"Mother Loses Twin Boys In Abortion Mix Up" reads the Sky News headline. A scan of the article tells us:"A healthy 32-week old foetus has been aborted by mistake in a tragic mix up at an Australian hospital.
A mother expecting twin boys was told by doctors one of the babies had a serious congenital heart defect and she decided to have him aborted.
However surgeons on Tuesday accidentally terminated the healthy twin.
The sick twin then also died, reportedly after an emergency caesarean section operation."
A mother expecting twin boys was told by doctors one of the babies had a serious congenital heart defect and she decided to have him aborted.
However surgeons on Tuesday accidentally terminated the healthy twin.
The sick twin then also died, reportedly after an emergency caesarean section operation."
Picture shows twins born at 32 weeks, the age at which the twins in the news today were aborted.All sympathy to the parents of these precious little ones. But this article speaks volumes about where our society is at. The "tragedy" in the view of this article writer is not the murder of this woman's children, nor even the truly tragic fact that not one, but two of her children were murdered. No, the tragedy for our society is that the healthy twin was killed. Had all gone to plan and the sick child been killed, it would have been a normal everyday "procedure" and certainly would not have made the papers. Sympathy would have been given to the Mother by friends for the fact that she carried a sick child and "had" to abort. Of course I do not know the severity of the child's condition - though it seems that if a Mother has the courage to continue her pregnancy many babies with heart defects do survive and are successfully treated. But for those who respect life, even a baby with an untreatable illness cannot be slaughtered.
We cannot judge those concerned, perhaps the Mother did not know what she was doing. And even the medical staff can have misinformed consciences and hardened hearts. But, as the article tells us, incidents like this have a habit of awakening consciences:
According to reports ...the ultrasound clinician, ...was apparently inconsolable because of the mistake.
and
A close friend of the mother said: "She went to hospital with two babies and now she has none.
Then there is the profound statement:
"And she had the heartache of giving birth to her sick baby. She's traumatised."
This is difficult of course, since the whole point of the abortion was an attempt to avoid giving birth to this child.
Giving birth somehow makes the baby real, visible, loveable. The birth of this child screams for justice for the child to be treated just as any born, sick child would be treated. When a woman allows a sick child to be born(rather than aborted), even knowing death is immenent, it is a healing (though difficult) event, which allows for proper grieving. When a woman who has tried to abort is faced with a born, dying child it is truly traumatising and a heartache confirming what has been attempted to be devastatingly wrong.
Let us pray for the Mother and Father and all the medical staff involved in this awful act of violence. May the Lord grant them healing and also repentant hearts that will never be fooled into treating human life lightly again. God bless them.
Clare McCullough
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