Perhaps suggest talking to their pastor? Plant the seed that there are a LOT of healthy children out there who need homes? Of course, I don’t what kind of Christians they are. Some sects will say that it is her duty to keep getting pregnant…
The fact that she asked for your advice means that somewhere she knows this is not a wise decision. If dad’s income and insurance covered them, maybe.
Another line of counseling would be to suggest that dad change his circumstance to get a job that will support them before they take this step.
You are friends for a reason, I imagine. Be yourself and be honest.
Its one thing to have an unplanned pregnancy, be anti abortion and decide to go with it.
It is a whole nuther ball of wax to have THAT pregnancy go bad, and purposely roll the dice again with horribly bad odds (60/40!!!).
On the one hand I want to scream to these people “what the frack is wrong with you!!!” for many of reasons mentioned in this thread.
On the other hand, when it comes to such things, it is hard to impose one’s morals and ethics on someone else.
I feel for you as I am sure those are the sort of conflicting thoughts you have about this.
Perhaps they should consider this. Lets assume some “bad behavior” like smoking or drinking while pregnant led to these same horrible odds. How would they judge someone who did that while pregant (for the second time in a row)?
Well, hope springs eternal. Is the child they have expected to outlive them? If so, I can see the parents maybe hoping for someone to care for her after they are gone.
No, I’m not stunned. I looked after a couple of babies several years ago. They were sisters, 11 months apart. Their parents had 17 children in all, only one of whom was still alive and functioning independently.
At the time of the death of the last baby, the mother was pregnant with baby number 18. Nothing much stuns me anymore.
I’m guessing the genetic damage was discovered early enough in utero to terminate it and they went ahead anyway. I’m further guessing your opinion will not carry much weight in this as they feel it is a religious duty to carry the child to term.
This child is vacuuming huge social resources to maintain it. On the other hand it is a real life demonstration of a no compromise attitude toward the value of life. I wonder if an insurance company could legally refuse to cover children with specific genetic defects.
Some people don’t necessarily think of medical debt as “real” debt.
That being said, it’s hard to imagine wanting to roll the dice on a 60/40 situation when you’ve already got one affected kid.
On the other hand, I can imagine a parent of a child like that wishing for a “normal” parenting experience and making a questionable judgment in the quest to have that. I don’t agree with it, but I can sort of sympathize.
I would have been stunned 5 years ago. But my sister teaches special ed, and she knows of multiple families that have done this, just in her school district. For example, she knows one family that has multiple kids with Fragile X syndrome, and one that has at least 5 kids (out of 10) that are mentally retarded. All these families “left it up to God.” The one with 10 kids is still considering having more, and has posted that on Facebook. So this doesn’t surprise or even stun me anymore.
I’m stunned, but even more than that, I’m pissed. They are being willfully stupid. It’s not fair to their current child, it’s not fair to their next child, and it’s not fair to the taxpayers who are supporting the new child’s health care.
Yeah, but SOMEONE has already paid $4 million to artificially prolong the life of someone who (it sounds) will never be able to live independently. These peoples’ fucked up religious fantasies will continue to impose a ridiculous burden upon society, while they pile up martyr points for their imagined afterlife. Sure, have another kid. Have 15 more. I’m sure God will provide.
They had a choice, and made what I consider a reprehensible choice. Yet religious folk feel all mothers ought not be allowed to make choices that WILL NOT impose such costs. :smack:
I don’t think you mentioned what the issue was or what, if any, lifesaving measures they took were.
I have a friend (well,a high school, now facebook friend) that had a son with some kind of issues. They found out in the middle of the pregnancy. After he was born the did a bunch of surgeries but he only lived to be about two weeks old.
A few years later she was pregnant again (at this time they didn’t know that this wasn’t a fluke) and the same thing happened. Knowing the same thing would probably result (and not opting for an abortion), they chose to do nothing after the child was born. He lived for just a few hours.
What I’m saying is that by leaving it ‘up to god’, they’re probably hoping this one doesn’t have the same problems, but if it does they may also be choosing not to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on the baby and let nature take it’s course (if that’s the case for them as it was for my friend).
Luckily my friends have been seeing specialists (one of whom must be a geneticist) and they have actually identified the the actual problem (a chromosomal issue I think). So know they have the ability to whatever testing they need to do (I don’t know if they’re testing sperm or eggs or in vitro stuff), and they can find out right then and there if the problem is present. If it is, they’re moving on to the next batch. Of course, if you want to leave it up to god, this probably isn’t an option.
It should probably be mentioned that while my friend, I think, is religious (at least somewhat), she’s also works in a hospital and is a ‘woman of science’, so she’s not going to leave things up to god/chance.
Not because I don’t agree with most of you… But because I see very little difference between this family’s decision to try for baby number 2 and a family who has a healthy child but is impoverished and can’t afford to properly take care of that one, and yet they are cranking out more.
Both are bad decisions. And if the state is being asked to foot the bill for a portion of any child’s life, then I think the state should have the right to limit the number of children a family can have while being subsidized by tax money.
We as a society should promote good decision making, not reward bad decision-making.
That’s a good point. I know people that have racked up that much in medical debt due to debilitating/lifelong/spouse’s terminal illnesses and it ends up coming down the the hospital agreeing that as long as you paying something like $100* a month they’ll leave you alone. Toss in another $200k and they might just add a few more dollars if you use the same hospital group and add it to the payment plan.
*Yes, maybe it’s more, maybe it’s $200 or $400 a month, but they’re not expecting you to pay $200,000 in the next one or even 5 years. They understand that it’s not feasible and would end up with you in collections and them collecting pennies on the dollar from a collection agency. They’d rather collect 200 a month for the next 30-50 years then have a collection agency offer then $20,000 for it and probably lose you as a patient. Also, one of my friends that racked up a good, but not unpayable amount of debt (something like $30k) still paid it off. He just paid more in the good times and less in the bad times.
Having said that, I’m guessing the money wasn’t a deciding factor for this family.
