This video came to me in an email, and despite the comments of 'beautiful,' I actually have very mixed feelings about this. While I am against abortion in all cases, I make exception in the cases of the mother's life, or if the child is diagnosed with a truly incurable, terminal, and painful illness (see c-ral.org).
While I applaud the parents for making a courageous choice in bringing this Trisomy-13 (Patau syndrome) child to birth, when I see them agonizing over his labored breathing and many lapses into near-death, saying "just let go Thomas," I kept wondering, were you really doing this for him or for yourselves? Were you slavishly following a pro-life doctrine when perhaps true compassion would have, in this case, gone for the abortion?
Was giving yourselves a chance to love him really worth his suffering? The child may have received love for his five days here, but I just wonder if these parents considered the pain he would suffer as well. I guess that, if you could not really know the severity of the child's case, you would be justified in bringing the child to term.
The funeral singing almost seemed maudlin, like some crass pro-life political rally. I'm sure it was much more than that to the participants, and to many Christians, but I am no liberal, and this very sad situation still sort of struck me as something other than awesome. I know such an opinion will not be Christianly Correct.
