by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
July 30, 2006
Buenos Aires, Argentina (LifeNews.com) -- A prayer campaign has been launched for a mother in Argentina who was stricken with cancer but refused to have an abortion to spare her life. Laura Figeroa is in the terminal stage of her illness, a brain metastasis that is considered irreversible.
Figeroa could have had an abortion so she could obtain chemotherapy to address her cancer, but she refused to take the life of her unborn child to save her own.
Two weeks ago, Figeroa gave birth to her son, Pedro, who was born early at 27 weeks into the pregnancy. Pedro weighed just 2.4 pounds and was immediately placed in intensive care and struggles with kidney and heart problems.
Now the Catholic weekly “Cristo Hoy” in Argentina is launching a prayer campaign for mother and child.
“We are all very united in this struggle and praying hard," Figeroa's mother told the newspaper.
Pedro's grandmother says Figeroa's other children “are anxious to know the newest member of their family and hope to soon have in their hands the picture promised to them by the pediatrician."
Laura Figeroa is 39 and her story has captured the hearts of the people of Argentina.
Several months ago she told the Catholic newspaper she decided against an abortion to show her love “to this child that is coming in the same way that I have shown it to the other children I have."
"I want my child to know that I love him and that I will always love him, that I will give my life for him if necessary," she said.
“Of course I don't intend to neglect my health, as I have the responsibility to protect my own life and that of my baby, but nevertheless, I avoid everything that, while helpful to my own health, might be detrimental to that of my child,” she explained.
Figeroa told the Catholic newspaper at the time that she hoped her story would inspire people to value life and oppose abortion.
“Today, more than ever, there are people who are against life, who want to legalize abortion, which I consider an abominable crime, and therefore I ask that this testimony encourage those who read it to defend the unborn," she told Cristo Hoy.
"I would like all women who are pregnant to remember that no situation, no matter how difficult, justifies taking the life of the baby in their womb. Not even in cases of rape or life of the mother,” Figeroa stated.
Cristo Hoy urged its readers "to unite in prayer for this family and to pray especially for the health of this model of a mother and for her baby."
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