Baby Born Healthy After UK Couple Refuses Doctor’s Advice To Have Abortion

Baby Born Healthy After UK Couple Refuses Doctor’s Advice To Have Abortion Posted: 20 Nov 2014 08:44 AM PST Melanie Sheenan chose not to kill her son Joshua in the womb. A couple from Ireland have given birth to a healthy baby boy after being repeatedly pressured by doctors and hospital staff to abort their child who was incorrectly diagnosed in the womb with severe and fatal fetal disabilities. The parents’ persistence in the face of such trial shows the power of faith in God in a society that is seeking to devalue life in the womb and encourage the killing of the unborn. According to reports: Melanie and Damien Sheenan talk about the immense pressure they were put under to have an abortion in this week’s ‘Choose Life’ story. The couple from Northern Ireland chose to keep baby Joshua – now nearly a year old and doing well – after doctors made what was eventually shown to be an incorrect diagnosis of fatal foetal abnormality. Devastated by the prognosis, they were then made to feel they were doing something “terribly wrong” by choosing life for their son. (source). 20 weeks into her pregnancy, Melanie Sheenan was told that her baby’s spine and brain had not developed. From that point, the doctors and medical staff tending to the pregnant mother that her baby would not survive the pregnancy and that even if he would have no “quality of life”. She was then repeatedly pressured to allow the medical staff to kill her child via abortion. “I had phone calls to my mobile and my house phone to tell me how many days, weeks that I had left till my 24-week cut-off [to have an abortion],” Melanie Sheenan said. “Whenever we went to appointments, the nurse in charge of the consultant would introduce us as ‘the couple who was continuing with the pregnancy against medical advice.’ We were made to feel that we were doing something terribly wrong by wanting to keep our baby.” Her husband, Damien concurred that the pressure was intense to abort their baby. “They thought that it probably wouldn’t be right to bring him into the world,” he said, “so that’s when they suggested the abortion to us.” The pressure and outright shaming of a couple who only wanted their baby to live is becoming more commonplace in Ireland as the Northern Irish government seeks to make abortions legal where the child suffers from diagnosed “fetal abnormalities.” At present an abortion is legal in Ireland only if the mother’s life is in jeopardy or she is at risk of severe physical or mental health injury. The Irish government is also considering expanding abortion for cases of sexual assault or incest. “The Doctor’s Diagnosis Was Completely Inaccurate” After months of ignoring the doctor’s pressure and refusing to have an abortion, the Sheenans gave birth to Joshua, a healthy baby boy. It turned out that the doctor’s diagnosis of fetal abnormalities was incorrect. The couple, expecting a disabled child, were even more overjoyed to see that the child proved to be heatlhy.