A grieving widower recently opened up about his late wife’s decision to delay cancer treatments until she gave birth to their youngest child.
Sapna Tracy, 43, of Pavaratty, Thrissur, India, died on Christmas day after battling breast cancer for several years.
Her husband, Joju, recently spoke to Sputnik News about his wife’s pro-life convictions and sacrifice for their unborn daughter. The couple served as pro-life advocates for the Catholic Church in India, and Tracy received an award for her life-saving advocacy before she died, according to the report.
“It was the personal decision of Tracy and, we as a family could hardly influence her commitment to not agree to feticide,” Joju said.
Tracy was three months pregnant when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, according to the report. Her doctors urged her to abort her unborn baby girl and undergo immediate chemotherapy because they feared that the cancer would spread. But Tracy told doctors that her unborn baby had as much of a right to life as she did.
Joju said his wife had a mastectomy during the sixth month of her pregnancy, but she refused radiation treatments until after she gave birth.
“Tracy was determined not to terminate the fetus in her womb as she said she was the only person who could bring it into this world while she was convinced that there are many good-hearted people who would take care of all of her children if needed,” her husband said.
Here’s more from the interview:
Sputnik: After Sapna’s death, what are your future plans to spread the message which she stood for? Also, do you know that your message is contradictory to the popular public policy on family planning in India?
Joju: We should consider life very precious. We have no right to terminate it. I stand for the non-use of contraceptives and only natural family planning is the way to plan our family size. We believe children are a gift of God and they need to be nurtured in a way that they grow in perfect love with siblings and an extended family. This can help them to grow as emotionally stable and peace-loving citizens of the country. A good nurtured population will drive the development of any nation.
Up until November, her family said Tracy remained active. However, she became bedridden for the last month of her life. Her youngest daughter now is 1 ½ years old, and her oldest is 15. There are conflicting reports about whether the family has seven or eight children.
Earlier this year, an American mother also lost her battle with cancer after she refused treatment while pregnant with her unborn daughter. Carrie DeKlyen, 37, was diagnosed with glioblastoma, a terminal brain cancer, in April. Not long after that, she and her husband, Nick, discovered that they were pregnant with their sixth child, a baby girl.
WOOD TV reports Carrie refused to participate in a clinical trial that could have prolonged her life because doctors said she would have had to abort her unborn baby. She died on Sept. 9, just two days after her daughter Life was born.
