Perspectives in Biology and Medicine

abstract:

This commentary considers two informing influences on Pope Francis’s support of perinatal hospice care for families facing diagnoses of serious fetal anomalies. Reflecting on the morally formative scriptural narrative of Mary’s pregnancy and Jesus’s birth and drawing upon an often-repeated idea of Pope Francis’s papacy that “time is greater than space,” this commentary suggests that Francis’s perspective is deeply shaped by an understanding of life as a gift given by God, destined to return to God, and shaped by the invitation to participate in the fullness of our nature through acts of loving accompaniment in the face of grave suffering and loss.