When Noah Wall was born, doctors didn’t think he would survive. The little boy had less than 2 percent of a brain. While he was in the womb, he had developed a rare complication of spina bifida, severe hydrocephalus. His head had filled with fluid, crushing his brain down into a thin sliver of tissue around his skull. Noah parents Shelly and Rob were told that if he survived birth, he would be severely mentally and physically disabled. They were told they should have the baby terminated - five different times - but they refused. Now, more than four years after his birth, a remarkable documentary shows how Noah is continuing to defy doctors' predictions. The child has made amazing progress and can write his own name and count to 10. Meanwhile, his brain is developing beyond all expectation. Before his birth, Noah's prognosis was so poor that his family were forced to make plans for his funeral. Incredibly, Noah survived a difficult birth, and was rushed into his first major surgery moments later. The open wound on his lower back - characteristic of spina bifida - was sewn up. Then a shunt was installed in his skull, to drain the excess fluid from his brain. The procedure was so successful that, over time, Noah's brain has grown into the space once occupied by the fluid. However, the spina bifida has resulted in paralysis from the chest down, so the little boy uses a wheelchair. Always smiling, he's capable of asking his mum, "You alright?", because she's crying as she attaches his leg braces. His parents and older sister Steph, 23, work hard to always be around him. They continually keep his brain stimulated, to aid its growth. Thanks to all this love and attention, Noah is learning to read and write. A brain scan taken when he was three years old showed that his brain had expanded to 80% of a normal brain - an incredible result that no doctor expected. Now, after a series of painful and difficult operations on his hips, he’s even contemplating the possibility one day of walking. Noah's father Rob says: "We're determined that Noah will be able to walk," either with mechanical aids, or without. Just goes to show that you never know. Are there some pro-choicers here who are going to argue we should've gone back and aborted him?
Hydrocephalus is a treatable condition with reasonable expectations if diagnosed and remediated early on. However not everyone is in a position to deal with the medical and disability related expenses. This case is from Australia where they have Single Payer Universal Healthcare. Here in the USA the situation would be completely different for a parent earning minimum wage without healthcare benefits. Prior to the ACA this would have been a Pre-Existing Condition and the out of pocket medical expenses alone would have bankrupted the family.
Maybe that's one of the reasons they pressure parents into abortion. The doctors are under pressure to cut costs. An abortion is a lot cheaper than a child who may require care.
No one is "pressured" into an abortion. The women gets to decide for herself. If she does NOT have the healthcare or financial resources to raise a child, especially when it is a disabled child, then she should NOT be pressured into giving birth against her will.
WHO is this "they" that you insist are pressuring people into having abortions with , AS USUAL, NO PROOF ??? The doctors are under NO pressure to cut costs, my proof is that they haven't. Why would doctors care about the cost of a child who may need care? THEY don't pay it , THEY MAKE MONEY OFF OF IT!
No. Why? WHY would a Pro-CHOICE person want to impose their will on others? AGAIN, do you know what CHOICE means? freedom od CHOICE? That means the woman CHOOSES what to do. but I bet ALL Anti-Choicers would insist the woman gestate and give birth no matter what she prefers, no matter the consequences, no matter the cost , no matter HOW MUCH THAT CHILD SUFFERS FROM IT'S AFFLICTIONS..... Right?? YUP, right.
What pressure? Would you rather the doctors told the parents that everything was fine and the child would be OK? Bloody hell but this makes me pissed! You see report after report “doctors wrong patient X survived”. But what if YOU were that relative - which would you rather the bleak prognosis or fairy stories of happy endings that turn out to be horrifically wrong? Yes this child has proven to be a one in 100 million outcome and by all that is holy every health care professional dealing with neurological disorders would love to know how and why because there are all those other 99,999,999 babies, children, young adults and even elderly dementia patients who would love a cure
There is no way he could survive with 2% of a brain.....probably from one of those sites that the gullible believe .
i would've... not my idea of life, that's why we allow choices... wonder how many other kids suffered because too much monies were spent on noah & the share holders demanded profits, so other treatments for others were denied...
If you bothered to read the article, his brain underwent a miraculous growth spurt in the first 8 months he was a baby (after he was born), and continued growing after that.
Yes, but in the majority of cases they terminate because the baby might have a 1 in 4 chance of having some medical condition.
Yup, it was "miraculous"...that doesn't mean miracles happen , it means that MOST babies in that condition do NOT survive....that's what "miraculous" means in that instance. And still no reason to take away women's right to their own bodies.
One of my cousin suffered from the same condition and he was born in the 50's. He was institutionalized but yet managed to become that nursing home accountant and died in his late 50s.
Probably would've been if he was born in the 70's or later. While he was institutionalized, his father went to visit him every week until his death. His mother couldn't since she couldn't stop crying everytime she saw him as she wrongly believed it was her fault he was born this way.
WHY DO YOU SAY THAT? NO, Pro-Choicers won't tell anyone that....they believe in CHOICE.....haven't you looked "CHOICE" up in the dictionary yet? Doesn't seem like it. You , AS USUAL, have no proof that any Pro-Choicer would want anything but the woman to have the right to her own body, CHOICE.
Question: Do you still believe the woman would have "choice" if she was prohibited from knowing about the fetal anomalies? I know in China for a long time they wouldn't let doctors disclose to the parents the gender of their baby.
YOU answer my question and address my ENTIRE post first.... ↑ kazenatsu: Pro-choicers will tell you he should have been aborted."" FoxHastings: WHY DO YOU SAY THAT? NO, Pro-Choicers won't tell anyone that....they believe in CHOICE.....haven't you looked "CHOICE" up in the dictionary yet? Doesn't seem like it. You , AS USUAL, have no proof that any Pro-Choicer would want anything but the woman to have the right to her own body, CHOICE.
I guess there is no need for Choice people to answer because people like kazenatsu has already spoken FOR them. Liberals NEVER need to speak at all, because the Right speaks FOR them, right?
Will I be allowed to post images of babies who are much worse off than the miraculous Noah Wall? Probably not, as I can assure you, many of those images would not only haunt you for the rest of your lives, they would probably also violate the ToS of this forum. God bless this little boy, he was lucky, and God bless his parents, too. But not all mothers are as lucky, and the care for some of these heartbreaking cases would easily eclipse young Noah's several times over in just the first few agonizing weeks of life, not to mention the fact that some of these unfortunate children suffer unspeakable pain and misery every second that they are alive.
