To have or not to have

[newstart2380]

A couple with 7 children are having a baby with 2 faces in July, both parents on welfare have decided whatever will be will be. The baby girl has one body, 2 arms, 2 legs, one heart and the only difference is that the baby will have 2 faces with 4 eyes. there have been only 35 known cases in the world and none have survived, they had the option to abort. What pressures does this put on all other members of the family ?

[boris1gary]

---

@crikey*mate wrote:

---

@1966kelso wrote:

Should a couple living on disabilty and carers pensions,with 7 children, be encouraged to keep breeding?

---

well that is a different question.,

encouraged? well I guess no one should encourage any breeding, that is a decision for those involved.

the socially acceptable response to should they be allowed more children is yes, a disability shouldn't prclude a person from having children, though I guess it depends what sort of disability. But just from that article, the parents seem able to make rational decisions, well at least reasoned ones. What I mean is they seem to understand what they are thinking and doing and not mentally impaired to a degree that they are unable to make those decisions.(if at all)

I hope that came out right.but you have to be so politically correct these days and cover all bases and misinterpretations.

---

"politically correct" really.  and beside that yes it came out quite reasoned and reasonable.

[crystal**flake]

If they know the chld is like that already then its obviously too late to abort, children with deformatives so bad like this, don't live long anyway.

[the*scarlet*pimpernel]

---

@boris1gary wrote:

---

@1966kelso wrote:

Should a couple living on disabilty and carers pensions,with 7 children, be encouraged to keep breeding?

---

is that a joke? or something?

---

It wasn't a joke, nor was it an opinion. And it had nothing to do with disabled children either.

What I meant to ask was, should taxpayers foot the bills for large families living on welfare. I guess it is a different issue and not really relevant to this thread other than the article said the family were living in government housing, on wlfare and had 7 children.

Again, it was a question, not necessarily my opinion.

[*crikey*mate*]

---

@boris1gary wrote:

---

@crikey*mate wrote:

I like that story Am3, thanks for publishing it, and I diodn't realize it was a Sydney family. That means that the child will have access to decent medical care if needed, so it at least has a shot.

Somebody should fight for that baby, if not the parents, then who, Just because the fight might be short or fruitless, does that mean that this child has any less value than another?

---

I don't think anyone was doing that, I would take into account the quality of life and if any and how much pain should be expected for the baby, before anything else.

---

By that criteria, according to the "experts" my surviving eldest shouldn't be here, and his older siblings should never have been given a chance.

My first didn't make it, my second only made 4 days, but the experts told us no medical intervention would help, so we didn't fight for that child, we just believed the experts and watched him die whilst no one did a thing, not even his parents.

We fought for the next one and have been doing so for nearly 18 years now.

and 5 years ago this week, my youngest child got sick and the doctors told us there was no hope. Said she would be dead within the hour and would we consider organ donation. They refused to treat her. Medicare nor our Private Health Fund would help, so we had to pay doctors ourselves. It took 7 weeks in hospital and another 12 months of rehab, but she came out just fine.

So I can say this from experience, that the experts aren't always right, and the pain from not even trying, from not fighting for your own child is far greater than any pain you experience from losing one.

[imastawka]

                 

[*crikey*mate*]

Thanks Stawks!

and I would like to add there

LC was very disadvantaged because of the time needed to be spent with her older brothers, but she adores them and they her.

MC, LOL, he's really not an evil child, but when we were told LC was going to die, the first words out of his mouth were "can I have her bedroom"? ( Well she did have a pretty awesome room at that point, 360 degree views of the Gold Coast from 4 stories above sea level, - The kids were all in the hospital room with us when the doctor just blurted it out in front of us all)

But when he had to give his testimony for church, he spoke of his love for both his siblings, gave thanks that he had the opportunity for them to be part of his life, and for sparing the life of his little sister.

The testimony is a voluntary thing, no one makes them do it, and no one helps them prepare for it.

So, I'm pretty certain that as difficult as his life has been and as many sacrifices that he has had to endure and make for having a brother who is a "little bit different" to most, he's pretty glad that he got his siblings, difficult or not.

[*crikey*mate*]

yes, the experts were wrong, obviously.

Though it was three weeks befoere they stopped telling us she would die. Then they moved onto permanently brain damaged, and then onto permanently impaired mobility.

They were the same doctors, well at the first hospital, anyway, plus the ones who were medivaced in for the 10 days she was in that hospital.

They had to refuse treatment because in their opinion, there was nothing they could do to help her, they were flying blind. So medicare or our health fund wouldn't pay for intervention. The head opthamologist even asked us if we believed in God (we're not religious people) and if we were, that we needed to pray because He was our only hope as Science had no answers.

When she made it through each hour, and she was still alive, they agreed to try "something" and that "something" was cutting away the infection that was growing faster than the antibiotics could stop it. And they kept cutting it away until after three weeks the antibiotics started to kick in and help fight the infection. For three weeks, they cut into her head and her brain to try and save her, to try and stop the infection growing and spreading through her brain, from forcing her eyes out of their sockets through her skull as the brain swelled, from forcing leakage and blood from every orifice in her head, her eyes, her nose and eventually her mouth and every insicion they made to relieve the pressure in her skull from her swelling brain and the infection..

But we had to pay, for the doctors and the hospital bed and any resources that she used.

and yeah therer were a few "extra doctors". quite a few. they were flying them in from interstate as well as down from Brisbane until she was stable enough to be moved.

[*crikey*mate*]

oh, and it was 5 years ago last month when she first got sick. She was taken to hospital on the Australia Day weekend.

Just thought I'd clear that up too.

Last week was her puppy's birthday, the one she got when she came home from hospital. He was born around the time they stopped telling us she would die, so it seemed like he was meant for us.

[not_an_eloi]

they say, there's one born every minute

[lloydslights]

So many thoughts I have about the predicament you were faced.

You are a fighter.  As your child must have been as well.

It seems that the "holy dollar" played a big part in this.  No medic wanted to waste their time(money) on your child's plight. Or the government funding allocation would be compromised.  

In your opinion, do you think anything was learnt by the medicos in their eventual treatment of the child? Has that method of alleviation of the infection taught them how to deal with similar cases in the future?

How on earth has Medicine progressed over the centuries if no one tried and left it up to God?

Crikey, I have the utmost respect for you.

DEB