Reclaiming Our Children: A Blog About Healing After Abortion

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Affirming Life Symposium explores outreach to families with unexpected prenatal diagnoses

By ANNA WEAVER
Catholic Standard Staff

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Cubby and Dan LaHood, co-founders of Isaiah’s Promise, participate in a panel discussion at the Oct. 5 Affirming Life Symposium sponsored by the Archdiocese of Washington’s Department of Special Needs Ministries and the Department of Life Issues. (ARCHDIOCESE OF WASHINGTON PHOTO BY PAUL FETTERS)

Nancy Mayer-Whittington's daughter Angela, a child doctors told her to abort because she wouldn't survive, died 10 minutes after her birth from a deadly genetic defect, and yet Nancy cherished her minutes with Angela.

When Cubby LaHood was pregnant with her second child, her 13-week sonogram turned up 10 anomalies in the unborn boy. Her doctor asked her, "Why do you want to be a walking coffin?" With the support of her husband and a priest she delivered her son, who died shortly afterward.

These women and countless other Catholic women and their families have dealt with a "hidden" life issue that many in the Church don't think about – families facing poor prenatal diagnoses who are often encouraged by their doctors to abort. Statistics show that an estimated 90 percent of parents given a prenatal diagnosis of Down syndrome in their unborn infant choose abortion, and similar high abortion rates exist for other prenatal conditions.

archdiocesan effort

In order to start reversing this trend, the Archdiocese of Washington held an Oct. 5 "Affirming Life Symposium" aimed at developing a pastoral care plan to reach families and train the "first responder" priests, religious, parish workers, medical professionals and pregnancy center staffers who could help families when they are first faced with a difficult pregnancy situation.

"We believe every child is wanted by God," said symposium facilitator Father Bill Byrne, archdiocesan secretary of Pastoral Ministry and Social Concerns, who spoke at the beginning of the symposium held at Catholic University of America's Pryzbyla Student Center. He said unborn children with lethal or non-lethal conditions "may be the poorest of the poor."

The Affirming Life Symposium's panel included Mayer-Whittington and LaHood, who after their own experiences dealing with deadly prenatal diagnoses co-founded Isaiah's Promise to help pregnant women receiving similar diagnoses carry to term; Msgr. Charles Pope, pastor of Holy Comforter-St. Cyprian Parish in Washington; Theresa Bonopartis, director of New York-based "Lumina: Hope & Healing After Abortion" offering retreats to those who had an abortion due to a poor prenatal diagnosis; and LaHood's husband Dan, who along with his wife runs St. Joseph's House in Silver Spring for children with disabilities.

The symposium followed a National Catholic Partnership on Disability webinar panel also focusing on poor prenatal diagnosis. Both sessions talked about the time pressure, confusing language and frequent lack of support that women and their families get from their doctors after prenatal tests reveal deadly or non-deadly but disabling conditions in utero.

Bonopartis talked about the "false compassion" of medical professionals who couch their abortion language in such terms as "early induction," "adverse diagnosis" or "failure to thrive" and convince parents to abort their children so that they and their child "won't suffer."

"Don't treat an aborted child as a normal death," she said, adding that unlike other abortion decisions that are often about the mother's needs, with abortions due to poor prenatal diagnoses, "parents are made to believe they're good parents if they abort the child."

New initiative

The archdiocese's Department of Life Issues and the Department of Special Needs Ministries started the Affirming Life Initiative, in the hope of getting to parents right as they are dealing with the confusing emotions and information of an unexpected prenatal diagnosis. That includes a pastoral plan to do so, training for "first responders," healing services to families who did have an abortion, the development of more local ministries like Isaiah's Promise and the Project Rachel post-abortion healing outreach, resources for medical professionals and pregnancy center staff, and the education of parishioners that a life with disabilities shouldn't be perceived as "a life not worth living."

"We can't take away the pain, but we can do what John Paul II called co-suffering," said Mayer-Whittington of how Isaiah's Promise, other organizations, and Catholics can support families. She wrote the book "For the Love of Angela" about her experience with her daughter and recalled how a supportive person told her of Angela's birth and death, "You'll be handing Angela from your hands to God's hands."

Dan LaHood works every day at St. Joseph's House with disabled children and said, "These persons are not just ancillary to the life of the Church."

Msgr. Pope said the Catholic Church needs to work on "normalizing" persons with disabilities and showing that to be born disabled is "part of human life." For priests, he said that includes making sure they receive special sacramental training and feel included, and that parishioners hear "consistent preaching on the dignity of the human person."

"There is glory, there is dignity, and there is life in the cross," he said.

planning outreach

After the panel, the 40 or so symposium attendees were then broken into small groups according to categories of seminarians, medical professionals, parish ministers, disabilities workers, pregnancy centers, Hispanic ministry and prenatal/postnatal support groups. The archdiocese wanted their feedback on what they thought the archdiocese should do on the issue.

A group of Marian of the Immaculate Conception novices talked with Father Byrne and Msgr. Pope about preparing to counsel families dealing with a disability diagnosis. One topic was knowing how to offer support and alternatives including finding families who actively adopt disabled infants. The seminarians discussed standing firm in telling families abortion can't be an option.

Later, novice Giuseppe Mignano said that he had never known this much about abortions due to disabilities. "It hasn't been as big of a component of the life issues," he said. "To find out that nine out of 10 Down syndrome kids are aborted, that's huge."

"I'd love to learn to talk to the women that go through this situation," Mignano added about wanting a seminary class specifically on ministering to these families.

Afterward, three Holy Cross Hospital nursing department heads talked about what they'd like to see done. Cyndi Hawley, director of Holy Cross' Neonatal Intensive Care Unit, said more hospital resources could be tapped into earlier but, "I think people forget to contact us when the baby is not expected to survive."

Nancy Wood, director of the hospital's High-Risk Perinatal Center said, "We'd like to know [these families] are out there, and we could help them instead of their struggling out there on their own."

Eileen Ludden, director of labor and delivery at Holy Cross, said that Nancy Mayer-Whittingon still remembers the nurse who helped deliver her daughter Angela. Because they were able to prepare in advance for Angela's birth, "We made sure it was the best 10 minutes of [Nancy's] life."

Besides the Catholic University symposium location, St. John Neumann, St. Mark the Evangelist in Hyattsville, the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament, the Rosensteel Knights of Columbus in Silver Spring, the Catholic Information Center, Holy Cross Hospital, Providence Hospital, CareNet Lexington Park, and the Archdiocese of Washington's Pastoral Center all hosted viewing sites to watch the session live.

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