Jill Stanek
Jill Stanek became a leader
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