Tuesday, March 5, 2013

Offered $10,000 to have an abortion, surrogate mother chooses life

WNEM is featuring a CNN story about a surrogate mother named Crystal Kelley who was offered $10,000 to have abortion by the biological parents after an ultrasound discovered the child she was carrying had medical problems. She moved to Michigan and found adoptive parents for the child. 

Then the midwife called. She told Kelley the ultrasound showed the baby had a cleft lip and palate, a cyst in her brain and serious heart defects. They couldn't see a stomach or a spleen.

The next ultrasound was three days away, and Kelley grew increasingly anxious with each passing day. By the time she walked into Hartford Hospital on February 16, 2012, she was 21 weeks pregnant and "absolutely terrified" of what the ultrasound would show and what the parents' reaction would be.......

Kelley didn't want to be the baby's mother -- she'd gotten pregnant to help another family, not to have a child of her own. Kron gave her an option: the parents would pay her $10,000 to have an abortion.....

Her adoptive parents know some people look at her and see a baby born to suffer -- a baby who's suffering could have been prevented with an abortion.

But that's not the way they see it. They see a little girl who's defied the odds, who constantly surprises her doctors with what she's able to do -- make eye contact, giggle at her siblings, grab toys, eye strangers warily.

"S. wakes up every single morning with an infectious smile. She greets her world with a constant sense of enthusiasm," her mother said in an e-mail to CNN. "Ultimately, we hold onto a faith that in providing S. with love, opportunity, encouragement, she will be the one to show us what is possible for her life and what she is capable of achieving."

FULL STORY