DEACON FOR LIFE

Were there to be no support in the whole history of ethical and moral thought, were there no acknowledged confirmation from medical science, were the history of legal opinion to the contrary, we would still have to conclude on the basis of God's Holy Word that the unborn child is a person in the sight of God. He is protected by the sanctity of life graciously given to each individual by the Creator, Who alone places His image upon man and grants them any right to life which they have.

Friday, March 2, 2007

Tennessee Woman Chooses Child’s Life over Her Own

Told she would die from soccer ball-sized ovarian tumor if she did not abort baby

By Hilary White

NASHVILLE, March 2, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – On Thursday, February 15, at the age of 31, Jennifer Ann Carlisle gave up her life to cancer after refusing an abortion that doctors told her might have extended her life.

Jennifer had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2005. At two months gestation, long before any chance of saving the child's life outside the womb, Jennifer was told that she would die from the soccer ball-sized tumor if she did not abort the baby.

"Even though the doctors did say it would extend her life to have the abortion, she and her husband made the decision to let God choose," said Carol Day, Jennifer's mother.

"They decided God would make that decision, not her," Jennifer's aunt, Jackie Murdock, told the Niles Daily Star. "She wouldn't decide somebody else's life."

Murdock recalled her niece saying, "Whether she lives or dies she will not abort her baby."

Gabriel Carlisle was born in January 2006 and Jennifer underwent aggressive chemotherapy but after a brief summer remission, her condition worsened. She attended church services Sunday February 11, and died the following week.

"I told her that I loved her," Joshua said, recalling when his wife died in his arms surrounded by family. "And I told her that she needed to go on, that God was calling her home." They had been married ten years.

"I held her and she took her last breath. There was a peace at that last minute that's just indescribable," Joshua told Nashville's TV News Channel 5.

The Carlisles' church and community are rallying to assist the family. A benefit auction and concert to help pay for medical expenses were held at Christ Community Church in Franklin Tennessee.

Joshua told local news media, "I'm hoping that we don't get any more doctor bills but they're still coming in."

"I guess she knew the secret of life and it is not in receiving but giving," Joshua said.

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"In Cordibus Jesu et Mariae"

LIFE IS SACRED

An example of the traditional magisterial teaching which indicates that it is never morally licit to intentionally kill a child through abortion in order to “save the life of its mother” comes from the teaching of Pope Pius XII:

“Every human being, even the infant in the mother's womb, has the right to life immediately from God, not from the parent or any human society or authority. Therefore, there is no man, no human authority, no science, no medical, eugenic, social, economic or moral ‘indication’ that can show or give valid juridical title for direct deliberate disposition concerning an innocent human life-which is to say, a disposition that aims at its destruction either as an end in itself or as the means of attaining another end that is perhaps in no way illicit itself. Thus, for example, to save the life of the mother is a most noble end, but the direct killing of the child as a means to this end is not licit.”