13 January 2009

Two twins or no twins.

Oh the controversy! A British woman called Lisa has just been told that she is pregnant with twins...conjoined twins, that is. The babies share one body and have two heads. The babies are known as dicephalus twins, the rarest known type of Siamese twins. Doctors believe the babies have a 20% survival rate (no twins of this kind have suffered after birth in Britain).

Lisa and her husband Mike (both Catholic) have decided to continue with the pregnancy:

"Some people might look at me and say: 'You're going to give birth to a freak' – but I don't care because I feel blessed," she said.

"To me my twins were a gift from God and we're determined to give them a chance of life."

Of course, people are sensationalising this story, making the poor couple look like nutjobs (140 articles written about the story at the time of writing this post).

Any thoughts?

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/4220334/Conjoined-twins-Woman-pregnant-with-twins-with-two-heads-and-single-body.html


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Personal choice, I guess. I don't think it's a questionable decision in terms of the 'freak' aspect - who's to say what is normal or acceptable? It's not all that long ago that Downs syndrome babies were allowed to die after birth through neglect, and we wouldn't want to go back to that kind of thinking. All the same, I imagine there is the possibility of the twins suffering a lot of pain and health problems if they survive, so it's a big call for the parents to have to make. I wouldn't want to be in their position - damned if you do, damned if you don't.

 
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