In October 2013, Audrey McElligott found out she had stage-four Hodgkin’s lymphoma that had spread to her lungs, live and spleen, and she was pregnant with her second son, Joseph. Audrey received remarkable cancer treatment in Ireland before a law was passed that legalized it when a woman’s life was in danger. Her doctors told her that medical research revealed that chemotherapy treatment could be given to pregnant women without harming their unborn baby.
In a new video from Life Institute, Audrey explains more about the care she received in Ireland. She said, “When I was first diagnosed the doctor said we are going to treat your case like a two-patient model because you are pregnant and there’s another person involved. They were there to give me the very best treatment but also to protect my baby. So for instance, when I went for my first CT scan, they had me covered up, my abdomen was covered with a huge sheet of blocking material so that my baby would be protected from radiation why I got the necessary scans.”
Unfortunately, many abortion proponents in Ireland argue that women need abortion in circumstances like Audrey’s because their lives are in danger. However, the truth is it is very rare for a doctor to counsel a cancer patient to have an abortion because now more than ever, women can conquer cancer and have healthy children.
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Audrey said, “I read that a leading researcher had just published a major study in the Lancet showing that pregnant women with cancer can be treated safely, without harming their unborn child. This was before abortion was made legal here in Ireland, before that tragic law was passed, and so everyone at Our Lady of Lourdes was going to do everything they could to save me and my little baby. There was hope for the two of us.”
As LifeNews previously reported, Dr. Elyce Cardonick, a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at Cooper University Hospital in New Jersey said, “Thirty years ago, there was almost no information on how children with prenatal exposure to chemotherapy turned out. Today we know that it’s relatively safe after the first trimester.”
Additionally, Audrey said that abortion never came up in conversations with her doctor. She said, “The issue of abortion never came up. They knew they could treat me and also maintain the health and safety of my baby.” Remarkably, the treatment cured her cancer and now she and her son are perfectly healthy.
Audrey concluded, “My son is 17-months old now and he’s like any other 17-month old. You’d never know he went through chemotherapy while I was pregnant. Life isn’t always easy, you know it can throw you a curve ball and you’re faced with seemingly impossible decisions. But for me the benefits outweighed the risks and I am cured of cancer, and I have a healthy 17-month old. Real health care saves lives. Abortion is not needed to treat cancer or any condition in pregnancy. My baby and I are living proof.”
Learn more about Audrey’s powerful testimony in the video below. Groups like Amnesty International are telling women that abortion is necessary if they have cancer and are pregnant but her story proves that this is just another tactic to push abortion in their pro-life country.
