Heroic Mothers
A pregnant mother in Buenos Aires, Argentina, was diagnosed with cancer and refused an abortion. Laura Alejandra Figueroa gave birth to her ninth child, at age 39. She died as a result (New Oxford Notes, Nov. 2006).
Another pregnant mother in Nashville, Tenn., was diagnosed with cancer and refused an abortion that doctors said would save her life (www.LifeSiteNews.com, March 2). Jennifer Ann Carlisle, at age 31 and married for 10 years, gave birth to her fourth child. And then her cancer worsened and eventually took her life.
Her husband, Joshua, said that when she was dying, “I told her that she needed to go on, that God was calling her home. I held her and she took her last breath. There was a peace at that last minute that’s just indescribable…. I guess she knew the secret of life and it is not in receiving but giving.”
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My conversion involved non-participation in any form of contraceptive prescribing or sterilization, and promotion of Natural Family Planning.
“I didn’t know Christians would help me,” the expectant mother told the counselor. “I thought they were all mean.”
The Church celebrates and proclaims publicly some very private human activities that might well cause some folks to feel a bit squeamish.