Mother sacrifices herself for unborn, leaves orphans behind

Syzygys

Syzygys

As a mother, I am telling you
Valued Senior Member
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,325458,00.html

The story in short:

She was already 4 months pregnant when they discovered her liver cancer. She delayed the treatment until the baby was born and died 2 months later.

She also had 3 other small kids (10,8 and 2), so was she a hero sacrifying herself for an unborn or was she a cruel mom who made orphans of her other 3 kids?

I can argue both ways, but if she could have been saved for sure with the early treatment, she should have aborted....
 
She had advanced liver cancer and bowel cancer, the odds were stacked against her; she took a very brave and selfless decision.
 
She just should have aborted the child and gotten treatment she could have possibly had more kids after she was well , if she were to get better. Puts a big burden on dad.
 
I think she took the correct decision.

http://www.cancersupportivecare.com/liver.html
Advanced Disease
'No standard therapy is known to prolong survival. The usual approach is single-agent chemotherapy such as Adriamycin or 5-FU and combinations include cisplatin and alpha-interferon. These, however, have painful side-effects.

Radiation: along with chemotherapy this may relieve the pain of large liver masses, and radiation to painful bone or other metastases may be also appropriate


Investigational methods: combination chemo or new drugs including derivatives of Adriamycin and 5-FU may prove beneficial. Chemoembolization (administering a combination of chemotherapy and colloid particles directly into the liver tumor via its main (hepatic) artery) may improve symptoms even when there is metastatic disease
2 year: less than 5% Survival rate.'
 
cosmictraveler said:
She just should have aborted the child and gotten treatment she could have possibly had more kids after she was well , if she were to get better. Puts a big burden on dad.
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She already had metastatic cancer. It started in the bowel and spread to the liver. Where else had it spread? Do you really think she would have lived very long even with treatment? She might have faced a situation where she aborted the child, went thru a painful course of treatment, then died anyway. From the brief research I just did:
Liver cancer doesn't respond well to conventional chemotherapy and is often diagnosed too late for surgery to be an option. Many patients die within a year of diagnosis. http://www.raysahelian.com/livercancer.html
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People always justify abortion by saying, "It's the woman's choice". Well, this was hers. It should be respected. She knew she was going to die regardless of what she did. Why not save the child?
 
If I were in her position and knew there was no chance to survive the cancer (lets face it, the cancer had spread already and she had a slim chance of survival), I would have done the same thing. When things went wrong during the birth of my second child and I was faced with the prospect that one or both of us could die, my sole concern was that my child survive... I still remember begging the doctors to get the baby out alive even if it meant I died.. then I went into shock and couldn't speak anymore.. At that point, his survival was paramount. Thankfully the doctors pulled the both of us through.

I can't blame this woman for the choice she made. She knew she had little to no chance even if she had an abortion and began the cancer treatment. If there was a chance for her survival, in that the cancer had not spread, then it may have been different. But it had spread. Faced with her horrible decision, I would have done the same thing. Is she a hero? No. She's just a parent who put her child's wellbeing above her own. It's what parents do.
 
tablariddim said:
She had advanced liver cancer and bowel cancer, the odds were stacked against her; she took a very brave and selfless decision.
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I agree. Why get rid of the baby and maybe get a few more months out of it or have the child, see it, and say good bye.
Maybe she figured she had a life, let this child have one as well. It was probably something she and her husband agonized over just so others could judge.
 
tablariddim said:
She had advanced liver cancer and bowel cancer, the odds were stacked against her; she took a very brave and selfless decision.
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I agree. I don't think she had a chance. My mother had colon cancer and the treatments prolonged her life for quite a long time. Once they found it had spread to her liver it took over VERY fast spreading everywhere. She died shortly after. It must have been the hardest decision of her life, maybe someday the babies father can explain what a brave and selfless decision their mother made.
 
Shorty 37 said:

She died shortly after. It must have been the hardest decision of her life, maybe someday the babies father can explain what a brave and selfless decision their mother made.
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Now let's not go overstating things. Brave and selfless? The odds were that she was going to die anyway. The choice was to have the kid and die, or abort and most likely die anyway. Not much to it.

