Cubby LaHood used the term “D-day” for the day parents first hear their unborn child has a severe or fatal birth defect.
“The baby is the same baby they conceived and were joyful about, but … the baby can become a stranger,” she said in a 2013 40 Days for Life address.
LaHood, who died in 2015, suffered the same crushing shock herself, when her baby Francis got a likely fatal prenatal diagnosis. Everyone offered the couple abortion — doctors, clergy, family, and friends. But she and her husband Dan decided that they would love and carry their son Francis as long as he lived.
The LaHoods firmly believed unborn children with severe or fatal diagnoses deserve to live. But they also came to understand that carrying such children to term, rather than resorting to abortion, can bring healing, strength, and even joy to the parents and family, and even to the rest of the community, whether the child dies before he is born, or if he goes on to live for several years.
“Hope led to grace, grace led to faith, and faith led to peace,” she said.
“In seemingly the most hopeless and difficult of circumstances surrounding the birth of a child, a simple ‘yes’ to life reveals the presence of God, and the presence of love,” she said
in a video called “Destined to Live Forever.”
They believe that even a very short life has meaning and power. “[These parents] conceived a miracle, and that miracle deserves all the support that you can give it. It’s about more than you,” LaHood said.
This effort, too, sprung out of a personal experience. When Cubby LaHood was pregnant with her first child, she wanted to stay at home, so she decided to open a daycare. The first client she found had a disability, and word quickly spread that LaHood was willing to care for disabled children.
The family soon made it their mission to make a true home for these children, and to counter “the eugenic impulse” of the world that wants to reject anyone deemed imperfect or useless. St. Joseph’s House is now run by the LaHood’s daughter, Natalie.
Cubby LaHood didn’t believe her family was special. “We all have the capacity to give love,” said LaHood. “It can be done without support — we did it without support — but there’s no reason for it to be done that way.”
The LaHoods do not minimize or sentimentalize the difficulty of carrying and caring for a child with disabilities.
“Nobody wants to go through the Passion,” said Dan LaHood “No one wants to go through the Garden of Gethsemane. But once you go through it, you find there’s the spirit of God. There’s resurrection. Not only there’s life, but it’s eternal, and it’s more than you could ever imagine; and you can experience it now.”
None of the hundreds of couples they’ve walked with have regretted their choice, the LaHoods said.
“Even in this worst, most darkened, most rejected place, God is. Love is.”
***
Image from this video:
Destined to Live Forever from Lumen Catechetical Consultants on Vimeo.
St. Joseph’s House
Saintjosephshouse1983@gmail.com
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/saintjosephshouse/
Isaiah’s Promise
info@isaiahspromise.net
On Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/IsaiahsPromise4915/
St. Joseph’s Place also runs Cafe St. Joe in , “part job skills training, part community builder, and part fundraiser.” The Cafe offers a specialty blend of coffee made by a roaster that employs adults with disabilities, and half the proceeds to go the cafe.
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Previous volumes of Pro-life Spotlight:
We Dignify
Gadbois mission trip to Bulgarian orphanage
Mary’s Shelter in VA
China Little Flower
Immigrant Families Together
Rio Grande Valley Catholic Charities Humanitarian Respite Center
If you know or have worked with an organization that works to build a culture that cherishes human life, please drop me a line at simchafisher at gmail dot com with “pro-life spotlight” in the title.
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