5 . Some parents, to be sure, consider themselves blessed to nurture and care for deformed babies for as long as they live. This is their gift and their witness. No one should take this away from them. On the other hand, many parents of severely deformed infants have neither the resources nor the stamina to care for such infants. In many cases, such infants are abandoned. Others become wards of the State or they are quietly destroyed. Such parents are sometimes "relieved" by the death of their deformed children. Will Catholic bishops be able to embrace parents on both sides of this difficult situation?