However, there is another point to be considered, and perhaps the late Mrs. Allard might offer this legacy to other women (and, in the end, to men as well):

Doctors believe Allard had bowel cancer that had gone undetected for years, eventually spreading to her liver. She realized something was wrong after she began suffering from stomach cramps, and tests revealed that her liver was covered with malignant tumors, the Mail reported.

(FOX News)
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Many people, for various reasons, do not guard against cancer. And I'm not talking about things like smoking or diet. But there are very few reasons that any cancer should get to the advanced stage. In this case, doctors suspect she'd had cancer of the bowel for years:

The number of deaths from colorectal cancer has been dropping for the past 15 years. There are a number of likely reasons for this. One probable reason is that polyps are being found by screening and removed before they can develop into cancers. Screening is also allowing more colorectal cancers to be found earlier when the disease is easier to cure. In addition, treatment for colorectal cancer has improved over the last 10 years, allowing for more effective options for people with this diagnosis. Because of this, there are around 1 million survivors of colorectal cancer in the United States.

One of the most powerful weapons in preventing colorectal cancer is regular colorectal cancer screening or testing. Regular colorectal cancer screening can, in many cases, prevent colorectal cancer altogether. This is because some polyps, or growths, can be detected and removed before they have the chance to turn into cancer. Screening can also result in finding colorectal cancer early, when it is highly curable. From the time the first abnormal cells start to grow, it usually takes about 10 to 15 years for them to develop into colorectal cancer.

(American Cancer Society)
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These kinds of cancers don't just sneak up on people. I would hope that in the near future, barring the most extraordinary of cases, nobody should have to even consider such a decision. We can't yet eradicate the processes that lead to cancer, but it doesn't have to be a losing proposition.
_____________________

Notes:

FOX News. "Mother Delays Cancer Treatments So Baby Can Live". January 25, 2008. See http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,325458,00.html

American Cancer Society. "Colorectal Cancer: Early Detection". February 22, 2007. See http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/content/CRI_2_6X_Colorectal_Cancer_Early_Detection_10.asp
 
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Well I think it was brave to actually go through a pregnancy knowing you have cancer and are going to die. It's hard enough being pregnant when you are healthy. She could have aborted and knowing she was going to die soon anyway and not bothered going through the whole pregnancy and childbirth. Someone else in her shoes might have been thinking only of themselves, and tried to save their own life.....and had started the treatments and aborted the child.
 
shorty_37 said:
I don't think she had a chance.
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Probably not. In that case the choice was rather easy. But just for making it more complicated, let's suppose that she had a pretty decent chance to survive if they start the treatment right away.

So the question is:

As a parent who is she more obligated to care for, the unborn or the living?
 
Syzygys said:
Probably not. In that case the choice was rather easy. But just for making it more complicated, let's suppose that she had a pretty decent chance to survive if they start the treatment right away.

So the question is:

As a parent who is she more obligated to care for, the unborn or the living?
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Ok....

Well if I was in her shoes (thank god I never will be) Already have small children at home, I think the ONLY way I would abort the fetus would be if they could give me VERY high close to 100% chance that I would pull through and survive. I would only consider doing that because of the other small children I already had. It is really hard to even imagine what you would do unless you are put in that situation. That is what I "think" I might do. Who knows though, because when you are pregnant and feel that baby growing inside, it changes alot about you.
 
madanthonywayne said:
People always justify abortion by saying, "It's the woman's choice".
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This seems unassailable to me and I am for abortion rights.
And the right to make choices over one's medical treatment also.

And I really doubt that second guessers really give a shit about her children or her husband.

As a last counter proposal:

Let's say she did chemo, etc. And she went through a very long, multi-year death in front of her family. Can we say that was better? I can't. it might be, it might not be.
 
Orleander said:
Uh-uh. When is it ethical to kill your kid?
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Let me see:

-if it is a result of rape
-if it is going to be born with serious uncurable illness
-if it is a danger to the mother
-if it is gonna die anyway
-if mother needs cancer treatment
etc.etc.etc.
 
sowhatifit'sdark said:
As a last counter proposal:

Let's say she did chemo, etc. And she went through a very long, multi-year death in front of her family. Can we say that was better? I can't. it might be, it might not be.
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What if she gets a pretty decent 5 years out of it, so even her 20 months old can actually have memories of her???
 
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