According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, "Discontinuing medical procedures that are burdensome, dangerous, extraordinary, or disproportionate to the expected outcome can be legitimate; it is the refusal of 'overzealous' treatment. Here one does not will to cause death; one's inability to impede it is merely accepted."
Ministries like Alexandra's House, a perinatal hospice in Kansas City, Missouri, provide counsel and grief support to parents as they face these difficult medical decisions. They also connect families with a network of other parents who have had a terminal prenatal diagnosis.
"Most of the families stay in contact indefinitely," said MaryCarroll Sullivan, nurse and bioethics adviser for the ministry.
The book, published by the Vatican's Publishing House, includes Pope Francis' speech from his meeting with the conference participants in the Vatican's Apostolic Palace.
In this speech, Pope Francis said that selective abortion of the disabled is the "expression of an inhumane eugenic mentality that deprives families of the chance to accept, embrace and love the weakest of their children."
"Fear and hostility towards disability often lead to the choice of abortion, presenting it as a practice of 'prevention,'" the pope said on May 25, 2019.
Pope Francis also thanked the perinatal hospice providers for creating "networks of love" to which couples can turn to receive accompaniment with the undeniable practical, human, and spiritual difficulties they face.
"Your witness of love is a gift to the world," he said.
"Caring for these children helps parents to process their mourning and to understand it not only as loss, but also as a stage in a journey travelled together. They will have had the opportunity to love their child, and that child will remain in their memory forever," Pope Francis said.
"Those few hours in which a mother can cradle her child in her arms leave an unforgettable trace in her heart."
Courtney Mares is a Rome Correspondent for Catholic News Agency. A graduate of Harvard University, she has reported from news bureaus on three continents and was awarded the Gardner Fellowship for her work with North Korean refugees.