LiveAction News: “Be Not Afraid Offers Hope to Families Facing Poor Prenatal Diagnoses”
The NCBC recently collaborated with Be Not Afraid to produce a new ethics document regarding the care of newborns who receive poor prenatal diagnoses. The collaboration was discussed in an April 19, 2020, article on LiveAction News:
[Be Not Afraid] Spokeswoman Tracy Winsor spoke to Live Action News this week about a new ethics document authored by Be Not Afraid, in consultation with the National Catholic Bioethics Center, regarding the care of newborns who receive poor prenatal diagnoses. As the document notes, terms like “fatal fetal anomaly” or “incompatible with life” are not clinical or medical terms. Instead, they recommend “life limiting” as a more accurate term for babies with diagnoses such as Trisomy 13 or Trisomy 18.
While the current trend is to encourage parents who receive a poor prenatal diagnosis to plan for “comfort care” or hospice care after their baby is born, this new document recommends a fundamental paradigm shift that actually involves stabilizing the baby medically after birth in order to evaluate him or her accurately.