Here is the letter I submitted in various forms to several Montana newspapers regarding the couple suing because their daughter was born with cystic fibrosis and they didn’t get to terminate their pregnancy with her. The papers were the Great Falls Tribune, the Spokesman-Review, and the Bozeman Daily Chronicle.
Since hearing about the lawsuit brought forward by Kerrie and Joe Evans of Gardiner, alleging that Kerrie??s right to the information that her daughter had cystic fibrosis was not given and thus her right to terminate her pregnancy was violated, I have struggled with the decision that it should be heard in court.
You see, I am the mother of a son with developmental delays and autism who was born 11 weeks prematurely when I developed HELLP Syndrome. It was only because my doctor caught it that both of us lived and my son ended up staying in the NICU at Benefis for two months. Two years later, he caught a cold which landed him in the PICU at UC Davis Medical Center with him intubated and me having to sign paperwork to put him on ECMO. ECMO was thankfully avoided when some simple ventilator changes caused an improvement but that night will haunt me forever. Another cold landed him in the hospital over Thanksgiving and we live our lives having to be careful of every cold or virus people contract around us.
What irritates me about all of this is that if my son had died in March 2011, every hour spent sleeping in the PICU bay, standing outside while codes were called on him, having to blog news on him because talking to people on the phone would cause me to weep uncontrollably would have more than worth it. Being his mother has made me an immeasurably better person.
I don??t doubt the emotional toll that having a sick daughter has taken on the Evans but I can??t help but sense that they view their daughter as merely an inconvenience rather than a child whom they love. I hope to God that I am wrong.
I don’t know if any of them will print it but I will keep all of you updated if they do.
**UPDATE** They printed it.
We are all better people for loving the children we are given. Whether they have health issues or not, they each force us to change and grow, hopefully closer to God in the process. It’s one of the sad fruits of contraception and the mistaken belief that having children are something we can control—hence, a commodity. When we “invest” in a commodity, we want it perfect.