Gulf Pine Catholic

Gulf Pine Catholic • January 19, 2024 15 Perinatal hospice and palliative care offers alternative to abortion, experts say BY KATIE YODER ( OSVNews ) -- Dr. John Bruchalski still remembers one of the most pain- ful things from when he once per- formed abortions: ending the lives of babies with a prenatal diagnosis. Today, his practice accompanies pregnant women who choose life for their babies -- no matter how short that life might be. “You treat the mom as a mother, as someone who loves her sick child, and then you also treat the sick child as a member of the human family ... you don’t end disease by getting rid of people with diseases,” Bruchalski, founder of Divine Mercy Care, a nonprofit to advance pro-life health care, and Tepeyac OB/GYN, a pro- life faith-based obstetrics and gyne- cology practice, told OSV News . “You walk with them.” Located in Fairfax, Virginia, Tepeyac OB/GYN’s Kristen Anderson Perinatal Hospice Program is one of many programs nationwide offering specialized medical, spiritual and emotional support for families that receive a prenatal diagnosis indicating their baby may die before or soon after birth. Perinatal hospice and pallia- tive care supports both mother and child from the time of diagnosis through the baby’s death while prioritizing quality of life and comfort. Bruchalski and other experts spoke with OSV News about this strategy of care after a pregnant mother unsuccessfully challenged Texas’ abortion ban. The lawsuit involved 31-year-old Kate Cox who said that her 20-week-old baby was diagnosed with the life- limiting genetic condition trisomy 18, also known as Edwards syndrome. The condition has a 90-95% mor- tality rate for babies within the first year after birth and Cox said that continuing the pregnancy could also pose risks to her life and future fertility. In response to the legal battle, Jennifer Carr Allmon, executive director of the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops, issued a statement emphasizing an alternative to abortion. “We know the compassionate response to a mother facing a difficult fetal diagnosis is to offer perinatal pal- liative care,” she said. Ultimately, Cox left Texas to get an abortion, after the Texas Supreme Court ruled she did not qualify for an abortion under the abortion ban’s medical exception. Bruchalski, along with other experts, stressed the importance of caring for the baby as a patient and walk- ing with parents when they receive the often traumatic news of a prenatal diagnosis. No one can know for sure when a baby might die, many of them said, and abor- tions at later stages of pregnancy pose their own risks to the mother and pain for the baby. Above all, they want women to know: “Be not afraid. You are not alone.” As senior ethicist at the National Catholic Bioethics Center, Father Tad Pacholczyk said that, in his experi- ence, most abortions are driven by fear. A woman might fear challenges to her own health, not having the skills to raise the child, or that the child may face difficulties in life, he said. She may fear everything from being unable to continue her education or caring for her other children to raising this child alone. “Fear is always a bad source of guidance for making our important decisions in life,” Father Pacholczyk cautioned. “If we stipulate that our children need to be ‘suffi- ciently perfect’ and ‘not so badly off,’ we offer a condi- tional, disfigured form of human love driven first by our own interests, instead of that sacrificial parental love that every pregnancy betokens,” he said. John F. Brehany, NCBC ’s executive vice president and director of institutional relations, called perinatal hospice a moral alternative to abortion because “it helps women to avoid causing grave moral harms to themselves and to others and also because it promotes profound moral goods. “To intentionally kill or hasten the death of a pre- born child diagnosed with severe congenital abnor- malities is never right or even helpful,” he explained. “In addition to the wrongness of killing, abortion always causes trauma, physical, emo- tional and/or spiritual, to women who undergo it.” He added, “The field of perinatal hospice was developed in part because good doctors were aware of this trauma and wanted to help women avoid it.” Many perinatal hospice and palli- ative programs exist to accompany women and families through a life- limiting prenatal diagnosis, experts said. Perinatalhospice.org, a self- described clearinghouse of informa- tion about perinatal hospice and pal- liative care, offers resources for par- ents and caregivers, including a list of more than 350 programs. At Tepeyac OB/GYN’s hospice program, Bruchalski said that they help a mother use her womb as a hospice, in a sense. “We want to walk with you through ... the physical, the psycho- logical, and the spiritual realities of the diagnosis,” he said, “as well as the treatment or the accompaniment where you just love on this child for as long as it’s alive.” Bruchalski and other medical professionals recom- mended Be Not Afraid , a nonprofit that provides case management support to parents carrying to term fol- lowing a prenatal diagnosis. The nonprofit is currently focused on training pro-life and Catholic organizations nationwide, including dioceses and archdioceses, and referring parents to them. “We could not take care of all the parents who came to us looking for support and we didn’t have similar organizations to whom we could refer them,” Tracy Winsor, co-founder and parent program director, said. “We felt like it was so important to provide more work- ers in the vineyard, in a sense.” While it follows the ethical teachings of the Catholic Church, Be Not Afraid serves families regardless of faith. They also are unique in that they serve parents without regard to the nature of the prenatal diagnosis. “This is important pro-life work because we know that whereas 80% of parents will abort if they get a seri- ous prenatal diagnosis, 80% will carry the term if they’re offered a service of comprehensive support,” she said, citing studies “Perinatal Hospice: Family- Centered Care of the Fetus with a Lethal Condition,” published in 2006, and “The Perinatal Hospice: Ploughing the Field of Natal Sorrow” published in 2005. SEE ABORTION ALTERNATIVES, PAGE 16 An ultrasound is conducted in this illustration photo. OSV Newsbphoto/Evelyn Hockstein, Reuters