The Day Doctors Asked Us to Let Our Son Die
Author: Ken and Mary Sue Grein
Written: July 29, 2025
There are moments in life that split your world into “before” and “after.” For us, that moment
came in a sterile room just off the intensive care unit, when our newborn son Jacob was just one
week old.
When the World Said “No”
We were only 22 years old when we faced an unimaginable conversation. The NICU doctor had
called us in to discuss Jacob’s condition—he would be severely disabled, the prognosis was
poor, and his quality of life would be grim. The recommendation was clear: end his life so we
could move on with ours.
The words hit us like a bomb to our hearts. Here was our son, alive and breathing, and the
medical establishment was suggesting that Jacob was unfit to live. The underlying message
was chilling: the world has an agenda to eliminate people like our son.
But in that devastating moment, something profound shifted within us.
The Decision That Changed Everything
Where others saw a burden, we chose to see a life worth living. Where fear whispered of
unknown challenges ahead, we chose faith. The scales tipped from terror of the uncertain future
to confidence in something greater than our circumstances.
We realized we were no longer going to live our lives for ourselves. This wasn’t just about
Jacob—it was about surrendering our entire family’s journey to a higher purpose.
With tears streaming down our faces in that hospital room, we raised our hands and offered a
simple but life-altering prayer: “We surrender our baby to you, Lord.” It was a moment of
complete trust despite the unknowable road ahead.
A Life Transformed by Love
That decision planted a stake deep in our souls. For the next 37 years, our lives would be
shaped by that moment of choosing love over fear, faith over convenience. We put our own
needs on the back burner, embracing a new life fully surrendered to caring for Jacob.
The memory still brings intense emotions decades later. Now at 66 years old, we still shake our
heads in disbelief at that day when medical professionals recommended ending our son’s life.
Yet we also recognize it as the moment that ignited every decision that followed—the moment
that shaped our family’s entire journey.
The Deeper Truth
Our son’s story reveals an uncomfortable reality: eugenics didn’t end in the 20th century. It still
whispers in hospital corridors, dressed in clinical language about “quality of life” and “moving
on.” But it also reveals something more powerful—that when parents choose love over fear,
when we surrender the unknown to faith, extraordinary transformations happen.
Not just for the child who was deemed “unfit to live,” but for the entire family who chose to see
him as a life worth living.
Our story reminds us that some of life’s most profound purposes are found not in avoiding
difficulty, but in embracing it with love. Sometimes the very lives the world wants to discard
become the ones that teach us most about what it truly means to live.
This is the beginning of Jacob’s story—a 37-year journey of a family who chose love when the
world suggested otherwise.