Which is the right decision?
What if you (or your wife) had just got pregnant – but, by some reason difficult for us to understand currently, was diagnosed with a breast cancer.
Chemotherapy is necessary, but it is also very rough and teratogenic – it will not go well with the expecting mum and the unborn baby. The problem was big and demanded a decision.
Here are two real stories about this – about real people in their real struggles:
1. Mum and dad decided to bite their teeth and carry through with the pregnancy without chemotherapy. The cancer spread in mom and she deteriorated quite badly over the course of pregnancy. Still she managed to barely reach 32 weeks when she was rushed to the delivery suite. She gave birth to a premature little baby boy via Caesarean section, and then received urgent chemotherapy in the delivery suite, then and there. The baby boy made it into the world alive and healthy, but mom passed away shortly a year after. Dad was left alone to take care of the newborn boy.
2. Mum and dad decided for an abortion. The lead-up to the abortion was fraught with many uncertainties, but the actual procedure was over way too quickly and easily. Mom and dad turned up together to the Cancer Centre a week later and began the chemotherapy cycles. The disease was as well-controlled as you could expect in modern oncology – but not without some sense of guilt that may never leave, no doubt.
But which is the right decision? Many circumstances in our lives are often just too hard for human wisdom. That is why there are so many regrets.
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Concept of God
As somebody said, almost all our problems may be stamped back to a misconception of God. I would decide as in case 2. God’s general will is for us to marry and multiply and raise our children.
Matthew 19:4-6 Jesus said “that at the
beginning the Creator ‘made them male and female,’
and said, ‘For this reason a man will
leave his father and mother and be united to his
wife, and the two will become one flesh’. So
they are no longer two, but one. Therefore what
God has joined together, let no one separate.”
Husband and wife are one. There is no cause to risk the wife’s life for a child God may not want to be born (we cannot be presumptuous just because there is a pregnancy, just like Abraham was willing to sacrifice Isaac, a full submission to God). If God wills, they can still have children after this. Yes, how we need to get into God’s Word (the Bible), obey and know Him.
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yea but i suppose there are many other factors which are not so obvious too – e.g. whether the pregnancy was planned, whether chemotherapy will push the female patient into menopause (and therefore unable to conceive anymore), whether we have the right to abort the unborn baby (this will always be a contentious issue).
in a sense i can almost see the parents in the first case seriously valuing the “God-given” child/life (even more so if it was planned) – and thinking that if God-willing, mom will see it through the pregnancy fine without chemo, and hopefully, God-willing, have some reasonable quality of life too after the pregnancy with chemo. Of course in retrospect we know how things turned out – but in their shoes at the time a lot were unknown and still unfolding.
Of course if it is clear (somehow) that it is a directive from God / vow to God to abort the pregnancy – or kill the child as some would argue – then it is a different story (and arguably much simpler too perhaps – obey or not). How one determines that is another question altogether – especially with one so drastic as this.
To (over)simplify things it boils down to wife vs (unborn) child. The Bible does say the husband and wife will become one and “let no one separate” this (but in the context of divorce though, as a result of human emotions), but children are a heritage from God too. On a level, dying from abortion definitely appears much more “human-induced” compared to dying from a cancer (which wasn’t directly caused by anything one did), especially despite having chemotherapy.
I see and agree with your point – but there is much to say otherwise too. But I seriously don’t know; it is too hard for me.
Yes it is really too hard to make decision.In my opinion,I prefer the second case too,because I think The God doesn’t want us to lose one life in exchange of another life and if the mom take chemotherapy in time,she will live so that she has more oppotunities to have more children.the first case is too dangerous. probably both of mom and child will die because may be premature child has some fault in his or her body. -judia
yea, it’s really hard. i don’t have much to say too haha… of course having the best prediction that our medical knowledge allows us to will aid in the decision-making, but still anything can happen!
hi joseph
i think that she should keep her baby!
dont kill a baby! that is not cool!!