CV NEWS FEED // Parents are sharing how their school-age children with Trisomy 18 are “thriving” amid widespread misinformation in the media that the condition is “incompatible with life.”
The concerned parents’ outcry comes as the abortion lobby pushes the story of Kate Cox, whose child was diagnosed with Trisomy 18, a condition also known as Edwards Syndrome. In November, Cox and her unborn child gained national attention when, after a long legal battle with the pro-life state of Texas, she went out of state to obtain an abortion.
On December 30, LiveAction published an article highlighting that many parents of children with Trisomy 18 “are outraged over the media’s false reporting of the condition.”
The notion that Trisomy 18 is “incompatible with life” is based on “outdated studies [that are] at least 20 years old,” LiveAction pointed out.
“Trisomy 18 has not been considered ‘incompatible with life’ since 2019, and research is proving that children with Trisomy 18 can survive as long as they are given the medical care they need,” LiveAction continued:
Research out of the University of Michigan’s Mott Children’s Hospital has revealed that by “taking an aggressive approach to treatment, 90% of babies born with Edwards syndrome can go home from the hospital, and their five-year survival rate can reach close to 77%.” Trisomy 18 families in Michigan are frustrated at how Cox’s story has been portrayed by the media.
Within the last several years, improved medical technology has increased doctors’ ability to support children with Trisomy 18. “Yet moms are rarely given this information; to the contrary, they are often given worst-case scenarios and pressured to have an abortion,” LiveAction added.
LiveAction also referenced the Detroit Free Press, which published an article featuring “multiple families of children with Trisomy 18 [who] have said the Cox case has been hurtful and has further perpetuated negative stereotypes towards children with Trisomy 18 — who can live if they are given the chance.”
One mother named Jewel Calleja, whose four-year-old daughter CC has Trisomy 18, shared that when she read about Kate Cox in the news, “the language that was used to describe Trisomy 18 — ‘not viable,’ ‘lethal,’ ‘fetal anomaly with virtually no chance of survival’ — it really impacted me… Because it’s false information.”
Dr. Collin Smith from Motts’ Children’s said it is no longer the case that children with Trisomy 18 can only live for a year at most – despite being taught that in medical school just five years ago. There is “a lot of misinformation about a lot of those outcomes,” Smith added.
“We’re finding that with the proper support early on in life, we can really give them a great quality of life after they make it through the acute period,” Smith said.
Other parents who have felt the pain of losing a child to Trisomy 18 shared their sympathy with Cox while simultaneously opposing her decision to abort.
Last month, Kody Cooper wrote movingly in an article for Word on Fire that his own son, Bosco, had passed away from Trisomy 18 before he was born.
“I thus understand well the pain that the Coxes are going through because I’ve been there. So does my wife, whose powerful testimony can be read here,” Cooper wrote. “But I cannot agree with their framing of the issue. Nor can I agree that they have a moral or legal right to contract the killing of their child.”
“Doubtless neither Kate nor [her husband] Justin wanted their baby to suffer a heart attack or suffocation. Neither did my wife nor I,” Cooper wrote:
But it simply does not follow that violently dismembering a baby of five-month gestational age with Trisomy 18 in the womb is the compassionate alternative to bringing him to term, even when a form of suffering arising from his genetic condition is foreseeable.
Another mother, Jennifer Lo Tiempo, shared that when her unborn son was diagnosed with Trisomy 18, doctors told her he “would not be able to breathe after birth.” At birth, however, “her son Danny was crying loudly. He’s now in third grade and thriving,” LiveAction reported.
“We were told that he would never even know who we are, that he would never know love. That is the most loving kid. He just knows love and he just knows happiness and I wouldn’t trade a single second,” Lo Tiempo said:
We’re a community that has banded together and become a family. I love the fact that we’re able to give hope to these other families, and other families come to me and say that Danny inspired them to fight for their child.
That is the best thing that anybody has ever said to me [in] my entire life. That my boy can inspire somebody else to give their kid a chance when all the doctors are saying don’t bother.
