We chatted it over and he's got a medical background, which I think was significant. And sort of talked through what's the point of screening and what are the implications of having a scan, and also other people that I know who've had scans - especially one lady I knew who'd had a scan and showed Down's Syndrome, and in fact the child was normal. And just the worry that she'd been through, which was in fact unnecessary. And so that was obviously in my mind.
And then other issues we discussed were, you know, what can you actually do? Because we definitely wouldn't abort, being Christians and believing that this was a person from the moment of conception, would put it, you know - you wouldn't. That's killing life, so we wouldn't, that wouldn't be an option so we thought, well, what's the point if you're not going to abort anyway?
In that sense, there's no point in knowing and worrying unnecessarily. The other thing was the thing if, you can't know if - I think they give a percentage possibility, at least in some cases, of a possible abnormality, and you think, well, it's not even sure. It's not such a clear yes or no, but the fundamental thing was that we weren't going to abort and we were going to have the pregnancy right through to the end, so why have a scan? That was the fundamental, I guess.
So in the end it was quite a quick decision?
Yeah, it didn't take long. I guess I hadn't really thought it through so we were just sitting down and thinking through the implications and what we believed. It just seemed quite clear.
Did you think at any stage that even if you weren't going to contemplate a termination that it might be useful to know to prepare yourselves if you were going to have a baby with problems?
I guess that is something I did think of, but I guess the other side of it was that I might worry unnecessarily. So in that sense I thought, well, you know, effectively God will give us the child he wants to give us and give us the ability to take care of this child, whatever the case - whether they're normal or they might only live for a few weeks after they're born.
So, as it were, trusting in that, and also, I guess we live in a country where there are good medical facilities and I felt it was not being irresponsible not having the scan. So, yeah, on balance I felt it was. |
