She contemplates the big wide world through eyes of the deepest dark blue, her perfectly-formed coral lips curled in an endearingly mischievous smile. Her cheeks, rosy like the first flush of a red dawn, contrast sharply with the milk-white skin of the rest of her face, offset on top by the soft, dark down on top of her head, now long enough, at 12 weeks, to cover her ears. No amount of the inevitable “Kemm hi ħelwa”s can ever do justice to the joyful beauty she radiates. She is the picture of health, a captivating paean to love’s creative forces and prodding proof that God must exist.
She might never have been born. The experts, two teams of the most eminent actually, from hospitals on both sides of the Atlantic no less, counselled the parents to have the pregnancy terminated because of “an increased risk of foetal or perinatal death and a major concern for long-term neurodevelopment”.
The problems had started four months into what had been, until then, an uneventful pregnancy. A routine ultra-sound scan had revealed a 6cm mark in the baby’s head, possibly indicative of hydrocephalus or something even more sinister. Further tests, including a foetal MRI could not quite reveal what, and indeed if anything was actually, wrong. So the Consultant obstetrician decided to seek advice from abroad. All test–results and notes of the clinical observation were sent to a renowned UK hospital. Meanwhile, a Maltese consultant radiologist together with a Maltese consultant neurologist hypothesised that the cyst was simply the result of spontaneous bleeding.
The parents, waiting for the foreign experts’ pronouncement with bated breath, finally received the news: there was probably no brain in the foetus, and in the circumstances the learned doctors could only advise an abortion. The local Consultant then opted for a third opinion, and all the clinical material was dispatched post-haste to the USA. After a couple of weeks, the gist of the communication from across the Atlantic was a confirmation of the UK decree: we’re unsure of diagnosis, but in view of grave risk of death or grave disability, termination is recommended.
Shaken, shocked and bewildered they certainly were, but not for one nanosecond did the parents countenance the possibility of doing away with the baby’s life. With two sets of experts practically telling them their baby was destined to be born very severely impaired, some parents would have given in to the temptation to board the next plane and have the foetus aborted as soon as possible. Not these two. Staunch in their Christian faith and in the belief in the value of all life, and steadfast in their feelings towards the fruit of their love, they vowed they would face the future - and whatever it brought with it. As far as they were concerned, the fact that the baby was likely to be born with a most severe impairment did not diminish her worth by one iota.
In the event, the baby was born by Caesarean section – and it was immediately apparent that there was nothing wrong with her. At twelve weeks she exhibits perfectly normal behaviour, and according to her parents, actually seems to be developmentally slightly ahead of her siblings. Another MRI has confirmed the hypothesis that had been developed by the Maltese consultants .... and that the cyst is getting smaller.
So, these experts were wrong, and not only in their interpretation of the clinical evidence, which, after all was the result of all too fallible human judgement in exceptionally difficult circumstances. They were wrong to advise termination. Not just because the girl turned out to be perfectly healthy. Had she been born as disabled as everybody had feared she would be, they would still have been very wrong.
For, as even the anguished parents-to-be realised during the darkest moments when the future seemed to be holding in store an infinity of sweat, pain and tears, a human being’s essential worth does not depend on its organs ... or the lack of them. The shape, or even the presence of limbs, is neither here nor there, when it comes to assessing human value. Intelligence per se has nothing to do with the intrinsic worth of human life. It is purely and simply the fact that a foetus is, that the spark of life has been lit in him or her, that renders that human creature awesomely, supremely and loveably precious. No other considerations, be they physical, emotional, psycho-social or economic can ever supersede the primacy of human life, at whatever stage of development it is.
Those foreign experts, their science informed by values central to a culture which prioritises health and psycho-social and economic well-being over life itself, had no qualms advocating the suffocation of human life in order to spare the parents and the yet-to-be-born serious problems. In contrast, other medical professionals showed a commendable commitment to the life they were caring for, besides giving proof of their own professional expertise. In societies where death is deemed preferable to suffering, where decades of acceptance of abortion have blunted intellects and emotions to the implications of error in matters of foetal killing, too many experts have little problem coolly decreeing that a foetus may die so that suffering and discomfort can be avoided. God may have been banished from those kingdoms, but there’s someone else sitting on His lofty throne.
Those who believe that it is acceptable to sanction abortion on the say-so of experts in cases of supposed grave disability on the part of the foetus had better think again. Not only do they have no right to abort children-in–the-womb even if the foetus is truly disabled, they may actually be cutting short healthy human lives.
Expert advice is worthy of the highest consideration. Infallible, however, it is not.
Update: this article was written some 15 years ago. The girl in question continues to remain in perfect health, and is described as a lively teenager who leads a very active life.
