My Child, My Gift
A Positive Response to Serious Prenatal Diagnosis

Helpful Thoughts
Scripture Passages
(selections from "Comfort for parents of an anencephalic baby" http://www.anencephalie-info.org/e/comfort.htm)
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God is our refuge and strength, a tested help in times of trouble. The Bible, Psalm 46.1
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Give your burdens to the Lord. He will carry them. He will not permit the godly to slip or fall. The Bible, Psalm 55.22
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You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body, and knit them together in my mother's womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! It is amazing to think about. Your workmanship is marvelous - and how well I know it. You were there while I was being formed in utter seclusion! You saw me before I was born and scheduled each day of my life before I began to breathe. Every day was recorded in your Book! The Bible, Psalm 139.13-16
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Men judge by outward appearance, but I look at a man's thoughts and intentions. The Bible, 1 Samuel 16.7
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Beware that you don't look down upon a single one of these little children. For I tell you that in heaven their angels have constant access to my Father. The Bible, Matthew 18.10
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Today I have set before you life or death, blessing or curse. Oh, that you would choose life; that you and your children might live! Choose to love the Lord your God and to obey him and to cling to him, for he is your life and the length of your days. The Bible, Deuteronomy 30.1920
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So we do not look at what we can see at this moment, the troubles all around us, but we look forward to the joys in heaven which we have not yet seen. The troubles will soon be over, but the joys to come will last fore ever. For we know that when this tent we live in now is taken down - when we die and leave these bodies - we will have wonderful new bodies in heaven, homes that will be ours for evermore, made for us by God himself, and not by human hands. The Bible, 2 Corinthians 4.18 - 5.1
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In the same way our earthly bodies which die and decay are different from the bodies we shall have when we come back to life again, for they will never die. The bodies we have now embarrass us, for they become sick and die;
but they will be full of glory when we come back to life again. Yes, they are weak, dying bodies now, but when we live again they will be full of strength. The Bible, 1 Corinthians 15.42-43
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For our earthly bodies, the ones we have now that can die, must be transformed into heavenly bodies that cannot perish but will live forever. When this happens, then at last this Scripture will come true - "Death is swallowed up in victory." O death, where then your victory? Where then your sting? How we thank God for all of this! Is it he who makes us victorious through Jesus Christ our Lord! The Bible, 1 Corinthians 15.53-47
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In everything you do, put God first, and he will direct you and crown your efforts with success. The Bible, Proverbs 3.6
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If you love someone you will be loyal to him no matter what the cost. ..., but love goes on for ever. The Bible, 1 Corinthians 13.7-8
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And we know that all that happens to us is working for our good if we love God and are fitting into his plans. The Bible, Romans 8.28
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Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will give us later. The Bible, Romans 8.18
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Then he turned my sorrow into joy! He took away my clothes of mourning and gave me gay and festive garments to rejoice in so that I might sing glad praises to the Lord instead of lying in silence in the grave. O Lord my God, I will keep on thanking you forever! The Bible, Psalms 30.11-12
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And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. The Bible, Revelation 21.4
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Be of good courage and He shall strengthen your heart; all ye that hope in the Lord. The Bible, Psalm 31.24
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Yet they say, "My Lord deserted us; he has forgotten us." "Never! Can a mother forget her little child and not have love for her own son? Yet even if that should be, I will not forget you. See, I have tattooed your name upon my palm and ever before me is a picture of Jerusalem's walls in ruins." The Bible, Isaiah 49.14-16
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OTHER INSPIRATIONAL PASSAGES
"Those we love are with the Lord, and the Lord has promised to be with us. If they are with Him, and He is with us,
they cannot be faraway." Peter Marshall
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You are valuable because you exist. Not because of what you do or what you have done, but simply because you are. Max Lucado
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Some Loves last a Moment, Some Loves last a Lifetime, Sometimes a Moment is a Lifetime. autor unknown
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"There is nothing to be afraid of if you believe and know that the cause for which you stand is right. You are ready to face anything and you face it with a humble smile... because you know that all of eternity stands with you and the angels stand beside you..." Martin Luther King, Jr.
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What we have once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, for all that we love deeply becomes part of us.
Helen Keller
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God promises a lamp unto our feet, not a crystal ball into the future. Max Lucado
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Don't measure the size of the mountain; talk to the One who can move it. Max Lucado
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National Catholic Bioethics Center on Early Induction of Labor
BOSTON, MA— The National Catholic Bioethics Center wishes to assist individuals and institutions working with the ethical issue of early induction of labor. The following is the NCBC position regarding the application of Catholic moral teaching and tradition to the issue.
The application of Catholic moral teaching and tradition to this issue is directed toward two specific ends: (1) complete avoidance of direct abortion, and (2) preservation of the lives of both mother and child to the extent possible under the circumstances. Based upon these ends, the Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services provides directives which set the parameters for the treatment of mother and unborn child in cases of high-risk pregnancies:
47. Operations, treatments, and medications that have as their direct purpose the cure of a proportionately serious pathological condition of a pregnant woman are permitted when they cannot be safely postponed until the unborn child is viable, even if they will result in the death of the unborn child.
49. For a proportionate reason, labor may be induced after the fetus is viable.
The principle of the double effect is at work in each of these two directives. Actions that might result in the death of a child are morally permitted only if all of the following conditions are met: (1) treatment is directly therapeutic in response to a serious pathology of the mother or child; (2) the good effect of curing the disease is intended and the bad effect foreseen but unintended; (3) the death of the child is not the means by which the good effect is achieved; and (4) the good of curing the disease is proportionate to the risk of the bad effect. Fulfillment of all four conditions precludes any act that directly hastens the death of a child.
Early induction of labor for chorioamnionitis, preeclampsia, and H.E.L.L.P. syndrome, for example, can be morally licit under the conditions just described because it directly cures a pathology by evacuating the infected membranes in the case of chorioamnionitis, or the diseased placenta in the other cases, and cannot be safely postponed. However, early induction of an anencephalic child when there is no serious pathology of the mother which is being directly treated is not morally licit, emotional distress notwithstanding. Early induction of labor before term (37 weeks) to relieve emotional distress hastens the death of the child as a means of achieving this presumed good effect and unjustifiably deprives the child of the good of gestation. Moreover, this distress is amenable to psychological support such as is offered in perinatal hospice. Lastly, induction of labor before term performed simply for the reason that the child has a lethal anomaly is direct abortion.
Author's Note: The induction of labor before term performed simply for the reason that the child has a non lethal but adverse health condition is also direct abortion.
The mission of the National Catholic Bioethics Center, Founded in 1972, is to defend the dignity of the human person through research, education, publishing, and consultation in the health and life sciences.