Upholding Life

Every human being has been created in the image of God, and God expresses His love toward all, and testifies to His greatness, so that human beings might come into a relationship with Himself. John chapter 1 says:
1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
2 He was in the beginning with God.
3 All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
4 In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
5 And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

Through creation, we can behold the presence of and the hand of God. He is the author of life, and we recognize that He has an expressed intent for all human beings formed in the womb. He desires for each child to have the opportunity to experience life and to follow His will.  As John 1 tells us, Jesus was there at creation, and He brings us eternal and abundant life. His life brings light, as verse 4 says, and through the light of Christ, we can overcome darkness and death. 

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We can give honor and praise to our Creator God, who has made each of us in His image and brings glory and awareness of His presence through His creation. We can read this glorious passage in Colossians chapter 1:
15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.
16 For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him.
17 And He is before all things, and in Him all things consist.

In a recent article at The Stream website, Aliya Kuykendall shared these comments:

Medicine, done rightly, is for helping the human body to be healthy and function according to its design. That’s why abortion is not healthcare while fetal brain surgery is. As Dr. Monique Wubbenhorst said, “If abortion is healthcare, my question is: what disease are you treating?”

This ushers the reader into the story of an incredible medical miracle. Surgery was performed on a baby - in the womb.  The article goes on to say:

The disease doctors treated her for what is called “vein of Galen malformation,” or VOGM. A vein in Denver’s brain wasn’t formed correctly, so blood wasn’t flowing in her brain properly. VOGM can result in serious heart problems and brain injury if not treated. By performing the surgery in the womb, doctors were able to treat the improperly formed vein early, before major problems developed.

Included in the article was a tweet by Lila Rose of Live Action, who said:

Incredible.

A medical team performs surgery on a baby in utero to repair hole in his brain.

Babies with medical conditions are routinely aborted. Imagine if we used medicine to help them instead?

The Live Action website stated: "While other surgeries have been performed in-utero, this was the first time this particular procedure has ever been performed."  The article noted:

According to the MIT Technology Review, the little girl’s parents signed up for a clinical trial after receiving the diagnosis in hopes of saving her life.

“Over time the vein essentially blows up like a balloon,” said Darren Orbach, a radiologist at Boston Children’s Hospital in Massachusetts who treats babies born with the condition. “All of a sudden there’s this enormous burden placed right on the newborn heart. Most babies with this condition will become very sick, very quickly.”

Mario Ganau, a consultant neurosurgeon at Oxford University Hospitals in the United Kingdom, further explained, “It’s stealing blood from the rest of the circulation.” In usual cases, doctors try to correct the malformation after birth; unfortunately, by then, it can sometimes be too late.

Derek and Kenyatta Coleman spoke to CNN about their pregnancy. The couple was thrilled to be expecting their fourth baby, which eventually turned to fear. But when they learned about the clinical trial taking place at Brigham and Women’s and Boston Children’s hospitals, they traveled from their home in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, to give their baby girl — by then 34 weeks gestation — the best chance at life.

The Live Action article says:

Now, two months later, Denver is thriving, and for now, doctors believe she won’t need any additional interventions.

“She’s shown us from the very beginning that she was a fighter,” Kenyatta said. “[S]he’s demonstrated … “Hey, I wanna be here.’”

John Stonestreet, in a recent piece at the Breakpoint website, took to task a Washington Post piece about Denver's miraculous pre-birth story; he related:

Despite the piece’s clear joy over the miracle of Denver’s life, even calling her an “unborn child” throughout the piece, The Washington Post’s editors ran with this title: “A Fetus had a 1% Chance at Life. A Historic Surgery in Womb Saved It.”

“Fetus” and “It,” not “Child” or “Her”? Talk about underwhelming. … I doubt that her parents, her family, or even the doctors trained in medicalese used that language to describe Denver after working so hard to save her life.

All life is miraculous. All are, whatever their health or ability, created by God in His image. Welcome to God’s world, little Denver!

This is an example of true "healthcare..." the preservation of life, not the pursuit of death.  God has given us wonderful doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals and the technology for them to use in order to follow the Hippocratic Oath and "do no harm."  In this case, the team has moved in the direction of life - that should always be the direction, the aim, the goal. Unfortunately, society has allowed a "culture of death" to increase around us.  Culturally, we need to change our thinking.  

We serve a God who has loved us, who will use a crisis for His glory, who provides wisdom in order to craft solutions so that men and women can live in this world drawn by an awareness of Himself. We can rejoice when we see life, healing, and redemption and realize those are expressions of the hand of a loving, Creator God who has loved us greatly.