Voices for Life Is a blog dedicated to informing and educating the public on pro-life and pro-family issues.
Our focus is to protect the sanctity of all human life from conception until natural death. This includes protecting babies from abortion, fetal tissue experimentation, and embryonic research; and the general population from euthanasia, cloning, population control and human genetic engineering.
If Stacey Johnson had listened to her first doctor, her son William would not be alive today.
Diagnosed with breast cancer while she was pregnant, the Leawood, Kansas mother was told to consider aborting her unborn son, CNN reports. Instead, she got a second opinion.
Johnson, a nurse, said she found a lump in her breast not long after discovering she was pregnant. She was diagnosed with breast cancer and, at 11 weeks of pregnancy, was asked to consider having an abortion before beginning chemotherapy, according to the report.
Then, she went to a second doctor, breast oncologist Dr. Lauren Nye with the University of Kansas Health System, who renewed her hope for her and her unborn son.
“So then I met her and we talked about her options which none of them included terminating her pregnancy,” Nye said.
While pregnant, Johnson went through a mastectomy and chemotherapy. And in the late spring of 2017, she gave birth to her son William, who was born healthy, the report states. Next week, the family will celebrate William’s 1st birthday.
“Everyone I saw was so complimentary, like ‘How did you get through it?’ or ‘How did you do it?’” Johnson said. Her answer to them was “because I had someone else’s life to think about.”
A growing body of research suggests pregnant women can safely undergo cancer treatments without harming their unborn babies. In 2012, a collection of stories from The Lancet found pregnant women don’t need to have an abortion to get treatment for cancer.
Voices for Life is an e-publication dedicated to informing and educating the public on pro-life and pro-family issues. To read our Mission Statement, use this link. Follow us on Facebook, Google, and Pinterest. Help us spread the pro-life message by sharing our articles on your favorite social networks.
Pregnant, need help or know someone who does? National Hotline: Call 1-800-712-HELP or Text 'HELPLINE' to 313131. In Southeast Penna: Call the Community Women's Center at 215-826-8090 If you or someone you know is suffering after abortion, confidential non-judgmental help is available. Call Project Rachel's national toll-free number 888-456-HOPE (4673) or visit hopeafterabortion.org.
Tracey Kirby was shocked and excited when she learned she was pregnant with three boys – one singleton and a set of twins. But at 18-19 weeks, doctors found that the twins had twin-to-twin transfusion syndrome, in which the blood vessels of the twins’ shared placenta are connected, resulting in one twin receiving too much blood and the other not receiving enough.
Doctors suggested a “selective reduction,” but Tracey and husband Paul were adamantly against it. Tracey told the UK’s Mirror, “The idea of selective reduction [terminating one or more fetuses in the pregnancy] was discussed, but it just wasn’t something I was willing to do. I just thought ‘I’m going to do the best I can for the three of them’.” She added that a selective reduction would have also put her at greater risk for miscarrying all three boys.
Even though Tracey’s pregnancy was a highly unusual circumstance, it is not uncommon for doctors to suggest selective reduction in pregnancies with multiples. Live Action News’ Rebecca Downs described the disturbing procedure in a previous article:
The method used by Dr. Mark I. Evans involves targeting one or more of the preborn children and inserting a needle of potassium chloride into his or her heart. Sometimes the babies move before succumbing to death and get the first needle in an arm or a leg, but once the needle enters a baby’s heart, it is fatal. The idea has alarmingly become a trend over the past few years.
Instead, Tracey had an ablation surgery — which “involves putting a needle and camera into the mum’s womb, and using a laser to seal off the connecting blood vessels in the shared placenta” — in an attempt to remediate the twins’ condition, and during the procedure all the triplets were visible.
Tracey told the Mirror of the twins, “… you could see their little finger nails and they both had blond hair.”
Sadly, the surgery was unsuccessful and the twin receiving too much blood passed away in the womb at approximately 25 weeks. “It was just such a complete shock. They said he’d probably had a cardiac arrest with all that extra blood pumping into his body,” Tracey told the Mirror. His parents named him Cayden (“little fighter” in Celtic), chosen because “he carried on fighting until his little heart gave up.”
Tracey carried all three boys for seven more weeks. “I knew [Cayden] was in there and with his brothers and I just wanted to keep things that way,” Tracey told the Mirror. “I saw a bereavement specialist and we started discussing the funeral.”
“Those seven weeks I had him in my tummy and I treasured that. I knew once they were born he would be gone. I liked that he was in me and he was safe. For the rest of my pregnancy I could talk to all three of them and I was happy they were all together,” she said.
Brothers Henry and James came into the world alive at 32 weeks. James was 3 pounds, 6 ounces, and Henry (the surviving twin) weighed just 1 pound, 8 ounces.
In the video above, Tracey speaks about receiving bereavement support after the loss of little Cayden. However, she’s reminded of the loss every time someone refers to the boys as “twins.” She told the Mirror, “… [I]t still hits me when people call the boys twins – they’ll always be triplets…. there isn’t a day goes by where we don’t think about Cayden.”
Voices for Life is an e-publication dedicated to informing and educating the public on pro-life and pro-family issues. To read our Mission Statement, use this link. Follow us on Facebook, Google, and Pinterest. Help us spread the pro-life message by sharing our articles on your favorite social networks.
Pregnant, need help or know someone who does? National Hotline: Call 1-800-712-HELP or Text 'HELPLINE' to 313131. In Southeast Penna: Call the Community Women's Center at 215-826-8090 If you or someone you know is suffering after abortion, confidential non-judgmental help is available. Call Project Rachel's national toll-free number 888-456-HOPE (4673) or visit hopeafterabortion.org.
Life News When doctors told Chelsea Torres that she was carrying conjoined twins, they warned her that the babies probably would not survive past the first trimester.
Doctors encouraged Torres and her husband, Nick, of Blackfoot, Idaho, to consider having an abortion, The Daily Mail reports. They refused.
The Idaho parents now are so thankful that they did not listen to their doctors’ advice. Their twin girls, Callie and Carter, were born in January, and they are doing well, according to the report.
Here’s more from the report:
Callie and Carter are omphalo-ischiopagus twins, which make up less than five per cent of conjoined twins. This means they have just two legs and one pelvis between them, but have two separate torsos that face each other. The girls do not appear to share any vital organs.
Today, the girls are three months old and healthy. The family said Callie and Carter are doing so well that doctors do not recommend separating them.
Daily living is more difficult with conjoined twins. The twins require a lot of custom-made things, like car seats and clothes. Chelsea said she sews clothing together to fit the twins.
She said a few people stare when they see the twins, but most are very supportive.
“I’m so happy I didn’t terminate Callie and Carter, they are amazing,” their mother told the Mail. “I knew termination would not happen and I’m glad that little speck of thought I did have, I pushed away.”
Life News story continues Voices for Life is an e-publication dedicated to informing and educating the public on pro-life and pro-family issues. To read our Mission Statement, use this link. Follow us on Facebook, Google, and Pinterest. Help us spread the pro-life message by sharing our articles on your favorite social networks.
Pregnant, need help or know someone who does? National Hotline: Call 1-800-712-HELP or Text 'HELPLINE' to 313131. In Southeast Penna: Call or text 610-626-4006 If you or someone you know is suffering after abortion, confidential non-judgmental help is available. Call Project Rachel's national toll-free number 888-456-HOPE (4673) or visit hopeafterabortion.org.
