by Agence France-Presse
LONDON-Call it maternal instinct.
A British-based Filipino mother who found out she had cancer after becoming pregnant sacrificed her life for her unborn baby by refusing an abortion and chemotherapy, a British newspaper reported Friday.
Devout Catholic Bernadette Mimura-known as Milai-shunned the potentially life-saving treatment because doctors told her it would kill the child, regional daily the Northern Echo reported.
The 37-year-old, who lived near Stockton-on-Tees, northeast England, with her British partner, Adam Taylor, survived long enough to see the birth of their son, Nathan.
But soon after seeing him baptized, she was transferred to a hospice where she died about a week later.
Funds needed for RP burial
Priest Alan Sheridan is spearheading an appeal to raise 3,700 pounds (P347,816) to repatriate Mimura's body to the Philippines for burial. Money left over will help her other three children from a first marriage.
The priest said he hopes the Philippine government would help with a grant to fly the three youngsters from Britain for the ceremony.
"Being a Catholic, abortion for her was out of the question," Taylor told the newspaper. "It was a tough decision but we could not give up on Nathan."
The youngster-now four-months-old-was premature but was born fit and healthy. The baby, whose mother was given a mild form of chemotherapy to suppress her breast cancer, had to be induced after she developed complications.
Father Sheridan, who performed the baptism, said: "Bernadette said the most important thing was the birth of her baby and she would not do anything to harm him. Having an abortion was never a consideration. I know she talked it over with Adam and because she was a Catholic, there was no way she would have done it.
" He added: "She had to judge which life was more important and she just prayed there would be a cure for cancer."
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